U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would be withdrawing forces from Syria "very soon," at an event in Ohio on Wednesday.
"We're knocking the hell out of ISIS and we will be coming out of Syria like very soon. Let the other people take care of it," Trump told a crowd at an infrastructure-related event.
Asked whether the U.S. would be withdrawing troops from Syria, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said she was not aware of any such plan.
Meanwhile, aid groups need $150 million to provide urgent relief to a quarter-million people recently displaced by separate offensives by the Syrian government outside Damascus and by Turkish-led forces in the north, a top U.N. Syria official said Wednesday.
U.N. coordinator Ali al-Za'atari said some 80,000 people have fled the government's offensive in the eastern Ghouta region east of Damascus, where shelling and airstrikes have killed some 1,600 people in five weeks. He said 50,000 were still living in shelters that have been stretched beyond capacity.
Around 26,000 people had returned to their towns after they were recaptured by the government, said Khaled Hboubati, the head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, at a joint press conference with al-Za'atari in Damascus.
The International Red Cross said Monday that children were emerging from eastern Ghouta with diarrhea, lice and skin diseases. It said many walked for miles on bare feet to reach the shelters.
The shelters were overcrowded, had no proper sanitation, and lacked toilets and showers, said the ICRC. It said it was working with the Red Crescent to improve them.
Another 180,000 displaced Syrians are in need in the northern town of Tel Rifaat, after Turkish forces seized the Kurdish-controlled town of Afrin, said al-Za'atari.
He told reporters in Damascus that "finance is coming, but is still beneath the required level."
A renewed push by the Syrian government and Russia to take the last rebel-held pocket in eastern Ghouta could drive tens of thousands more out of their homes and into shelters.
Russia gave the rebel Army of Islam faction 48 hours from Tuesday to agree to leave the town of Douma or face one last assault that could kill countless civilians trapped inside. The government was amassing its forces around the town in preparation.
The Army of Islam is the last faction holding out against the government in eastern Ghouta.
If the fighters agree to leave, they will follow some 25,000 others – fighters and civilians – who have elected to board buses to rebel-held northwest Syria instead of reconciling with the government. Many say they cannot serve in Syrian President Bashar Assad's conscription army. Others say they cannot trust the government's notorious security services.
