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An upcoming relocation of US forces will see the majority or all of the remaining soldiers and supplies in Syria moved to the northern Kurdish-controlled areas.
Their positions will be in newly-made bases near a major dam near the border with Türkiye, Kurdish administration officials in Washington told Kurdish news outlet Rudaw.
During the Biden Administration it was revealed that US troops numbered close to 2,000 in Syria years after it was communicated to President Trump that they numbered around 800 during his first term in office. Described by a special envoy after Trump left office as a “shell game” the number of 2,000 is now in the public record, and set to be reduced to “below 1,000” but above 400 according to a US official.
Bassam Ishaq, a US-based member of the Syrian Democratic Council told Rudaw the new bases will be located “in northern Syria near the Tishreen Dam,” and “near the Syrian-Iraqi border”.
The Tishreen Dam, while controlled by the Kurdish organized military force known as the SDF, has been the site of heavy fighting with a Syrian militia backed by Türkiye called the SNA. Control of the dam is being handed over to the new Syrian government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, as part of an agreement made between Damascus and ‘Rojava,’ the word for the autonomous Kurdish region of Syria.
The motive for positioning a US military base in the middle of a firefight between a Pentagon-backed army and the proxies of a NATO ally are fairly obvious, and the relocation would have the added benefit of closing the al-Tanf garrison in the eastern deserts bordering Iraq. Since Hamas’ attack beyond the walls of Gaza on October 7th, al-Tanf has been shelled and struck with drones and mortars dozens of times, mostly from the western regions of Iraq, where a loosely-affiliated group of Iraqi army irregulars called the Popular Mobilization Forces were commonly targeted for retaliation by US air power under Biden.
Ishaq didn’t say whether al-Tanf would be closed, but WaL reported last July that it was being used by the CIA to train anti-government, potentially Islamist militants who were engaged in fighting “Iranian proxies” in several forward bases near the city of al-Qishmili, and the villages of Himo and Naqarah. The Telegraph revealed that some of these anti-government forces collaborated with HTS to overthrow Assad.
A handover of al-Tanf might be possible, as the US has for years been training the Free Syrian Army (FSA), another anti-government militia, out of al-Tanf. In March, 2024, WaL reported that a former ISIS commander named Salem Turki al-Antari, who was appointed ‘Emir of Badia’ in Syria during control of the region by the terrorist group, was sworn in as a commander of the FSA—on the al-Tanf base no less.
As of February 2025, al-Antari was still in command to some degree at the base, as the FSA posted images of the former ISIS Emir showing around US Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Leahy, who heads Operation Inherent Resolve, the official name for the US occupation of eastern Syria, on a visit to al-Tanf.
US Presidents are currently restricted by Congress from reducing the total number of US armed forces in northeast Syria to fewer than 400 until the Secretary of Defense certifies the independent capability of US partner forces to degrade and defeat IS threats and partners’ ability to effectively and humanely detain IS members.
Kurdish officials have warned about a possible ISIS resurgence since the fall of the Assad regime, a threat also anticipated by the late Biden Administration, which increased troop numbers in response. The Congressional restrictions seem very ironic now that Damascus is controlled by men who fought under the banner of the al-Qaeda affiliate (al-Nusra Front) that incubated ISIS in the country, and that the largest US military base in Syria is in-part governed by a former ISIS commander.
Whether Trump’s relocation will involve the cutting of forces to 400 or slightly more is unknown, but unlikely to make much of a difference. Rarely were the forces at al-Tanf utilized for fighting ISIS remnants, and critics have suspected that their true purpose is to act as a convenient excuse to increase military presence in the region, as was done in the days before the fall of Assad, and in the days following Hamas’ attack beyond the walls of Gaza. WaL
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PICTURED: Free Syrian Army units train with the 10th Mountain Division on air assault training at al-Tanf Garrison, Syria. PC: US Army, released.
