US military moves forces and equipment out of northeast Syria base

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QAMISHLI, Syria (AP) — U.S. forces are withdrawing from a key base in northeastern Syria, officials said Monday, in what appears to be part of a larger drawdown of U.S. forces in Syria.

Iraqi and Syrian security officials said that the U.S. military had begun moving its forces and equipment from the Qasrak base in Syria to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Associated Press journalists in the city of Qamishli in northeast Syria saw a convoy of dozens of trucks carrying military vehicles and equipment Monday, with military helicopters circling overhead, moving toward the Iraqi border.

The U.S. military’s Central Command did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls the area around the Qasrak base.

A senior Iraqi security official said evacuation of the base had begun Sunday and that on Monday, U.S. forces and military equipment coming from the base crossed into Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region.

A Syrian security official said about 200 soldiers remained at the base Monday and that work was underway to dismantle military jamming and air defense systems and the engineering section at the base.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Earlier this month, CENTCOM and Syria’s defense ministry announced that U.S. troops had left another base, the al-Tanf base in eastern Syria near the border with Jordan.

The departure of U.S. forces from the bases comes after the U.S. military completed the transfer of some 5,700 accused Islamic State militants from detention centers in northeast Syria to prisons in Iraq, where they will be put on trial.

The main mission of the U.S. troops in Syria is to prevent a resurgence of IS. The extremist group lost control of the last territory it held in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells have continued to stage periodic attacks in Syria, Iraq and abroad.

The decision to transfer the prisoners to Iraq came after fighting between Syrian government forces and the SDF last month, during which dozens of prisoners escaped from one of the detention centers holding IS suspects, while an unknown number of families are believed to have fled from al Hol camp, which housed the wives and children of IS members.

The remaining residents of the camp have now been transferred to another facility or repatriated.

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AlSayed reported from Damascus and Abdul-Zahra from Baghdad.