The Defense Department is developing plans to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria, two U.S. defense officials told NBC News on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump and officials close to him recently expressed interest in pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, the officials said, leading Pentagon officials to begin drawing up plans for a full withdrawal in 30, 60 or 90 days.
Trump’s new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, spent Friday at the headquarters of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, meeting with senior U.S. military leaders and getting briefings on the Middle East, according to U.S. defense officials.
A White House official said the potential reduction of U.S. forces in Syria was not a topic of the briefing or the purpose of Waltz's visit.
“It’s good for NSA Waltz to visit CENTCOM to get a sense of the entire region,” the White House official said, pointing out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House on Tuesday and that Jordan’s King Abdullah is scheduled to visit next week.
A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment.
Last Thursday, a reporter asked Trump at an Oval Office media event about reports he had informed the Israeli government about pulling U.S. troops out of Syria.
“I don’t know who said that. I mean, I don’t know who said that, but we’ll make a determination on that. We’re not getting, we’re not involved in Syria,” Trump replied. “Syria is its own mess. They got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved in everyone.”
In late 2019, Trump ordered Defense Secretary James Mattis to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis pushed back against the plan and ultimately resigned in protest.
Trump withdrew most U.S. troops but subsequently moved them back. The U.S. presence in Syria has continued since then.
In December, the Pentagon announced that roughly 2,000 troops were deployed to Syria, more than double the number the military had said for years, about 900.
A Pentagon spokesman described the additional 1,100 troops at the time as “temporary rotational forces” for about 30 to 90 days at a time, while the 900 were “core” troops deployed there for closer to one year.
U.S. mission in Syria
The Pentagon says the military mission in Syria is to degrade the Islamic State terrorist group and support local partners operating there. They include the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led coalition of militias and rebel groups, to ensure that ISIS cannot rebuild a safe haven.
CENTCOM conducted a precision strike in northwest Syria on Thursday, targeting a leader of Al Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din. Defense officials described Muhammad Salah al-Za’bir as a senior operative of Hurras al-Din.
Defense officials warn that pulling U.S. troops out of Syria abandons the Syrian Democratic Forces and threatens the security of more than two dozen prisons and refugee camps, housing more than 50,000 people, including roughly 9,000 ISIS fighters.
The Syrian Democratic Forces secure the facilities, which hold men, women and children, but they rely on U.S. and allied support and money to keep them operating.
Without U.S. troops to support military and detention operations, the Syrian Democratic Forces could prioritize offensive operations and abandon the prisons and camps, freeing thousands of ISIS fighters.
Rebel forces known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham unexpectedly overthrown Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December. HTS, as it is known, is a coalition of Syrian-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that emerged from Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, a branch of Al Qaeda that operates in Syria.
The leader of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, became the de facto leader in Syria after Assad’s regime fell.
Al-Sharaa and other HTS representatives met with senior Biden administration officials in late December in the first formal diplomatic meeting between the United States and Syrian officials in more than 10 years.
Al-Sharaa has pledged to conduct a political transition that includes an inclusive government and elections, which could take up to four years to hold.
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