Israeli leader: Trump withdrawal from Syria won’t affect us

JERUSALEM – Israel’s leader says the American decision to withdraw its forces from Syria will not affect Israeli policy.

Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will “continue to act against Iran’s attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there.”

Israel, like others, was caught off-guard by President Donald Trump’s abrupt move to withdraw all the roughly 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria in the coming weeks. The announcement sparked the resignation of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Several Republicans said leaving Syria was an abandonment of American allies, such as Israel.

Netanyahu, who flaunts a good rapport with Trump, says Sunday “co-operation with the U.S. will continue in full.”