By LOLITA C. BALDOR

BRUSSELS (AP) — Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Friday that the United States will leave more American troops and armored vehicles in eastern Syria to help prevent Islamic State militants from gaining access to oil fields controlled by U.S.-allied Syrian Kurds. That deployment will likely include tanks, a U.S. official said.

The defense secretary confirmed that the U.S. will send in an armored force to the region, but he did not provide details or the number of troops.

His comments at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels reflected one more change in what has been a rapidly shifting U.S. stance on American forces in Syria.

Just last week, President Donald Trump insisted that all 1,000 American forces in Syria would leave the war-torn country. Then he acknowledged that a couple hundred would stay at the al Tanf garrison in the south.

In tweets Friday, Trump said “Oil is secured. Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then…. COMING HOME! … When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

But Esper said at NATO that the U.S. is “considering how we might reposition forces in the area in order to ensure we secure the oil field.” He added: “We are reinforcing that position. It will include some mechanized forces.”

The U.S. official who send the deployment probably would include tanks offered no more details. This official was not authorized to discuss internal discussions about military planning and spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said the U.S. wants to ensure that Islamic State militants do not get access to the oil, which could give the insurgent group to obtain resources to rebuild.

Trump in the past days has turned a greater focus on the Syrian oil facilities in the eastern part of the country, saying U.S. will stay in Syria to protect them.

According to officials, top military leaders have pushed for the U.S. to leave forces in Syria to guard against an IS resurgence. While the group’s physical zone of control was largely destroyed by U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces, insurgents remain in small pockets throughout the country and in Iraq.

Russian and Turkish leaders have now divided up security roles in northeast Syria following America’s abrupt troop withdrawal from the Turkey-Syrian border region. The American move triggered widespread criticism that the Trump administration had abandoned the Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought alongside the U.S. against IS for several years.

Trump spurred a fresh wave of condemnation when he tweeted Thursday that he had spoken with Syrian Kurdish military chief Mazloum Abdi and said that perhaps “it is time for Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region.” That was an apparent reference to the oil fields in Deir el-Zour. U.S. military commanders see that region as critical to holding off an IS resurgence there.

“We’ve secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said. “And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

White House officials did not respond to requests for greater clarity about Trump’s tweet suggesting Kurds head to the oil region.

The Pentagon released a statement Thursday saying it was committed to sending additional military forces to eastern Syria to “reinforce” control of the oil fields and prevent them from “falling back to into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors.”

By JOCELYN GECKER and NOAH BERGER

GEYSERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California wildfire exploded in size early Thursday amid dangerous winds that prompted the state’s largest utility to impose electrical blackouts to prevent fires.

Authorities ordered the entire community of Geyserville to evacuate after the fire in the Sonoma County wine region north of San Francisco grew to more than 15 square miles (39 square kilometers). The town has about 900 residents and is a popular stop for wine country tourists.

The cause of the blaze was not yet known, but wildfire risk was extremely high as humidity levels plunged and winds gusted up to 70 mph (113 kph). There were no immediate reports of any injuries.

The fire came two years after a series of deadly blazes tore through the same area, killing a total of 44 people.

Mary Ceglarski-Sherwin and her husband, Matt Ceglarski-Sherwin, lost their Santa Rosa rental home during one of those fires and fled the flames again early Thursday when Mary’s asthma awakened her around 2:30 a.m. Their power was still on when they grabbed their small dogs, some clothes and emergency kits they acquired during the last fire.

“I told him, ‘We gotta go, we gotta go; I can feel it changing,‘” Mary Ceglarski-Sherwin told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. “By the time we got out there, we could feel the heat and see the smoke.’”

At least two fires have erupted in Southern California, but they have remained small.

Utilities in California have said the rolling blackouts are designed to keep winds that could gust to 60 mph (97 kph) or more from knocking branches into power lines or toppling them, sparking wildfires. Electrical equipment was blamed for setting several blazes in recent years that killed scores of people and burned thousands of homes.

The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. began rolling blackouts Wednesday stretching from the Sierra foothills in the northeast to portions of the San Francisco Bay Area, impacting a half-million people — or nearly 180,000 customers. PG&E warned that a second round of outages could occur over the weekend when winds were forecast to return.

Southern California Edison said Thursday that it had cut power to more than 15,000 customers as hot and dry Santa Ana swept parts of Southern California. The utility was considering additional power cuts to more than 286,000 customers.

The San Diego Gas & Electric utility said it cut power to about 328 customers.

The latest outages come two weeks after PG&E shut down the power for several days to about 2 million people in northern and central California.

“We understand the hardship caused by these shutoffs,” PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said. “But we also understand the heartbreak and devastation caused by catastrophic wildfires.”

