The Pentagon is privately weighing a full withdrawal of American forces from Syria as Damascus’s transitional government extends control over territories long held by Kurdish-led forces. The Wall Street Journal reported this shift on January 22, citing U.S. officials who say recent events have made the mission’s rationale — partnering with the Syrian Democratic Forces to contain the Islamic State — increasingly tenuous.
A sharp concern driving the rethink is the security of thousands of Islamic State detainees in northeast Syria. On January 19, inmates escaped from the SDF-run al-Shaddadi prison in Hasakah province, prompting U.S. commanders to accelerate the transfer of roughly 7,000 detainees to neighbouring Iraq. Washington fears further jailbreaks and the operational and political costs of securing large detention populations in a volatile theatre.
Washington’s footprint in Syria is small but symbolically important: roughly 1,000 troops, mostly co-located with SDF units in the northeast and a handful at the al-Tanf garrison in the south. Those forces have supported local ground partners, enabled strikes against IS remnants and helped stabilise contested areas since the U.S.-led coalition formed in 2014 and American troops established a presence in 2015.
If the SDF — the Kurdish-majority force that served as America’s primary partner against IS — collapses or is marginalised by a resurgent central government, U.S. officials argue there would be little justification to remain. A withdrawal would reshape the strategic balance in Syria, creating openings for Damascus, Moscow and Tehran, and complicating Ankara’s calculations about Kurdish autonomy and cross-border security operations.
The practical consequences reach beyond geopolitics. Transferring detainees to Iraq poses legal, security and humanitarian challenges for Baghdad, which must process, guard and try suspects while managing the risk of cross-border attacks. A U.S. pullout would also likely reduce aerial surveillance and strike capacity available to suppress IS networks, raising the prospect of a tactical resurgence that could spill into neighbouring states.
For U.S. policymakers the choice is stark: continue a low-profile counter‑IS posture tied to a fragile local partner, accept the costs of indefinite detention and security operations, or withdraw and cede influence to regional actors whose interests diverge from Washington’s. The decision will be shaped by assessments of whether limited troops can reliably prevent an IS comeback and by domestic political appetite for an open-ended mission in a fractured country.
Allies and regional powers will watch closely. Turkey will view any weakening of Kurdish forces as an opportunity to press its own security agenda, while Russia and Iran will see a U.S. exit as a diplomatic and military victory for Damascus. The fate of northeast Syria will thus be decided not only by Washington and Damascus but by a crowded field of local and external actors with competing priorities.