The United States has started drawing down hundreds of troops from northeastern Syria, a reflection of the shifting security environment in the country since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December, but also a move that carries risks.
The military is shuttering three of its eight small operating bases in the country’s northeast, reducing troop levels to about 1,400 from 2,000, two senior U.S. officials said. The bases are known as M.S.S. Green Village, M.S.S. Euphrates and a third much smaller facility.
After 60 days, the officials said, American commanders will assess whether to make additional cuts. Commanders have recommended keeping at least 500 U.S. troops in Syria, one of the officials said.
President Trump, however, has expressed deep skepticism about keeping any U.S. troops in the country. At least for now the reductions that started on Thursday are based on ground commanders’ recommendations to close and consolidate bases, and were approved by the Pentagon and its Central Command, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
The Islamic State remains a potent danger in Syria, particularly in the northeast where American troops are concentrated. But the demise of Mr. Assad’s regime has greatly reduced, at least for now, an array of other threats, including the Iran-backed militias and Russian troops that supported the Syrian government.
Another major turning point came last month when the Kurdish-led militia that controls northeastern Syria agreed to merge with the country’s new government, a breakthrough for Damascus in its efforts to unify a country still wrestling with violent turmoil.
The agreement called for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., to integrate “all civil and military institutions” into the new Syrian state by the end of the year, including its prized oil and gas fields.
Since a rebel coalition headed by Ahmed al-Shara took power in December, the new government has sought to unify the complex web of rebel groups operating across Syria — the most powerful of them being the Kurdish-led forces in the northeast. However, the security situation has remained unstable, and the Kurdish militia has been among the most challenging groups for the government to bring into its fold.
For years, the Kurdish-led militia has been the main U.S. partner in the fight in Syria against the Islamic State. It made hard-fought territorial gains during the country’s civil war, to the extent that it now administers a de facto state in Syria’s northeast.
In their reduced numbers, American troops, which include conventional soldiers as well as Special Forces, will continue to provide counterterrorism assistance to the S.D.F. and help operate several detention camps, the two senior U.S. officials said.
Between 9,000 and 10,000 Islamic State fighters and about 35,000 of their family members are detained in northeastern Syria. U.S. intelligence officials, presenting their annual worldwide threat assessment last month in Congress, concluded that ISIS would try to exploit the end of the Assad government to free prisoners and to revive its ability to carry out attacks. The escape of prisoners would not only add to the group’s numbers, but also provide a propaganda coup.
The United States announced late last year that its military had roughly doubled the number of its troops on the ground in Syria, to 2,000, to help deal with a growing threat from the Islamic State and from Iran-backed militias that have attacked American bases.
In Syria, according to a Defense Department official who spoke anonymously to discuss information that has not yet been released publicly, the group claimed 294 attacks in 2024, up from the 121 it claimed in 2023. The United Nations’ Islamic State monitoring committee estimated about 400 attacks, while human rights observers in Syria said the number was even higher.
Immediately after Mr. Assad’s ouster, the United States sharply increased airstrikes against Islamic State redoubts in the Syrian desert, tamping down a resurgent militancy that was attracting fighters and increasing attacks, according to the United Nations and U.S. officials.
A senior Islamic State leader believed to be the head of the group in Iraq and Syria was killed in an American drone strike in March. The operation, which took place in Anbar Province, in Iraq, relied on intelligence from both Iraq and the United States, Iraq’s prime minister and U.S. officials said.
The Islamic State leader, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’i, who was also known as Abu Khadija, was “one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world,” the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said in a statement at the time.
But troubling signs have recently emerged. The Islamic State conducted two attacks in Syria in January, nine in February and 19 in March, according to Charles Lister, a senior fellow and the head of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute in Washington. In the first two weeks of April, ISIS carried out at least 14 attacks, placing it on course for a fourth consecutive monthly increase, Mr. Lister said.
“No actor stands more determined to drive instability in a post-Assad Syria than ISIS,” Mr. Lister wrote this week, urging the United States to support the new Syrian government, led by a onetime Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al Sham and Mr. al-Shara. “If Syria succeeds, ISIS and all other malign actors will be dealt mortal blows.”
The United States hopes the new Syrian government will become a partner against a resurgent Islamic State. Initial signs have been positive, with the group acting on U.S.-provided intelligence to disrupt eight ISIS plots in Damascus, American officials said.
Deeper U.S. troop cuts, however, could be in store, threatening the stability of that transition, some analysts say.
The Trump administration is expected to conduct a broad review of its Syria policy, and some officials say that U.S. forces could be more than halved or withdrawn completely, as NBC News and Al-Monitor, among other media outlets, have previously reported.
Many important Middle East policy positions remain unfilled on the White House’s National Security Council, as well as at the State Department and the Pentagon, slowing any comprehensive Syria policy review, officials and independent analysts said.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades.
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