Washington’s decision to withdraw from Syria would allow the Islamic State to regroup at a critical stage in the conflict, the US’ Kurdish partners said yesterday, after Western allies expressed alarm at the sudden move.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance said that US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of all US troops would also leave Syrians stuck between “the claws of hostile parties” fighting for territory in the seven-year war.
Trump’s announcement on Wednesday upended a central pillar of US policy in the Middle East, and stunned US lawmakers and allies, who challenged the president’s claim of victory.
Photo: AFP
The SDF, supported by about 2,000 US troops, is in the final stages of a campaign to recapture areas seized by Islamic State militants.
However, it faces the threat of a military incursion by Turkey, which considers Kurdish People’s Protection Unit fighters who spearhead the alliance to be a terrorist group, and possible advances by Syrian forces — backed by Russia and Iran — committed to restoring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s control over the whole country.
After three years of fighting alongside US forces, the SDF said that the battle against the Islamic State had reached a decisive phase that required more support, not a precipitate US withdrawal.
Western allies, including France and Britain, also described Trump’s assertion of victory as premature.
France would keep its troops in northern Syria for now, because Islamic State militants have not been wiped out and pose a threat to French interests, officials said.
“For now, of course we are staying in Syria, because the fight against the Islamic State is essential,” French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau said.
France has about 1,100 troops in Iraq and Syria providing logistics, training and heavy artillery support, as well as fighter jets. In Syria it has dozens of special forces, military advisers and some diplomatic personnel.
British Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood on Wednesday said that he strongly disagreed with Trump.
“[The Islamic State] has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive,” Ellwood said on Twitter.
The Islamic State group declared a caliphate in 2014 after seizing large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The group established its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, using it as a base to plot attacks in Europe.
According to US estimates, the group oversaw about 100,000km2 of territory, with about 8 million people under its control. It had estimated revenue of nearly US$1 billion per year.
A senior US official last week said that the group was down to its last 1 percent of the territory it once held.
It has no remaining territory in Iraq, although militants have resumed insurgent attacks since the group’s defeat there last year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he largely agreed with Trump that the Islamic State had been defeated in Syria, but added that there was a risk it could regroup.
He also questioned what Trump’s announcement would mean in practical terms, saying that there was no sign yet of a withdrawal of US forces, whose presence in Syria Moscow has called illegitimate.
Israel would continue to act “very aggressively against Iran’s efforts to entrench in Syria,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Turkey has not commented directly on Trump’s decision, although an end to the US-Kurdish partnership would be welcomed in Ankara.
Kurdish militants east of the Euphrates River in Syria “will be buried in their ditches when the time comes,” state-owned Anadolu Agency cited Turkish Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar as saying.
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