WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is set to deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Syria for the first time to advise and assist rebel forces combating ISIS, multiple officials said.
The White House is expected to announce Friday that the U.S. will deploy a small number of U.S. Special Operations forces to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS with logistics and are planning to bolster their efforts.
U.S. Special Ops have previously conducted secretive missions on the ground in Syria, but the deployment marks the first permanent presence of U.S. ground troops in Syria since the U.S. began leading an international effort last year to confront ISIS, the militant Islamist group which now controls broad swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.