American troops are not leaving Syria, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said in an interview with CNN Turk.

“First of all, let me make something clear: the United States is not withdrawing troops from Syria,” Nuland said.

The deputy head of the State Department added that the Islamic State terrorist group is still active “in many places.” She cited the example of a recent attack on a church in Istanbul, for which IS claimed responsibility.

Revisiting priorities

Earlier, Foreign Policy, citing sources in the US defense and foreign policy departments, reported that the Joe Biden administration is considering the possibility of withdrawing American troops from Syria.

  • FP headline: “America plans to leave Syria—and create disaster”

  • © Foreign Policy

“A final decision on leaving has not yet been made, but four sources in the Department of Defense and the State Department said that the White House is not interested in further supporting a mission that it does not see the need for. There are active internal discussions about how and when these forces might be withdrawn,” the Foreign Policy article stated.

According to the publication, this is due to the fact that the Biden administration is reviewing its military priorities in the region amid growing escalation throughout the Middle East.

Other American media outlets deny these claims. Thus, CNN quoted a senior White House official as saying that such a scenario is not currently being considered.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that proposals to withdraw US troops from Syria have been made. In early December 2023, Republican Senator Rand Paul issued

a bill requiring Joe Biden to withdraw his troops from the Syrian Arab Republic is up for vote.

He motivated this by the fact that the American military is in the country without a clear goal, and is also the target of attacks from various formations. However, the bill was not adopted - only 13 senators supported it, 84 voted against it.

Since the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in October 2023, American forces in the Middle East have regularly come under attack from Shia and pro-Iranian militias.

The US military in Syria was also attacked. AFP reported that the latest rocket attack took place on January 29, shortly after a similar incident in Jordan that left three US troops dead and more than 40 wounded.

US President Joe Biden, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and White House representatives said that the American side will respond to the death of its military at the appropriate time and in the appropriate place.

Deputy defense spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at a press briefing that of the 165 attacks on US forces in the Middle East since mid-October, 98 were in Syria, 66 in Iraq and one in Jordan.

According to a US defense source, the attacks were carried out using drones, rockets, mortars and short-range ballistic missiles.

"The main source of terrorist activity"

Let us recall that the United States sent troops to Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting ISIS. Then-President Barack Obama did not seek the necessary permission from the US Congress to send troops and carried it out in accordance with the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) resolution, which was adopted to prosecute the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.

The American military contingent in Syria numbers about 900 people. The main base of US forces in the Syrian Arab Republic is the At-Tanf garrison in Homs province.

  • American military equipment in Syria

  • AFP

  • © Delil SOULEIMAN

The Syrian authorities have repeatedly stated that American troops are in the country illegally, in violation of all international law.

In turn, Moscow has consistently drawn attention to the fact that American military personnel at the Al-Tanf base are not engaged in anti-terrorism activities, but, on the contrary, are involved in training militants of various extremist organizations and the so-called Syrian opposition.

In particular, the special representative of the Russian President for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentyev, in an interview with TASS on January 29, said that there is a surge in terrorist activity in Syria, the main source of which is the 55-kilometer zone of Al-Tanf controlled by the United States, where the Rukban camp for temporarily displaced persons is located "

“There continues active training of the Syrian armed opposition, ISIS militants, who are then sent on certain missions to Syrian territory. This is the main source of terrorist activity,” Lavrentyev emphasized.

Regional control

Researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Konstantin Blokhin, in a conversation with RT, noted that Victoria Nuland, having denied rumors about the possible withdrawal of the American military from Syria, sent a signal to all participants in the events in the republic and in the Middle East as a whole that the United States does not intend to change its position or methods.

“These soldiers guard the oil fields located in the region. But Washington also maintains its contingent there from a geostrategic point of view - as a lever of pressure on the Syrian authorities, Turkey and Russia. Obviously, they won’t just leave unless they are asked to leave by force. Nuland’s statement to the Turkish TV channel is a signal to all interested participants,” the expert believes.

  • State Department Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland

  • AP

  • © Manuel Balce Ceneta

Victoria Nuland's statement also indicates that

The White House does not want to give up its position amid the worsening situation in the Middle East, especially due to the growing regional confrontation with Iran, says Konstantin Blokhin. The expert recalled that the issue of withdrawing the American contingent from Syria was previously raised under Donald Trump. 

“The last time the withdrawal of the US contingent from Syria was discussed during the Trump presidency, however, no decision was made based on the results of these conversations. Until recently, Biden did not touch upon the topic of the US presence in Syria at all,” said RT’s interlocutor.

In turn, American political scientist Malek Dudakov noted that Victoria Nuland’s words about the fight against ISIS

in Syria is the official narrative for American voters, many of whom are unaware that the United States has troops in the country. 

“In reality, these military officers exercise control over the oil fields in the north of the country, where the Americans extract oil, literally stealing from under the nose of the government of Bashar al-Assad. In addition, they are engaged in supporting Kurdish formations, extremist and terrorist groups, which are used by Washington to destabilize the situation in Syria and Iraq,” the political scientist emphasized.

Now the White House is preparing to respond to attacks by resistance groups on its military in the Middle East, Malek Dudakov recalled. We can expect that after this, Shiite and pro-Iranian paramilitary forces will attack the Americans again, and as long as US troops are in the region, particularly in Syria, such an exchange of mutual blows will continue, the expert believes. 

“The Americans are planning to launch strikes on Shiite formations in Syria and Iraq in the near future. They, in turn, will most likely respond again with missile salvos and drone attacks on American military targets, including the al-Tanf base. Therefore, it is likely that as the escalation increases, the number of wounded and killed US Army soldiers in the Middle East will also increase,” the analyst concluded.

* “Islamic State” (IS, ISIS) is an organization recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2014.