The United States continues to draw down its forces in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria and will eventually limit their presence to a single base in Rmeilan, home to some of the country’s major oil-producing fields, according to two officials who spoke not for attribution to Al-Monitor. The withdrawal is in line with the Trump administration’s plans to reduce its troop presence in Syria to fewer than 1,000 personnel by the end of the year and consolidate at a single base, down from a total of eight bases, as announced earlier by Syria envoy and US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack in an interview with private Turkish broadcaster NTV.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that US forces had pulled out of two more bases — Tel Baydar and al-Wazir in Hasakah — after earlier withdrawals from two others in the Euphrates River Valley and Deir Ezzor, also home to oil and gas fields. US forces have been partnering since 2014 with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight the Islamic State (ISIS). An estimated 2,000 US Special Forces were deployed in the area until the drawdown began.

A senior Syrian Kurdish official said US forces were pulling out of al-Shadadi, another base in Hasakah that was frequently targeted by Iran-backed Shiite militias until they were forced to leave Syria when longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December.

The accelerated pullout comes amid the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel. American troops would be among the most vulnerable if the Iranian military or Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq decided to retaliate for the ongoing Israeli air campaign, which has decapitated the top echelons of Iran’s security forces and inflicted heavy damage on its nuclear and oil facilities, among other targets. The risk to US forces in Syria and Iraq can only grow as the Trump administration weighs Israel’s demands for it to join the war, the sources briefing Al-Monitor said.

Veteran Syrian Kurdish politician Salih Muslim, who resides at al-Wazir, confirmed to Al-Monitor that US forces had withdrawn from that base. “The Americans have left,” he said. US troops remain at Rmeilan, Muslim added. Al-Wazir is where top Syrian Kurdish military and civilian officials received foreign delegations and where journalists were brought to interview the SDF commander-in-chief, Mazlum Kobane.

Roughly a quarter of the Special Forces and National Guard soldiers deployed in northeast Syria have withdrawn over the past month.

"The desire to withdraw from the region and transfer regional security responsibilities [to local actors] is still strong with Trump and his team. I think this administration will remain on track for withdrawal by the end of 2026 in both Iraq and Syria,” Caroline Rose, director of the Strategic Blind Spots program at the New Lines Institute in Washington, told Al-Monitor.

Kobane has long aired concern that a reduced US footprint would leave the region vulnerable to renewed attacks by ISIS cells. In private, Syrian Kurdish officials acknowledge that the US presence has provided them leverage with Ankara as well as the Assad regime and now the interim government of Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda operative who has renounced jihadism. The sources briefing Al-Monitor said that the number of US troops no longer mattered and that their presence at Rmeilan — a critical site because of the oil — gave the Syrian Kurds sufficient sway. In February, the Syrian Kurdish administration began supplying oil from Rmeilan and Deir Ezzor to the central government in Damascus.

Turkey has led major assaults against the SDF and occupied large swathes of territory under its control. However, a new initiative launched by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to make peace with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party — the rebel group that has waged an armed campaign against Ankara since 1984 and maintains close ties to the SDF — has led to a thaw. Ankara has been holding secret talks with key Syrian Kurdish officials since last year, as first reported by Al-Monitor.