US rebuffed Israeli demands to keep more US troops in northeast Syria, sources say
The Trump administration shut down an Israeli lobbying push to avert a withdrawal of US troops from northeast Syria in a bid to dilute Turkey’s growing influence in the country, current and former US and regional officials told Middle East Eye.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East chief at the National Security Council, Eric Trager, rebuffed Israeli and northeast Syrian officials in the last several weeks, saying that the US is transitioning from a “military to political role” in northeast Syria and that the drawdown of US troops would continue, the sources told MEE, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions.
“Israel is opposed to the US withdrawing from northeast Syria,” one former US official told MEE. “They want to see the US extract concessions from Turkey on demilitarisation before any American boots leave Syrian soil.”
But the regional official told MEE that US Central Command has grown frustrated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for not moving fast enough to integrate with the Syrian government in Damascus.
“The reduction in US troops is a warning to the SDF that not enough progress is being made with Damascus and that the US is serious about this transition,” the official told MEE.
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Last month, the US-backed SDF signed a deal with the Syrian government aimed at integrating its civilian and military institutions into the new state.
Syria’s new government is led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose former Islamist rebel group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.
SDF slow to integrate into Syrian army
Charles Lister, head of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute, told MEE that the US plan includes aiding the SDF’s departure from eastern Aleppo, and then disengaging US forces first from the Arab tribal region of Deir Ezzor.
“An SDF integration into Syria is now the foremost priority” for the US, Lister said.
“It’s eastern Syria that will be first to integrate,” he added.
The Pentagon said on Saturday that the US was conducting a “deliberate and conditions-based process” to bring the US troop level in Syria down to less than a thousand troops in the coming months.
In December, the Pentagon said the US had roughly 2,000 troops in northeast Syria. A month before Trump entered the White House, the surprise announcement put the American military footprint at roughly double what the Pentagon had publicly said the number was.
US troops first entered Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group (IS) and partnered with the SDF, which continues to guard thousands of IS prisoners and their family members at Al Hol.
Washington’s support for the SDF has been a long-running sore point in ties to Nato ally Turkey, which views the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK has waged a decades-long guerrilla war in southern Turkey and is labelled a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union.
Turkey’s concerns about the PKK led it to launch an invasion of Syria in 2016 to deprive Kurdish fighters of a quasi-state along its border. Two more military forays followed in 2018 and 2019.
After Assad’s ouster, Trump said that Turkey, which has emerged as Sharaa’s closest regional ally, had conducted an “unfriendly takeover” of Syria.
Trump and the Israel-Turkey clash
Turkey has emerged as the strongest outside power in Syria, where it is battling for a zone of influence with Israel. The latter sent troops to occupy a swath of southwestern Syria after Assad’s ouster and has conducted regular bombing campaigns.
Earlier this month, Israel carried out strikes in Syria targeting the Tiyas airbase (also known as T4), where Turkey was planning to deploy troops.
These strikes occurred just as Ankara was preparing to send a technical team to inspect T4 and conduct a preliminary assessment for its reconstruction. Syria and Turkey are in talks for a defence pact that would see Turkey provide air cover and military protection for Syria’s new government.
The emerging rivalry between Turkey and Israel in Syria has rattled the Trump administration, which is loath to get sucked into another Middle East conflict.
MEE was the first to report that Turkey and Israel were entering deconfliction talks, which were encouraged by the US.
However, one current and one former US official told MEE that Israel has continued to press the Trump administration to keep American soldiers in northeast Syria in a bid to reduce Turkey’s influence.
However, Trump himself has sounded more open to recognising a Turkish sphere of influence in Syria.
Israel is all talk and no action on Kurds, sources say
In a meeting at the White House in April with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said, “I have great relations with a man named [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan,” telling Netanyahu, “Any problem you have with Turkey, I think I can solve it as long as you are reasonable. I think you have to be reasonable.”
However, Lister told MEE that the US approach to Israeli security concerns is divided between “Centcom, which has urged Israel to de-escalate; and the White House, which has sided with Israel’s hostile stance towards Syria.”
Integrating the SDF is a key priority for the Syrian government and Ankara, analysts say.
Sharaa’s government has taken some steps to demonstrate it is addressing pro-Israel concerns. For example, on Tuesday, Damascus arrested two senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in a sign that one US official told MEE was intended to demonstrate Damascus’ capabilities.
“Syria’s new rulers have an onus to show they can address American and Israeli security concerns while an American drawdown is taking place. They have to step up to the plate if they want to be integrated into the region,” the US official told MEE.
The bulk of the SDF’s fighting force comes from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG. Besides coming under pressure from the US drawdown, they face calls to disarm from within Turkey.
In February, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan made a historic call from prison for Kurdish fighters to disarm and disband as part of a peace effort with Turkey. Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s top commander, has insisted that despite the YPG’s direct link with Ocalan, his call does not apply to the SDF.
However, with the US withdrawing troops from Syria and Turkey stepping up its support for Damascus, it’s unclear what other avenues the SDF has.
Abdi and other senior northeast Syrian officials have held talks with Israel to garner support, the regional official told MEE.
Despite calls of support for Kurds by Israel’s foreign minister, Israel’s military and intelligence agencies have shown little interest in arming the Kurds or filling the void left by the US.
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