The Syrian Army on Thursday took control of the last U.S. military base on Syrian soil, with assurances that Syria’s new government can handle the job of controlling the Islamic State and other terrorist threats.
The final convoy of American forces departed from Qasrak air base in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on Thursday, completing a withdrawal process that began when the Syrian central government reconciled with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which controlled most of northeastern Syria after being reluctant to abandon its autonomy.
American troops have been stationed at Qasrak since 2014 when they joined forces with the SDF to battle the Islamic State. The withdrawal process began in February shortly after the U.S. withdrew its forces from two other strategic bases, Al Tanf and Shaddadi. Iran reportedly sent drones to attack Qasrak during Operation Epic Fury, which may have delayed the U.S. pullout by a few weeks.
An even greater delay would have resulted if the SDF went to war against the Syrian central government, which came perilously close to happening at the beginning of this year. The SDF resolved its differences with Damascus in a unification agreement signed on January 18 that traded Kurdish autonomy for promises that their customs and culture would be protected.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the agreement reached in January to fold SDF militias into the Syrian national army cleared the way for U.S. troops to relinquish control of the air base. Also helpful was Syria’s decision to formally join the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in November 2025.
The foreign ministry welcomed “the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government,” praising the withdrawal as an example of “full coordination between the Syrian and American governments” and also as proof that “the circumstances which originally necessitated the American military presence in Syria have fundamentally changed.”
“The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counterterrorism efforts from within, in cooperation with the international community,” the foreign ministry declared.
“U.S. forces have completed turning over all of our major bases in Syria as part of a deliberate and conditions-based transition,” confirmed CENTCOM chief spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins.
The current government of Syria assumed power in December 2024, when a coalition of insurgents and jihadis completed a lightning-fast drive across the country to seize Damascus, suddenly ending the reign of dictator Bashar Assad after he had survived the long and brutal Syrian civil war. Assad’s patrons in Russia and Iran, who intervened to prop him up during the civil war, were too weakened from their other misadventures to save him one last time.
The new government included factions and individuals with troubling ties to Islamist terrorism, including President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda lieutenant who had been captured while waging terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.
President Donald Trump embraced Sharaa despite his past ties to terrorism and Sharaa made public commitments to run an inclusive government that would not harbor or tolerate terrorists. Sharaa’s report card on those promises has been mixed, but he retains Trump’s support, and he has made an effort to deliver on his security commitments.
The Syrian Kurds were reluctant to trust Sharaa, as they harbored deep misgivings about the jihadi elements of his government, and they felt their performance as an autonomous government and military ally of the United States was worthy of respect.
Unfortunately for the Kurds, another player in the Syrian transition was Turkey, which severely distrusts all Kurdish military groups, viewing them as allies or extensions of Turkey’s violent Kurdish separatist group, the PKK. Turkey offered strong support for Sharaa, but only if he neutralized the Kurdish problem along Turkey’s border.
Sharaa was in Turkey on Thursday for the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, an event that gained outsized importance this year due to the conflict between the U.S. and Israel against Iran. At the forum, Sharaa held a special meeting with Trump’s envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, with Sharaa’s foreign minister and intelligence chief also in attendance.
Barrack notably stated in late January that the SDF’s role as the “primary anti-ISIS force on the ground” had “largely expired,” and the new unified government was “willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities.”
“Historically, the U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria was justified primarily as a counter-ISIS partnership,” Barrack added, presaging the departure of American forces from the last few bases in Syria.
Sharaa also met on Thursday with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi and Ilham Ahmad, a top official in the Kurdish civilian government. Syrian state media said the meeting concerned the full implementation of the SDF’s unification agreement, including the integration of Kurdish fighters into the national army.
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