Washington: The Pentagon said Friday that the number of troops that the U.S. will deploy in Syria in the coming months is less than 1,000.
Washington has been part of an international effort in Syria in Syria in Syria in the Islamic State (IS) group, which stood out from the chaos of the civil war and captured the territory there and the adjacent Iraqi territory a decade ago.
Since then, cruel jihadists have suffered major failures in both countries, but remain threatening.
“Today, the Secretary of Defense directed the U.S. military to merge in Syria … to choose a location,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
“In the coming months, this deliberate and conditional process will reduce Syria’s U.S. footprint to less than 1,000 types of U.S. troops,” he said.
“With this integration happening… the U.S. Central Command will remain ready to continue attacking the remnants of (IS) in Syria,” Parnell added.
President Donald Trump has long been skeptical of Washington’s presence in Syria, ordering the withdrawal of his first troops but ultimately leaving U.S. troops in the country.
When Islamist-led rebels eventually overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad when they launched a lightning offensive last December, Trump said Washington should “not participate!”
“Syria is a mess, but not our friend, and the United States should have nothing to do with it. It’s not our struggle,” Trump, who was then president-elect, wrote on his truth social platform.
The 2014 slam prompted the U.S.-led air movement to support local ground forces – the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Iraqi government forces.
Washington also deployed thousands of American personnel to advise and assist local forces, and in some cases, the U.S. military directly fought jihadists.
After years of bloody war, the Iraqi Prime Minister declared his final victory in December 2017, while the SDF announced that the organization defeated the organization’s “Caliphate” in March 2019 after the last bastion of Syria.
But jihadists still have some fighter jets in rural areas of both countries, and the U.S. military has long been conducting regular strikes and raids to prevent the group’s revival.
Washington has taken military action against IS in Syria after Assad was overthrown, although it recently shifted its focus to strikes against Hessey rebels in Yemen, who have been attacking international transport since the second half of 2023.
After the outbreak of the Gaza War in October 2023, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by pro-Iranian militants, but responded to Tehran-linked targets and the attacks were largely subsided.
Washington has said over the years that there are about 900 military personnel in Syria as part of international efforts to oppose IS, but the Pentagon announced in December 2024 that the country’s U.S. military personnel had doubled earlier this year to 2,000.
While the U.S. is reducing Syria’s forces, Iraq is also seeking to end the presence of the U.S.-led coalition there, which Washington says has about 2,500 soldiers.
The United States and Iraq announced that the alliance will end its decade-long military mission in the Iraqi federal federal government by the end of 2025 and end in the autonomous Kurdistan region in September 2026.
