Washington is considering a full withdrawal of US forces from Syria, US officials said, at a time when Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is moving to take control of northeastern Syria, which is held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Rapid developments over the past week have prompted the Pentagon to question the value of the US military mission in Syria after the defeat of the SDF, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, 22 January, citing three US officials, as translated by Enab Baladi.
If the SDF is dissolved entirely, US officials see no reason for the American military to remain in Syria.
One factor is the difficulties posed by cooperating with Syria’s new army. “This force is penetrated by jihadist sympathizers,” including soldiers with links to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, and others allegedly involved in war crimes against Kurds and Druze, two of the officials told the newspaper.
The United States has previously considered reducing its presence in Syria. In December 2018, President Donald Trump abruptly announced a full withdrawal of approximately 2,000 US troops, prompting then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign.
National Security Adviser John Bolton and other senior officials were later able to scale back the decision, leaving a residual force inside Syria.
About 1,000 US troops are in Syria, most of them spread across facilities in northeastern Syria, where they are stationed alongside the SDF.
A small number of troops are based at al-Tanf (in southeastern Syria, near the Syria, Iraq, Jordan border triangle). The military’s core mission is to prevent the return of the Islamic State group, with US troops conducting frequent patrols and operations with the SDF.
Until last weekend’s attack, the SDF, which helped the United States defeat the Islamic State group in 2019, was responsible for guarding about 9,000 IS prisoners held in detention facilities across northeastern Syria.
But the United States has begun transferring Islamic State detainees from northeastern Syria to Iraq.
US Central Command said the move is intended to help ensure the “terrorists” remain in secure detention facilities, adding that the operation began when “US forces successfully transferred 150 Islamic State fighters who were being held in al-Hasakah Governorate (northeastern Syria) to a secure location in Iraq.”
It is expected that the number of detainees to be moved from Syria to facilities under Iraqi control will reach 7,000.
Moving the group’s prisoners out of Syria removes one of the reasons US troops have remained, said Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute.
“Frankly, the primary factor that has kept the US military presence in Syria over the past year has been the detention facilities and camps,” Lister said, adding, “We should be asking ourselves the question of the sustainability of the US military presence in Syria.”
Lister stressed, however, that the US military’s fundamental purpose in Syria is to defeat the group, which still poses a major threat. The Islamic State group carried out 348 attacks in Syria over the past year alone, in addition to 13 foiled attempts to execute large-scale mass attacks in areas under government control.
Syrian government forces have been able to push the SDF out of military bases, oil facilities, and a dam on the Euphrates River, weakening the group’s negotiating position over the future of thousands of its fighters.
Under the resulting ceasefire, the SDF handed over the cities of al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, while the government took control of major border crossings and oil facilities in northeastern Syria.
The SDF remains entrenched in Ayn al-Arab/Kobani (in northern Aleppo countryside, northern Syria), al-Hasakah, and Qamishli, where there is a large Kurdish population, amid reports of negotiations with the government over how these areas will be administered.
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