United States President Barack Obama on Friday approved the deployment of around 50 special operations troops to northern Syria to join forces opposing the Islamic State. This is the first time the US has openly sent soldiers to the war-torn country, Al Jazeera reported. Officials, however, said the troops will not be involved in front-line combat, but will instead advise local forces on tactics, logistics and operational planning.

Moreover, the administration said the move was not an attempt to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and that “a political solution” must be found to do so. Instead, this is being read as a shift in Obama’s military policy towards Syria, with commentators saying he has been reluctant to engage in more wars in the Middle-East.

At least 91 people were killed in the northern parts of the country and the capital city of Damascus during government-led attacks against the opposition on Saturday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. More than 250,000 people have been killed since Syria's civil war began in March 2011, the Press Trust of India reported.