US withdraws half of the military: « Syria is a mess »

The US Defense Department has announced the withdrawal of approximately 1,000 soldiers from Syria, of the approximately 2,000 currently held in the country to fight the jihadists.

The United States has a military presence in Syria for years, especially in the International Coalition against the Islamic State group (SI). And he was defeated in 2019, but jihadist cells remained active.

The Friday’s announcement will « bring the American presence in Syria to less than a thousand soldiers in the coming months, » said the spokesman of the Pentagon, Sean Parnell, in a statement.

« This consolidation demonstrates the important steps we have taken to degrade the attractiveness and operational capabilities of the Islamic State group, in the region and throughout the world, » he said, referring more to the ‘success of the United States against and.’

Donald Trump, who came to power in Washington on January 20, has long been skeptical about the military presence in Syria, and the fall of Bashar al-Assad at the end of December, replaced at the forefront of a coalition led by Islamists, did not change the situation.

« Syria is a mess, but it is not our friend, (…) is not our struggle, » Donald Trump wrote in December, during the offensive that put an end to 50 years of uncontrolled management of the Assad clan.

The conquest of vast regions in Syria and Iraq by and starting with 2014 has triggered the intervention of an international coalition led by the United States, aiming first and foremost to support the Iraqi army and the Kurds who fought the ground against SI.

But Washington then held thousands of soldiers to support these local troops and lead their own military operations.

After the victory against and, declared in 2017 in Iraq and 2019 in Syria, an American military presence remained on the ground to eliminate the remaining cells of the jihadist groups.