According to the New York Times, the U.S. Administration sends a group of civilians to Syria with the aim to try to restore stability in some areas. In particular, the issue at stake here is about territories liberated from ISIS by the so-called and U.S. – supported moderate opposition.

The New York Times claims the group consists of seven people from the U.S. State Department and security services. The purpose of the mission is allegedly to prevent the humanitarian crisis and to help the Syrians to return home. ‘Specialists’ will have to organize work on cleaning up the territories from roadside bombs left behind by the terrorists, to restore electricity and to gain access to drinking water. (Does State Department have such specialists?) It is noticed also that information about this step and about the deadlines (time frames of the action) was not made public.

The more so, sending such a small group leaves open the question of whether these efforts will be sufficient to solve the complex task of restoring normal conditions for the lives of millions of Syrians or not.

In fact, it is not entirely clear how the seven representatives of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. security services will be able to organize works on cleaning up the territories from bombs and restoring civil infrastructure, not to mention such a vast territory. There should be much more specialists to carry out such the objectives. In addition, they must be narrowly specialized and experienced in this field.

“This is a minimalist approach and the problems that may arise would require more significant efforts,” said James Dobbins, the former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At present the mission looks not like as a humanitarian action, but as some kind of a covert operation with the aim, for example, to conduct separate peace negotiations. We can only guess who, when and why will be sent to Syria.

Discover the Differences

Graduates of a police force trained by the United States. They are expected to be deployed in Raqqa when in retaken. (Source: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

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Sophie Mangal is a special investigative correspondent and co-editor at Inside Syria Media Center.

All images in this article are from the author.