Syria troop pullout has begun, says US military
TRUMP KEEPS HIS WORD Scaling down starts in Hasakeh province: SOHR
HASAKEH, SYRIA: The Us-led coalition in Syria has begun withdrawing its troops, a spokesman said on Friday, less than a month after US President Donald Trump made his shock announcement.
The force which has battled the Islamic State (IS) group since 2014 started scaling down, but it remained unclear how long the drawdown process would last.
“CJTF-OIR has begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria,” spokesman Colonel Sean Ryan told AFP in a statement, referring to the Us-led anti-jihadist force.
“Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss specific timelines, locations or troop movements,” he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the coalition had started scaling down its presence at Rmeilan airfield in the Hasakeh province in northeastern Syria.
“On Thursday, some American forces withdrew from the Rmeilan military base,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based monitoring organisation, said.
“This is the first such pullout of American forces since the US president’s announcement” of a military withdrawal from Syria last month, he said.
The Us-led coalition has several other bases across northeastern Syria, as well as in neighbouring Iraq, where Trump has said his forces would remain.
A US defence official in Washington had earlier confirmed to AFP that “equipment” was being removed from Syria.
The Us-led coalition, which also includes countries such as France and Britain, was formed in mid-2014 to counter the expansion of IS.
Trump claimed last month that the jihadists had been defeated and that the 2,000 US troops stationed there could therefore come home.
Fighter jets and special forces have played a key role in efforts to claw back the territory lost to IS.
A Kurdish-led group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is flushing out the last pockets of land controlled by the jihadists in the Euphrates river valley.
The beginning of the drawdown coincided with a visit to West Asia by US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who insisted in Cairo on Thursday that the withdrawal would go ahead despite widespread criticism.
Earlier this week, US National Security Advisor John Bolton laid out conditions for the pullout, including the defeat of IS in Syria and guarantees for the safety of Washington’s Kurdish allies in the campaign, who have been threatened with an imminent offensive by Turkey.