The small city of Calistoga, in the Napa Valley, known for its hot springs and wineries, was among those hit by Wednesday’s outages.

“Right now, we have no wind. Zero. I don’t even see a single leaf blowing. Did they really have to cut the power right now?” he said, shortly after the lights went out and he revved up the generators. “When the wind picks up to 40 mph maybe that’s a good time to close the power.”

“They’re not appreciating enough the impact this has on everybody,” he said about PG&E.

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said PG&E was better this time about getting information to people who would be affected, but he was still astonished by the need to resort to largescale blackouts.

“I am a big believer in shutdowns to prevent fires. But the thing that erodes public trust is when it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You say, ‘God, I know if we can put a man on the moon … we can manage a (power) grid.’

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Gecker reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco and John Antczak and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

By SUZAN FRASER and LEFTERIS PITARAKIS

AKCAKALE, Turkey (AP) — Russian military police began patrols on part of the Syrian border Wednesday, quickly moving to implement an accord with Turkey that divvies up control of northeastern Syria. The Kremlin told Kurdish fighters to pull back from the entire frontier or else face being “steamrolled” by Turkish forces.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan echoed those warnings, saying his military would resume its offensive against Kurdish fighters if the new arrangements are not carried out.

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement Tuesday that would transform the map of northeast Syria, installing their forces along the border and filling the void left by the abrupt withdrawal of American troops. The Kurdish fighters, who once relied on the U.S. forces as protection from Turkey, were given a deadline of next Tuesday evening to pull back from border areas they have not already left.

Al-Shammari spoke after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who earlier this week had said the American forces from Syria would remain in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group. Iraqi’s military quickly said they did not have permission to do so.

The clumsy reversal underscored the blow to U.S. influence on the ground in the wake of President Donald Trump’s order for U.S. troops to leave Syria. Those forces were allied to the Kurdish-led fighters for five years in the long and bloody campaign that brought down the Islamic State group in Syria.

Now a significant swath of the territory they captured is being handed over to U.S. rivals, and the Kurds have been stung at being abandoned by their allies to face the Turkish invasion launched on Oct. 9.

The Kremlin pointedly referred to that abandonment as it told the Kurds to abide by the Russian-Turkish accord.

“The United States was the closest ally of the Kurds during the last few years, and in the end the U.S. ditched the Kurds and effectively betrayed them,” leaving them to fight the Turks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian newswires.

“It’s quite obvious that if the Kurdish units don’t withdraw with their weapons then Syrian border guards and Russian military police will have to step back. And the remaining Kurdish units will be steamrolled by the Turkish army,” he said.

Ankara would gain that goal under the new accord with Moscow along with the agreement last week with the U.S. that put a cease-fire in place.

Kurdish forces completed withdrawing on Tuesday from a stretch of territory 120 kilometers (75 miles) wide along the border and 30 kilometers (19 miles) deep between the towns of Ras al-Ayn and Tal Abyad. That pullback, allowing Turkish-backed forces to take over, was required under the U.S.-Turkish accord.

The new agreement with Russia allows Turkey to keep sole control over that area. For the rest of the northeastern border, Russian and Syrian government forces will move in to ensure the Kurdish fighters leave. Then after the deadline runs out Tuesday, Turkish and Russian forces will jointly patrol a strip 10-kilometers (6 miles) deep along the border.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a convoy of military police had crossed the Euphrates River and deployed in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

“The military police will help protect the population, maintain order, patrol the designated areas and assist in the withdrawal of Kurdish units and their weapons 30 kilometers away from the border,” it said.

The Turkish military said it would not resume its offensive “at this stage” after the U.S.-brokered cease-fire expired Tuesday night. However, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusolgu said that Turkish forces would “neutralize” any Syrian Kurdish fighters they come across in areas that Turkey now controls.

President Erdogan said the attack would start again if the Kurdish pullback does not take place.

“Whether its our agreement with the United States or with Russia, if the promises given are not carried out, there will be no change concerning the steps we need to take,” he told journalists, according to the newspaper Hurriyet.

Erdogan said he had also asked Putin what would happen if the Syrian Kurdish fighters donned Syrian army uniforms and remained in the border area. Putin responded by saying that he would not let that happen, Erdogan said.

Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said the deal with Russia would continue until a lasting political solution for Syria is reached. He also said that Turkey agreed not to conduct joint patrols in the city of Qamishli at the eastern end of the border, because of Russian concerns they could lead to a confrontation between Turkish troops and Syrian government forces in the area.

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Fraser reported from Ankara. Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Lolita C. Baldor in Baghdad contributed.