Us-led coalition Starts withdrawing from Syria
Trump’s announcement last month that he had decided to withdraw US troops there stunned allies who have joined Washington in the battle against ISIS in Syria.
The Us-led coalition battling Islamic State added to confusion surrounding the US withdrawal from Syria on Friday by saying it had started the pullout process, but officials later clarified that only equipment, not troops, were being withdrawn.
President Donald Trump’s announcement last month that he had decided to withdraw the 2,000 US troops there stunned allies who have joined Washington in the battle against Islamic State militants in Syria.
Senior US officials were shocked too, among them Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who quit in protest.
US Colonel Sean Ryan, a coalition spokesman, said the coalition “has begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria.”
“Out of concern for operational security, we will not discuss specific timelines, locations or troop movements,” Ryan said.
After media reports suggesting the departure of US forces had begun, the Pentagon later said no troops had yet withdrawn and stressed that the battle against Islamic State was continuing as Us-backed forces try to capture the group’s last remaining pockets of territory in Syria.
“We will confirm that there has been no redeployment of military personnel from Syria to date,” said Navy Commander Sean Robertson, a Pentagon spokesman.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that equipment was being moved out of Syria, a sign that despite mixed messages from Washington preparations for a withdrawal of troops was proceeding apace. Robertson, in his statement, said the coalition had carried out “logistical measures” to support a withdrawal but did not enter into details. “The withdrawal is based on operational conditions on the ground, including conversation with our allies and partners, and is not be subject to an arbitrary timeline,” he said.
Residents near border crossings that are typically used by US forces going in and out of Syria from Iraq said they had seen no obvious or large-scale movement of US ground forces on Friday. Separately, Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli warplanes fired a number of missiles toward the Damascus area on Friday, triggering Syrian air defenses that shot down most of them.
“The results of the aggression so far were limited to a strike on one of the warehouses at Damascus airport,” SANA quoted a military source as saying.
The US decision has injected new uncertainty into the eight-year-long Syrian war and spurred a flurry of contacts over how a resulting security vacuum will be filled across a swathe of northern and eastern Syria where the US forces are stationed.
On the one hand, Turkey aims to pursue a campaign against Kurdish forces that have allied with the United States, and on the other the Russia- and Iran-backed Syrian government sees the chance to recover a huge chunk of territory.
US national security adviser John Bolton suggested on Tuesday that protecting Washington’s Kurdish allies would be a precondition of the US withdrawal. That drew a rebuke from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan who called his comments “a serious mistake”.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said the withdrawal would not be scuppered despite the Turkish threats.