Martin Chulov in Beirut, Julian Borger in Washington and Andrew Roth
The Kurdish force that has led the ground war against Islamic State in Syria has condemned the White House’s surprise decision to withdraw US troops from the country and claimed it will spark a revival of the terror group.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a group of Kurdish and Arab units raised by Washington specifically to fight Isis, said the US’s move would have “dangerous implications for international stability”.
Donald Trump has told the Pentagon to extricate its estimated 2,000 troops as soon as possible, with a target of accomplishing the task in less than a 100 days, according to officials in Washington, but defence staff are trying to make the argument for more time and leaving a residual counter-terrorist force of a few hundred.
Reuters reported on Thursday that the Trump administration was also planning to cut short the air war against Isis in Syria. An official told the news agency that a final decision had not been made.
Trump stuck to his decision in the face of fierce criticism from within his own party on Thursday, but changed his justification. On Wednesday, he had argued that Isis was defeated. But 24 hours later, the US president said the withdrawal was to save US soldiers’ lives and dollars.
“Why are we fighting for our enemy, Syria, by staying & killing ISIS for them, Russia, Iran & other locals?,” Trump asked on Twitter. “Time to focus on our Country & bring our youth back home where they belong!”
The planned US pullout was announced as Turkey was preparing to send its military into Syria to confront Kurdish militias that it says threaten its sovereignty. The US-backed Kurds are drawn from the same Kurdish groups – a point that has caused friction between Ankara and Washington throughout the four-year campaign against Isis.
The SDF and the YPG, a partner Kurdish militia, described the move as a “blatant betrayal”. One Kurdish leader contacted by the Guardian said the fight against Isis in Syria’s far east would be abandoned immediately, and all SDF units on that front would redeploy closer to the Turkish border.
The SDF responded to the announcement with a blunt statement. “The war against Islamic State has not ended and Islamic State has not been defeated,” it said. Any withdrawal would “create a political and military vacuum in the area, leaving its people between the claws of hostile parties”.
Other Kurdish leaders said the mooted abandonment would cause damage to Kurdish movements elsewhere in the region.
“We have every right to be afraid,” Arin Sheikmos, a Kurdish journalist and commentator, told the Associated Press. “If the Americans pull out and leave us to the Turks or the [Syrian] regime, our destiny will be like the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991. Neither the regime, nor Iran nor Turkey, will accept our presence here.”
By contrast, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president whose military intervened in the Syrian war in 2015, turning the tide in favour of the Assad regime, welcomed the US move.
“If the USA made that decision then it’s the right one,” Putin said during a nationally televised press conference on Thursday, repeating complaints that US troop deployments in Syria were illegal because they were not agreed upon with the Assad government. He said he agreed with Trump that a “serious blow” had been struck against Isis, saying: “Donald is right, I agree with him.”
US allies were not consulted before the announcement of the withdrawal, and have been scrambling since then to find out what it will mean in practice. Ministers from the UK and France, countries with their own special forces in northern Syria, have contradicted Trump’s assessment that Isis had been defeated.
“There is not just the real risk that it lets Daesh off the hook and allows them to re-establish some control, but it could mean foreign fighters held by the SDF are released, and the Iranians and Russians are left a free hand,” a European official said.
France has said its forces will remain in place and the country’s armed forces minister, Florence Parly, expressed French determination to fight on in Syria.
“Daesh [Isis] has lost more 90% of its territory,” Parly said on Twitter. “But Daesh had not been cleared off the map, nor, for that matter, have its roots been cleared. The last pockets of this terrorist organisation must be beaten in a definitive manner by military means.”
However, the few hundred British and French troops in the area are dependent on US logistical support to operate and it would be very hard for them to stay after the US have left.
At the UN, the UK’s ambassador, Karen Pierce, told the security council: “Much remains to be done in the global campaign … and we must not lose sight of the threat Daesh continues to pose, even when they no longer hold territory.”
In August this year, the Pentagon assessed there were as many as 14,500 Isis fighters still in Syria.
Trump’s order for a full, rapid withdrawal of more than 2,000 US troops from Syria, and his declaration of victory over Isis, left Pentagon and state department officials scrambling to interpret an abrupt change in course. In the summer, the policy was to keep forces in Syria to ensure the “enduring defeat of Isis” and act as a bulwark against Iranian influence.
The move appeared to blindside Trump’s most senior officials, many of whom were invested in an ongoing partnership with the SDF.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Thursday rejected reports that the president’s decision had come out of the blue.
“This was a decision that was made with lots of consultation between all the senior-level officials, including myself, with the president. So yes, did I – I had more than a heads-up,” Pompeo told a radio show.
Administration officials had previously characterised the objective in Syria as “the enduring defeat of Isis”. Since Trump announced his decision, they have said it was the destruction of the “territorial caliphate”.
Throughout the Syrian war, Turkey has prioritised managing Kurdish ambitions in Syria, and potential implications for its own Kurdish populations, above all else. Ankara sees the YPG in Syria as indistinguishable from Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) militants inside Turkey. Ankara views the militant groups as dangerous subversives who threaten its borders despite Syria’s Kurds saying they have no interest in full autonomy, and the PKK having said it no longer aspires to an independent state.
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