The U.S. military is on track to withdraw all of its ground troops from Syria, notwithstanding that the final battle to liberate the country from ISIS is still raging and there is not yet a plan to protect America’s Kurdish allies once the U.S. departs, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters traveling with him.
Shanahan arrived in Brussels Tuesday, ahead of two days of meetings at NATO headquarters, at which Shanahan will press U.S. allies to provide troops for a protection force to patrol a buffer zone in northeastern Syria, where U.S.-backed forces, including Kurdish militia, have been eliminating ISIS strongholds.
“It’ll be part of the conversations I have with them,” Shanahan said, according to a Pentagon transcript of his session with reporters released Wednesday.
“There have been a number of discussions prior to today about how, once the United States departs Syria, could we ensure stability and security? You know, what would be the mix of resources? Who would lead those efforts? And clearly, the coalition, with its resources and capabilities, is an option,” he said.
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Shanahan flew to Brussels after a tour of Afghanistan and Iraq. Shanahan said that in Iraq, he discussed the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria but not President Trump’s recent suggestion some of those troops would be redeployed to a U.S. base in Iraq to mount attacks on ISIS and keep an eye on Iranian militias.
He met with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi Tuesday before departing for Brussels.
“We talked deliberately about how they would move out of Syria, but we didn’t talk about where they would be staged permanently,” Shanahan said, but he added that he was assured by U.S. commanders that “in terms of a coordinated disciplined withdrawal … we’re on schedule to our commitment.”
Shanahan did not reveal the timetable for withdrawal.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the current plan is to begin pulling U.S. troops out of Syria next month and have the withdrawal completed by the end of April.
Gen. Joseph Votel, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command, which has overall responsibility for the Syria mission, told reporters traveling with him to the region the U.S. has already shipped equipment home, and many of the 2,000 U.S. troops there would begin to leave in the coming weeks.
“I think we are right on track where we wanted to be,” he told reporters Sunday. “We are less focused on a specific timeline than we are doing this in a very effective manner.”
