Washington- During his first visit to the Pentagon on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump asked for drafting a plan on new options to attack ISIS militants operating in Syria and Iraq, to be presented within 30 days.
Sources at the Pentagon said that the options being studied include expanding the presence of U.S. Special Operations Forces in each of Syria and Iraq and having the White House delegate more authorities to the Pentagon and its commanders in the field, to speed up decision-making.
The options also include allowing more U.S. military aid to Syria’s Kurds and increase Apache helicopters and artillery to support the battle to liberate Raqqa.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May made on Friday her first visit as a foreign leader to Washington after Trump assumed power.
Following a meeting between the two leaders in the Oval Office, Trump praised the relations between the U.S. and Great Britain.
“The special relationship between our two counties has been one of the greatest forces in history for justice and peace — and, by the way, my mother was born in Scotland,” Trump told reporters.
Asked about the U.S.-Russian relations and the possibility of lifting the sanctions against Moscow in advance of his scheduled call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, Trump said it was still too early to talk about such decisions.
Later on Friday, Trump paid his first presidential visit to the Pentagon where he announced his intention to provide a wide range of new resources for the U.S. military.
“I’m signing an executive action to begin a great rebuilding of the armed services of the United States,” the president said in a ceremony that included the swearing in of the new defense secretary, James Mattis.
In a separate move, the president also signed an order that freezes visas and immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries.
“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America,” Trump said.
During the election campaign, Trump had pledged to expand the U.S. armed forces and had called for a plan to crush the ISIS terrorist organization.