U.S. Begins Withdrawal From Key Military Base in Northeastern Syria

By Emmanuel Bobby

U.S. forces are withdrawing from a major military base in northeastern Syria, signaling what appears to be part of a broader drawdown of American troops in the country, officials said Monday.

Iraqi and Syrian security officials said the U.S. military has started relocating personnel and equipment from the Qasrak base to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Journalists in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli observed a convoy of dozens of trucks carrying military vehicles and equipment, with helicopters flying overhead, heading toward the Iraqi border.

The U.S. military’s Central Command and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls the area around the base, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A senior Iraqi security official said the evacuation began Sunday, with U.S. forces and equipment crossing into northern Iraq the following day. A Syrian security official said around 200 U.S. soldiers remained at Qasrak on Monday, with work underway to dismantle military jamming systems, air defenses, and engineering facilities. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Earlier this month, U.S. troops also departed the al-Tanf base in eastern Syria near the Jordanian border, according to announcements from Central Command and Syria’s defense ministry.

The base withdrawals come after the U.S. military transferred about 5,700 suspected Islamic State militants from detention centers in northeastern Syria to prisons in Iraq for trial. Preventing a resurgence of the extremist group remains the main mission of U.S. forces in Syria. Although Islamic State lost its territorial stronghold in 2019, sleeper cells have continued to carry out attacks in Syria, Iraq, and beyond.

The prisoner transfer followed clashes last month between Syrian government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces, during which dozens of detainees escaped from a detention facility. An unknown number of families also fled from the al-Hol camp, which housed the wives and children of Islamic State members. Remaining residents of the camp have since been moved to another facility or repatriated.