Bombay Durpun - US forces to complete withdrawal from Syria within a month

The withdrawal comes as Syria's government has expanded its control to the country's northeast, previously controlled by US-allied Kurdish forces, and formally joined the coalition against IS.

It also comes as Syrian state media reported that four Syrian security personnel were killed in an IS attack in the northern city of Raqa, which was recently taken back into central government control from Kurdish forces.

American forces have already withdrawn from two other bases in the past two weeks, Al-Tanf in the southeast and Shadadi in the northeast.

"Within a month, they will have withdrawn from Syria and there will no longer be any military presence in the bases," a Syrian government official said, with a Kurdish source confirming the timeline.

The officials who spoke to AFP for this story all requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

On Monday, the United States began withdrawing from a major base in a northeastern region still under the control of Kurdish forces, which agreed last month to integrate their institutions with Damascus.

An AFP team saw a convoy of dozens of trucks loaded with armoured vehicles and prefabricated structures on a road linking the Qasrak base in Hasakeh province to the border with Iraq.

With Kurdish forces at the forefront, IS was territorially defeated in 2019 but retains sleeper cells. On Saturday the group urged its jihadists to fight the Syrian authorities.

On Monday, Syria's official SANA news agency quoted a security source as saying that "four members of the internal security forces" were killed in an attack attributed to IS.

Syria's interior ministry said the "terrorist attack" had targeted a checkpoint and that an assailant was also killed.

- 'End their presence' -

The United States has about 1,000 troops still deployed in Syria.

It had intervened in the country in 2014 to fight IS, which had taken over swathes of Syria and Iraq in a lightning offensive.

A diplomat from a country allied with both the United States and Syria said the withdrawal should be completed within 20 days.

The US may still carry out air strikes in Syria from other bases in the region, he said.

The Kurdish source said "the international coalition forces will end their presence, which has lasted for about 12 years, in northern and eastern Syria within a period of three to five weeks".

"Over the coming days, successive military convoys will transport logistical supplies, military equipment, radar systems, and missiles from the two remaining bases," he added, referring to Qasrak and Kharab al-Jir, also in Hasakeh province.

The withdrawal comes as the US, which long backed the Kurds, has deemed their mission against IS to be "largely" over, with Syria joining the international anti-IS coalition.

After the Syrian authorities' deployment in the northeast last month, the US military said it transferred thousands of IS suspects, including many Syrians but also Westerners, to Iraq after they were held in Kurdish-run prisons for years.

Syrian authorities had transferred remaining families in Al-Hol, the largest camp housing relatives of suspected IS fighters, to another site in the north.

Thousands of family members of foreign jihadists had previously fled the camp and they remain unaccounted for.

"After control of al-Hol was transferred to Syrian authorities on January 20, most residents reportedly left in a largely unplanned and chaotic manner," the international watchdog said.

"The camps have long held thousands of women and children, most of whom have never been charged with a crime and were detained for years in life-threatening conditions because their countries failed to repatriate them."

F.Varghese--BD