Report: U.S. to Reduce Military Contingent in Syria to 900

Date: 17 May 2025 - 22:24

News ID: ۱۳۹۶۴۰

DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The United States is withdrawing its troops from Syria and plans to reduce its contingent there to 900, the Al Jazeera television channel reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official.
According to the Al Jazeera source, U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet made a final decision on the U.S. future military presence in Syria.
The New York Times reported on April 18, citing sources, that three out of eight U.S. bases in northeastern Syria would be closed in the near future and their military personnel would be slashed down from around 2,000 to 1,400.
The newspaper’s sources said that a final decision on troops withdrawal would be made in some two months and the U.S. contingent may be reduced to 500 troops.
Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper said on April 23 that the U.S. had begun to pull out troops and vehicles from the al-Shaddadi military base in the al-Hassakah governorate.
On April 16, special units were withdrawn from a military base near the Conoco gas field in the Dayr al-Zawr governorate to neighboring Iraq.
Since 2015, the U.S. command has been supporting the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led coalition, which controlled 25% of Syria’s territory, including oil- and gas-bearing areas in the al-Hassakah, Dayr al-Zawr, and Raqqa governorates in the country’s eastern and northeastern parts.
On March 10, the head of the Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham militants, Ahmed Al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement, under which the Kurdish alliance was to be incorporated into the security forces subordinate to the new Syrian authorities. The sides agreed that all civilian and military facilities located in northeastern Syria would be integrated into the public administration system headed by the new rulers in Damascus.