In milestone, US pulls out of strategic Syria base and hands it over to Damascus
Written by: Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Tala Ramadan
WASHINGTON, February 12 (Reuters) – The US military announced on Thursday that it had completed the withdrawal from a strategic base in Syria and handed over the base to Syrian forces. This “could enable an even greater American withdrawal” in the latest sign of strengthening US-Syria ties.
Al-Tanf garrison is located at the intersection of the triple border of Syria, Jordan and Iraq.
Founded in 2014 during Syria’s civil war, the United States initially relied on it as a hub for operations for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants, who once controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria, before being defeated in 2019.
However, the base has become an important base in the fight against Iranian influence due to its strategic location on the roads connecting Damascus to Tehran. While Washington has long seen value in preserving the base, the Trump administration recalculated when relations fundamentally changed following the ouster of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Syria joined the coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State last November when former al-Qaeda commander President Ahmed al-Shara visited the White House to meet with President Donald Trump.
David Adesnik, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, questioned the ability of Syrian forces to fill the void left after the US departure.
“And the Syrian army has recruited thousands of former jihadists,” Adesnik said.
“The mission in Tanf also obstructed the operations of Iran and its proxies, who sent weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria. This is its own goal.”
USA IS DETERMINED TO PREVENT THE RE-emergence of the Islamic State
Syrian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that government forces took control of Al-Tanf following coordination between Syrian and US officials.
The US army’s Central Command confirmed the handover of Al-Tanf in a statement and noted that the Pentagon announced plans to combine base locations in Syria last year.
“U.S. forces remain ready to respond to any emerging ISIS threat in the region while supporting partner-led efforts to prevent a resurgence of the terrorist network,” Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads Central Command, said, using the acronym for the Islamic State.
Citing two sources, Reuters reported on Wednesday that US troops in Al-Tanf had moved to Jordan.
The US withdrawal from Al-Tanf followed a Washington-brokered deal to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led autonomy-oriented group that has been supported by the US for a decade in the fight against ISIS, into central Syrian institutions.
Trump has long expressed his desire to withdraw US troops from Syria, going back to 2019 during his first term in office. Before the US withdrawal from Tanf, US officials estimated that there were approximately 1,000 soldiers in Syria.
A person familiar with the matter said the withdrawal from Tanf could be a milestone towards a larger withdrawal. The United States is also fulfilling one of its biggest commitments on the ground in Syria: helping ensure U.S.-backed forces guard prisons holding Islamic State prisoners captured during the conflict.
About a dozen prisons were guarded by the SDF, but U.S. forces have been transferring high-level Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq since last month as control of the facilities passed to government forces.
Daniel Shapiro, the former senior Pentagon official responsible for Middle East issues, said Trump’s goal is to end the role of US forces in Syria and that the withdrawal from Al-Tanf is a bet on the Syrian government’s ability to counter ISIS.
“It’s probably a good gamble, but it’s still unknown whether they actually fulfill that responsibility,” said Shapiro, who now serves at the Atlantic Council.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Tala Ramadan; Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Nick Zieminski)
