Syria’s Islamic State is surging
When U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly appointed special envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, paid his first visit to Damascus on May 29, he flew into the country on U.S. military helicopters from Jordan. He was accompanied by two State Department staff members but was most closely flanked by the U.S. military’s counter-Islamic State coalition leaders—Maj. Gen. Kevin Leahy and Brig. Gen. Michael Brooks.