The Sharaa government’s defeat of the American military’s long-time allies, the Kurds, raises new questions about the longevity of the existing U.S. military mission in Syria.
The U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces effectively capitulated to the Syrian government after suffering significant losses from a major offensive by government forces against long-held Kurdish areas.
There are roughly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria, and their primary mission is to ensure the lasting defeat of the Islamic State group. This mission commenced in 2014, and the terrorist group lost its last piece of controlling territory in 2019, though the group is still present in the country but more decentralized.
Prior to the recent upheaval in Syria, the U.S. forces in the country worked with the SDF often, carrying out patrols and operations targeting ISIS operatives. The SDF also controlled the prisons filled with thousands of defeated ISIS terrorists.
The U.S. military is now evacuating captured Islamic State terrorists to Iraq to ensure they cannot escape or will be freed, while the Pentagon is reportedly considering completely withdrawing from the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Wow, if true, ISIS would love that,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in response to the report. “A small footprint of Americans working with locals is an insurance policy against the reemergence of ISIS and an attack on our homeland. I believe it’s time for a new approach and new eyes on Syria. I am confident that many senators – on both sides of the aisle – share my concerns about the implications of withdrawal when Syria is so unstable.”
Similarly, Rep. Michael McCaul, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that, “A very small U.S. footprint provides regional stability and helps prevent the last thing our world needs: an ISIS resurgence in Syria.”
The Pentagon announced last April that it would consolidate U.S. forces, both in personnel and bases, in Syria, but did not provide many specific details. Chief spokesman Sean Parnell said at the time that this would be a “deliberate and conditions-based process that will bring the U.S. footprint in Syria down to less than a thousand U.S. forces in the coming months.”
There were nearly 350 ISIS attacks in Syria last year alone and more than a dozen foiled mass-casualty attacks in government-held areas, Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, told the outlet.
Questions about the U.S. presence in Syria resurfaced last month after an ISIS fighter killed three Americans last month in Palmyra, Syria. The ISIS attacker was killed shortly afterward.
U.S. forces launched Operation Hawkeye Strike about a week later, carrying out retaliatory strikes on more than 70 targets across central Syria with fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery, while they also conducted 10 on-the-ground operations in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death or detentions of roughly two dozen terrorists.
KURDISH SDF FORCES AGREE TO CEASEFIRE WITH SYRIAN GOVERNMENT AFTER OFFENSIVE
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, he announced the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Syria, though his advisers ultimately slow-walked it and left a reduced presence in the country. Trump also led the move to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, though the fatal operation was completed during the Biden administration.
During the first year of Trump’s second term, he welcomed Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, to the White House, who came to power after the collapse of the Assad authoritarian regime.
“He is working very hard, the president of Syria,” Trump said earlier this week. “I spoke with him yesterday because we were talking about the prisons, and what was going on. We have some of the worst terrorists in the world in those prisons, and he is watching it.”
“I like the Kurds,” he said. “But just so you understand, the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money, given oil and other things, so they were doing it for themselves more than they were doing this for us. But we got along with the Kurds and we are trying to protect the Kurds.”