What to know about the US military's role in Syria after deadly IS attack

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What to know about the US military's role in Syria after deadly IS attack

2025-12-14 20:12 Last Updated At：20:20

BEIRUT (AP) — The death of two U.S. service members and one American civilian in an attack in Syria by an alleged member of the Islamic State group has drawn new attention to the presence of American forces in the country.

Saturday's attack was the first with fatalities since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago.

The United States has had troops on the ground in Syria for over a decade, with a stated mission of fighting IS. While not part of its official mission, the U.S. presence has also been seen as a means to hinder the flow of Iranian and Iran-backed fighters and weapons into Syria from neighboring Iraq.

The number of U.S. troops in the country has fluctuated and currently stands at around 900. They are mainly posted in the Kurdish-controlled northeast and at the al-Tanf base in the southeastern desert near the borders with Iraq and Jordan.

Here’s the back story and present situation of the U.S. military force in Syria:

In 2011, mass protests in Syria against the Assad government were met by a brutal crackdown and spiraled into a civil war that lasted nearly 14 years before he was ousted in December 2024.

Wary of getting bogged down in another costly and politically unpopular war in the Middle East after its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington sent support to rebel groups but at first avoided direct military intervention.

That changed after the rise of the IS, which carried out sporadic attacks in the U.S. and Europe, while in Iraq and Syria, it seized territory that was at one point half the size of the United Kingdom. In the areas the group controlled, it was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities, as well as Muslims whom it considered to be apostates.

In 2014, the administration of then-U.S. President Barack Obama launched an air campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria. The following year, the first U.S. ground troops entered Syria, where they partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.

By 2019, IS had lost control of all the territory it once held, but sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks.

Before Assad’s ouster, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the U.S. military did not work directly with the Syrian army.

That has changed over the past year. Ties have warmed between the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that used to be listed by Washington as a terrorist organization.

In November, al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its entry into the global coalition against the Islamic State, joining 89 other countries that have committed to combating the group.

While the entry into the coalition signals a move toward greater coordination between the Syrian and U.S. militaries, the Syrian security forces have not officially joined Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led military mission against IS in Iraq and Syria, which has for years partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria.

The number of U.S. troops posted in Syria has changed over the years.

Trump tried to withdraw all forces from Syria during his first term, but he met opposition from the Pentagon because it was seen as abandoning Washington’s Kurdish allies, leaving them open to a Turkish offensive.

Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey.

The number of U.S. troops increased to more than 2,000 after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas in Israel, as Iranian-backed militants targeted American troops and interests in the region in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

The force has since been drawn back down to around 900, but Trump has given no indication that he is planning a full withdrawal in the near future.

After Saturday’s attack, U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack posted on X: “A limited number of U.S. forces remain deployed in Syria solely to finish the job of defeating ISIS once and for all.”

The U.S. presence “empowers capable local Syrian partners to take the fight to these terrorists on the ground, ensuring that American forces do not have to engage in another costly, large-scale war in the Middle East,” he said, adding, “We will not waver in this mission until ISIS is utterly destroyed.”

US envoys arrive in Berlin for another round of Ukraine peace talks

BERLIN (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. envoys arrived in Berlin on Sunday for another round of talks intended to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv stuck to their sharply opposite views of a prospective peace deal.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were spotted entering a hotel in downtown Berlin.

Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials will hold a series of meetings in Berlin.

“Most importantly, I will be meeting with envoys of President Trump, and there will also be meetings with our European partners, with many leaders, concerning the foundation of peace — a political agreement to end the war,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation late Saturday.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces, and security guarantees for Ukraine.

“The chance is considerable at this moment, and it matters for our every city, for our every Ukrainian community,” Zelenskyy said. “We are working to ensure that peace for Ukraine is dignified, and to secure a guarantee — a guarantee, above all — that Russia will not return to Ukraine for a third invasion.”

Responding to journalists’ questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat, Zelenskyy said Sunday that he will meet separately with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and, possibly, other European leaders later in the evening. He said he hadn't yet received any response from the U.S. to Ukraine’s latest proposals on the peace plan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control and abandon its bid to join NATO, among the key conditions for peace — demands Kyiv has rejected.

Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan, a demand likely to be rejected by Ukraine as U.S.-led negotiations drag on.

Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

Speaking to Russian state TV in remarks broadcast Sunday, Ushakov said that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive," warning that Moscow will “have very strong objections.”

Ushakov added that the territorial issue was actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin earlier this month. “The Americans know and understand our position," he said.

Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

He warned that Putin's aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.” “If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.

Putin has denied plans to restore the Soviet Union or attack any European allies.

As peace efforts continued, Russia and Ukraine exchanged another round of aerial attacks.

Ukraine’s air force said overnight Russia launched ballistic missiles and 138 attack drones at Ukraine. In its daily report, the air force said 110 had been intercepted or downed, but missile and drone hits were recorded at six locations.

Zelenskyy said Sunday that hundreds of thousands of families were still without power in the south, east and north-east regions and work was continuing to restore electricity, heat and water to multiple regions following a large-scale attack the previous night.

The Ukrainian president said that in the past week, Russia had launched over 1,500 strike drones, nearly 900 guided aerial bombs and 46 missiles of various types at Ukraine.

“Ukraine needs peace on decent terms, and we are ready to work as constructively as possible. These days will be filled with diplomacy. It’s very important that it brings results,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 235 Ukrainian drones late Saturday and early Sunday.

In the Belgorod region, a drone injured a man and set his house ablaze in the village of Yasnye Zori, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Uryupinsk in the Volgograd region, triggering a fire, according to the regional governor, Andrei Bocharov.

In the Krasnodar region, the Ukrainian drones attacked the town of Afipsky, where an oil refinery is located. The authorities said that explosions shattered windows in residential buildings, but didn’t report any damage to the refinery.

Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland.