As reported by Reuters reporters, U.S. Marines have withdrawn from two additional locations in northeastern Syria, speeding up a military withdrawal that the commander of Syrian Kurdish forces supported by the United States claimed was permitting the rise of Islamic State.
When reporters visited the two bases last week, they were mostly abandoned, but they were both protected by tiny units of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led military organization that Washington has supported for ten years in the war against Islamic State.
Razor wire on the outer perimeters had started to sag, and cameras employed on sites seized by the military alliance led by the United States had been removed. U.S. forces have left one base, according to a Kurdish leader who resides nearby. The second base’s SDF guards stated that troops had recently departed, but they would not specify when.
What impact will fewer U.S. bases have on Syria?
The United States has withdrawn from the Tel Baydar and Al-Wazir facilities in Hasaka province, according to first-hand reporters. U.S. troops have left at least four areas in Syria since President Donald Trump took office.
In regions under SDF control in northeastern Syria, the Trump administration said this month it will cut the number of US military sites from eight to one. The New York Times reported in April that during the drawdown, the force may be reduced from 2,000 to 500. However, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi said that a few hundred troops on one place would not be enough to stop the threat posed by Islamic State.
ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES
During the Syrian civil war, from 2014 to 2017, Islamic State, also known as ISIS and Daesh, controlled large portions of Iraq and Syria. It imposed its brand of Islamic governance by executing foreign journalists and aid workers, sex-trafficking Yazidi minority members, and beheading citizens in public squares.
The group has carried out lethal strikes in European and Middle Eastern nations from its strongholds in Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq. Supporting Iraqi troops and the SDF, a military coalition led by the United States and comprising over 80 nations, fought for years to destroy the organization and put an end to its territorial control.
Can Kurdish-led forces contain ISIS without U.S. troops?
However, the Islamic State was revitalized when independent Islamist rebels overthrew Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad in December. Abdi said that foreign jihadists who had previously opposed the Syrian government had joined ISIS and that ISIS cells had emerged in a number of Syrian cities, including Damascus.
In the confusion following the overthrow of Assad, ISIS had taken weaponry and ammunition from Syrian regime stores. Islamic State has already started to move more freely around recently closed U.S. facilities, particularly those close to the towns of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, which were formerly strongholds for the terrorist organization, several Kurdish officials told Reuters.
ISIS has carried out a number of strikes in regions the SDF holds east of the Euphrates River, killing at least ten SDF fighters and security personnel, according to Abdi. One of the attacks was a roadside bomb that was aimed at a group of oil tankers on a route close to the American base where he conducted the interview.
