As of February 2021, there are around 900 U.S. soldiers operating in Syria, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Biden administration has doubled down on maintaining US troops in Syria. “The US has no intent to withdraw in the near future,” the senior Pentagon official told me. “We successfully pushed ISIS out of the territory it once held, but there are still ISIS members in Iraq and Syria, and we have more work to do.”
Al-Tanf (Arabic: التَّنْف, romanized: al-Tanf), also known as the Al-Tanf garrison (ATG), is a United States military base within territory controlled by the Syrian opposition in Homs Governorate, Syria. It is located 24 km (15 mi) west of the al-Tanf border crossing in the Syrian Desert.
The United States has around 900 troops in northeastern Syria to keep pressure on the remnants of the militant Islamic State group and support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Most U.S. forces are deployed in what military officials term the Eastern Syria Security Area, in support of the SDF. About 100 U.S. troops support the Syrian Free Army (formerly known as Jaysh Mughawir ath Thawra), an Arab force, at the At Tanf garrison.
The United States has been the largest donor of humanitarian assistance for Syria, providing nearly $16 billion over the 12 years of war. The earthquake massively exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in northwest Syria, with enormous needs for shelter, medical supplies, food, and fuel.
Diplomatic relations between Syria and the United States are currently non-existent; they were suspended in 2012 after the onset of the Syrian Civil War.
The United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Syria, set up in 2012 as a result of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2043 in response to the Syrian Civil War.
Although the U.S. at one time had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and more than 160,000 troops in Iraq, the military pulled out of Afghanistan completely in 2021. And, in Iraq, operations are limited now to just a handful of troops performing advise-and-assist missions only.
Located in Syria on the Iraqi border and within miles of the Jordanian border, the U.S. garrison at al-Tanf has, since 2016, served as a launching point for counter-ISIS operations and training for Syrian opposition factions fighting the jihadist group.
Syria - Level 4: Do Not Travel. Reissued with obsolete COVID-19 page links removed. Do not travel to Syria due to terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, armed conflict, and risk of unjust detention.
The ongoing conflict in Syria is widely described as a series of overlapping proxy wars between the regional and world powers, primarily between the US and Russia as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
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The U.S. has at least 28 declared bases and other military sites in Syria as a sovereign state.
The Deir ez-Zor air raid was a series of 37 U.S.-led Coalition airstrikes near the Deir ez-Zor Airport in eastern Syria on 17 September 2016 that killed between 50 and 60 Syrian Army soldiers and wounded 30 more.
Since February 2022, DoD deployed or extended over 20,000 additional forces to Europe in response to the Ukraine crisis, adding additional air, land, maritime, cyber, and space capabilities, bringing our current total to more than 100,000 service members across Europe.
Garrisons. There are eight U.S. Army garrisons (USAG) located in Europe managed by Installation Management Command Directorate - Europe.
As of March 2017, several hundred Marines have deployed to Syria in preparation for the fight against ISIS. While this deployment is considered temporary at this time, it is considered a possible frequent fighting ground in the future while Marines continue the fight against ISIS.
Peacekeeping is flexible and over the past two decades has been deployed in many configurations. There are currently 12 UN peacekeeping operations deployed on three continents.
As of 2023, active fighting in the conflict between the Syrian government and rebel groups had mostly subsided, but there were occasional flareups in Northwestern Syria.
U.S. Assistance to Syria
U.S. The United States is the largest single donor to the humanitarian response in Syria, providing over $12.2 billion in humanitarian assistance for vulnerable individuals inside Syria and those displaced in the region since the start of the crisis.
Syria and Iran are strategic allies. Syria is often called Iran's "closest ally", the Arab nationalism ideology of Syria's ruling Baath party notwithstanding.