Here's What Could Be Next For U.S. Troops In Syria

Forbes

06-06-2025

U.S. Army soldiers board a CH-47 Chinook helicopter while departing a remote combat outpost known as ... More RLZ on May 25, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. (Photo by)
The United States has withdrawn at least 500 of its 2,000 troops from Syria in recent weeks and is reconsolidating its on-the-ground presence from eight bases to just one. Analysts are divided over whether these moves are a prelude to a complete withdrawal.
In an interview on Turkish television on June 2, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, revealed that the U.S. will reduce its military base in Syria from eight bases to a mere one. U.S. troops are already leaving some bases they have used, especially in the eastern Arab-majority province of Deir ez-Zor.
The U.S. first deployed a small number of troops to northeast Syria to help the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces combat the marauding Islamic State group in 2015. The U.S. first reduced its presence from approximately 2,000 to 900 near the end of President Trump's first term. It briefly increased its presence to 2,000 again in late 2024 as the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad swiftly collapsed.
Beginning in April, the U.S. withdrew 500 troops, reducing the current presence to 1,500, and plans to further reduce it to under 1,000.
In his Monday interview, Barrack called the SDF a 'very important factor' that should be integrated into the new Syrian government in Damascus, urging everyone 'to be reasonable in their expectations.'
Kristin Ronzi, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, believes the special envoy's comments broadly align with the U.S. 'deprioritization' of Syria and the Pentagon's April announcement to reduce the American troop presence.
'The United States will increasingly look towards the Syrian central government and regional partners to increase their role in countering terrorism in Syria and the resurgence of the Islamic State,' Ronzi told me. 'But a complete U.S. withdrawal is unlikely, at least in the near term, since the Pentagon has indicated that the remaining troops would likely provide some high-level support for counterterrorism efforts in northeastern Syria.'
'The remaining U.S. troops will likely support Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces' counterterrorism efforts in the northeast, especially since the United States is continuing to provide some support for the SDF's maintaining of prisons holding Islamic State fighters and their families,' she said.
The SDF has several prisons, camps, and detention centers with captured ISIS militants and their families dotted throughout the regions it currently controls and administers, the most infamous being the sprawling al-Hol camp. ISIS remnants in Syria have attempted to free their detained compatriots, most notably in a coordinated 2022 jailbreak in the northeastern city of Hasaka that took the SDF almost two weeks to suppress with U.S. support.
The SDF has agreed to ultimately transfer control over these prisons to the new central government in Damascus. However, that has yet to happen.
ISIS claimed its first attacks against Syrian government forces in late May.
'The United States will likely maintain some degree of a military presence in Syria for a while due to persistent concerns over a rise of jihadism and instability within the country,' Ronzi said.
'In order for the United States to fully withdraw from Syria, there would likely need to be increased confidence in the capacity of the Syrian government and regional partners to disrupt jihadist threats and that confidence would take time to build.'
Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the armed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that toppled Assad, is now the president of the Syrian transitional government. HTS' former links with al-Qaeda, which Sharaa split from years ago, could limit broad military cooperation between the U.S. military and Damascus.
'Turkey would be more likely to increase military cooperation with Syria, especially since Turkey has offered to train Syrian troops and has an interest in establishing air and naval bases within Syria,' Ronzi said. 'This would also expand on ongoing cooperation efforts since, in May, Turkey, Jordan, and Syria established a joint operations center in Damascus to support counterterrorism efforts.'
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler confirmed on June 4 that Turkish troops would remain on Syrian soil to train Syrian soldiers and rebuild the country's shattered defenses.
Caroline Rose, the director of the Crime-Conflict Nexus and Military Withdrawals portfolios at the New Lines Institute, believes Special Envoy Barrack's comments and recent troop movements in Syria are a 'clear sign' the U.S. is pursuing 'full-scale withdrawal in Syria concurrently with the withdrawal process in Iraq.'
Furthermore, the April decision to withdraw 500 troops and pressure on its SDF ally and Damascus to 'expedite security reform negotiations' are 'signals that Washington seeks an exit route from Syria' as early as autumn or early winter.
'I think that the U.S. is trying to mirror in Syria the same process that is underway in Iraq: reconsolidating forces into one facility and transferring bases to local forces to prepare the foundation for a withdrawal in late 2025 or early 2026,' Rose told me.
'I think it is very likely that we will see further reductions of U.S. personnel in Syria (as well as Iraq).'
RANE's Ronzi noted that there has been little progress by the SDF to integrate its forces and institutions into the new Syrian state army and central government, as stipulated in an agreement reached between them in March. She noted that the agreement had an 'original aspirational deadline' of the end of 2025.
'Although Barrack has noted the importance of integrating the SDF into the army, the SDF will likely slow walk this process to extract more favorable conditions from the central government,' Ronzi said. 'This will be especially likely if there is no imminent threat of a large Turkish-backed military operation and the SDF still has some U.S. support.'
'With little demonstrated steps towards integration, it is unlikely that the SDF will integrate completely by the end of this year, but increasing U.S. pressure could push the SDF closer toward integration.'
Sources cited by the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel said the U.S. gave the SDF a deadline of late August to integrate into the Syrian Army.
'I think that this incentive to withdraw has created a surge in action from the Trump administration to try and achieve conducive conditions on the ground for withdrawal—conditions that will have to include a concluded agreement for the SDF to integrate into the Syrian Army,' Rose said. 'That being said, the attempt to clip the negotiation's process by months adds pressure but does not solve the key, central issue at hand: the fact that Damascus and the SDF are not on the same page and hold very different visions about what integration should look like.'
'If the Trump administration wants a sustainable plan in place that will hold, it should play a role in mediating these talks instead of simply expediting the deadline.'