President Obama has made his first public comments on his decision to deploy U.S. special operations forces to Syria. Speaking on NBC’s Nightly News, Obama denied the move breaks his pledge not to put troops on the ground.

President Obama: “Keep in mind that we have run special ops already, and really this is just an extension of what we are continuing to do. We are not putting U.S. troops on the front lines fighting firefights with ISIL. But I’ve been consistent throughout that we are not going to be fighting like we did in Iraq with a—battalions and occupations. That doesn’t solve the problem.”