(WIN MCNAMEE)

Washington (AFP) – The Republican leader of the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has delivered a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump in legislation set for a preliminary vote Thursday that questions Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria.

“My amendment would acknowledge the plain fact that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to our nation,” McConnell, who rarely criticizes the president openly, said on Tuesday unveiling the legislation.

“It would recognize the danger of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict, and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan,” he said.

The Senate was to weigh the amendment, which is attached to a broader Middle East Policy bill, in a preliminary procedural vote later Thursday.

It has no real impact on policy, but signifies the broad opposition even in Trump’s own party to a rapid removal of US troops from Syria, which Trump announced in December.

On Tuesday the top US intelligence chief said that the Islamic State group still has “thousands” of fighters that it can rebuild into a cohesive force in any vacuum left in the war-torn country.

But a day later Trump took issue with that challenge to his stance, calling his intelligence chiefs “extremely passive and naive,” adding: “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

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