The US military has completed a full withdrawal from Syria, Syrian officials told Middle East Eye on Thursday, marking the end of a military presence that first began with US special operations troops in 2015.
So far, the withdrawal hasn’t been confirmed by the US military, but back in February, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US was beginning a full pullout from the country and that it was expected to take about two months. At the time, US officials said the move wasn’t related to plans for war with Iran, though the US bases in Syria were known for being exposed to drone and missile attacks.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that it welcomed the handover of all US military installations to the Syrian government, which is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda that the US and its allies helped take power in Damascus in December 2024.
The MEE report said that US forces had left their last base in Syria in the country’s northeastern Hasakah province. Syrian officials said that the Syrian military had entered the base, known as Qasrak, which included an airstrip.
When President Trump returned to office in January 2025, the US had about 2,000 troops in Syria. The Trump administration began a drawdown, which was accelerated following the December 2025 attack in Palmyra, Syria, which killed two US National Guard soldiers and an American civilian interpreter.
While President Trump blamed the Palmyria attack on ISIS, the gunman was a member of Syria’s security forces, and US officials have acknowledged to the Journal that the new Syrian military is “riddled with jihadist sympathizers, including soldiers with ties to al-Qaeda and ISIS and others who have been involved in alleged war crimes against the Kurds and Druze.”
