Pentagon to Wind Back US Troop Footprint in Syria

The U.S. military became involved in Syria in the early 2010s amid the country’s civil war and the rise of ISIS.

U.S. Army soldiers load a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in support of Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve near Al-Tanf Garrison, Syria, on Oct. 29, 2024. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Mahsima Alkamooneh

The Pentagon is preparing to downsize the U.S. military footprint in Syria in the coming weeks, citing recent successes against the ISIS terrorist group.

On April 18, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced what the Department of Defense is characterizing as a planned consolidation of U.S. forces in Syria. Parnell said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered this force reduction plan.

The U.S. military became involved in Syria in the early 2010s amid the country’s civil war and the rise of ISIS, an internationally designated Salafi Sunni terrorist organization that, at its height, had declared a territorial caliphate spanning eastern Syria and western Iraq.

The United States had supported rebel groups fighting to drive Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from power but officially committed troops to Syria in 2014 on a more confined mission to stop ISIS. This counter-ISIS effort was dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve.

“This consolidation reflects the significant steps we have made toward degrading ISIS’s appeal and operational capability regionally and globally,” Parnell said. “This deliberate and conditions-based process will bring the U.S. footprint in Syria down to less than a thousand U.S. forces in the coming months.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the Pentagon for more details about the troop drawdown and the timeline for this process but did not receive a response by publication time.

For years, the Pentagon routinely reported that about 900 U.S. troops had remained in Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. In December 2024, then-Pentagon press secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged that the true U.S. troop presence in Syria had expanded to about 2,000 personnel.

Explaining the reporting discrepancy, Ryder said at the time that about 900 troops provided the core U.S. military element in Syria, but that this core element had been bolstered by short-term rotations of additional troops.

The U.S. military has boosted its overall troops throughout the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks across southern Israel.

Parnell said U.S. forces will remain vigilant as they reduce the troop footprint in Syria.

“As this consolidation takes place, consistent with President [Donald] Trump’s commitment to peace through strength, U.S. Central Command will remain poised to continue strikes against the remnants of ISIS in Syria,” he said. “We will also work closely with capable and willing Coalition partners to maintain pressure on ISIS and respond to any other terrorist threats that arise.”

While Parnell announced continuing success in degrading ISIS in Syria, the country has been in a state of flux since last fall. In late November 2024, a coalition of Syrian rebel groups, spearheaded by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group, launched a surprise offensive that scattered Assad’s forces and drove the Syrian president to flee the country and abandon his claim to power.

Hay‘at Tahrir al-Sham is another Sunni Islamist faction that has roots in al-Nusra, a Syrian offshoot of the al-Qaeda terrorist group. The United States continues to designate Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham as a foreign terrorist organization, although the group has sought to rebrand itself as a more moderate force within Syria since capturing the capital city of Damascus in December 2024.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of Hay‘at Tahrir al-Sham, ditched his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani shortly after his group seized power. Sharaa has since positioned himself as the interim president of Syria, and many of his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham associates have filled other positions in a newly declared interim government.

Despite Sharaa’s past, the U.S. government has given him some leeway since December 2024. The outgoing Biden administration retracted a $10 million bounty against the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leader and dispatched Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf to meet with him.

The Trump administration has continued to give Sharaa leeway and offered its support in March to a plan to integrate the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces into the new Syrian government.

Since Assad’s fall, Israeli forces have also expanded their control over Syria’s Golan Heights and other parts of the country’s southwest. On April 16, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the country’s forces will indefinitely remain in security zones they established within Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip over the past 18 months.