The United States Withdrawing Troops from Syria

The United States led coalition in Syria and has started withdrawing its troops, in less than a month after US President Donald Trump made the announcement. The force that has been fighting the ISIS group since 2014, has started scaling down but it is not clear how long the drawdown process would take.

On the other hand, the US led coalition has several other bases across northeastern Syria and in neighbouring Iraq, but Trump has said his forces would remain in Iraq.

In a statement, Spokesman Colonel Sean Ryan said, “CJTF-OIR has begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria. Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss specific timelines, locations or troops movements”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has also reported that the coalition had started scaling down its presence at Rmeilan airfield in the Hasakeh province in the northeastern part of Syria. Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said, “On Thursday, some American forces withdrew from the Rmeilan military base. This is the first such pullout of American forces since the US president's announcement" of a military withdrawal from Syria last month”.

A Kurdish led group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is presently clearing out the last pockets of land controlled by the ISIS in the Euphrates River Valley. But the battle against ISIS in remote areas in the Iraqi-Syrian border and the hunt for ISIS Supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted man, could continue indefinitely.

In his surprise announcement last month, Donald Trump has agreed, any withdrawal would be coordinated and gradual. But observers have stressed that the announcement of the withdrawal is going to have the same impact of reshuffling the cards of the conflict as the withdrawal itself.

Critics, which include Trump’s own Republican camp, have said that the haste withdrawal would shatter US policy in Syria and allow ISIS to rebuild their base again. They have also argued that it would allow Syria’s ally Iran to extend its influence across Syria and potentially threaten Israel.

The US led coalition, that also includes France and Britain, was formed in mid 2014 to counter the expansion of the ISIS group after it proclaimed its self-styled caliphate. Last month, US President Donald Trump claimed that the ISIS had been defeated and therefore US troops could come back home. The US Fighter jets and Special Forces have played an important role in bringing back the territory lost to ISIS in Syria.