U.S. troops have been in Syria for over a decade. Here’s what to know after deadly IS attack

Saturday’s attack was the first to result in deaths since the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a year ago.

The United States has had troops on the ground in Syria for more than a decade, and their stated mission has been to fight ISIS. Although the US presence is not part of its official mission, it is also seen as a way to disrupt the flow of Iranian and Iranian-backed fighters and weapons into Syria from neighboring Iraq.

The number of US troops in the country has fluctuated and currently stands at around 900. They are mainly based in the Kurdish-controlled northeast and at the Al-Tanf base in the southeastern desert near the borders with Iraq and Jordan.

Here is the back story and current status of US military force in Syria:

What are American forces doing in Syria?

In 2011, mass protests in Syria against Assad’s government were met with a brutal crackdown and turned into a civil war that lasted nearly 14 years before he was ousted in December 2024.

Fearing involvement in another costly and politically unpopular war in the Middle East after its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington sent support to rebel groups but initially avoided direct military intervention.

This changed after the rise of the Islamic State, which carried out sporadic attacks in the United States and Europe, while in Iraq and Syria it seized an area that was at one time half the size of the United Kingdom. In the areas controlled by the organization, it became known for its brutality against religious minorities, as well as Muslims, whom it considered apostates.

In 2014, the administration of then US President Barack Obama launched an air campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The following year, the first US ground troops entered Syria, where they cooperated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.

By 2019, ISIS had lost control of all the territory it had controlled, but sleeper cells continued to launch attacks.

US Army and Syrian forces

Before Assad’s overthrow, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the US military did not work directly with the Syrian army.

That has changed over the past year. Relations have improved between the administrations of US President Donald Trump and interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of the Islamic rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which Washington had included on the list of terrorist organizations.

In November, Al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its joining the global coalition against ISIS, joining 89 other countries committed to fighting the organization.

While joining the coalition signals a move toward greater coordination between the Syrian and US militaries, Syrian security forces have not officially joined Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led military mission against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which has been involved for years with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria.

The future American footprint in Syria

The number of US forces deployed in Syria has changed over the years.

Trump tried to withdraw all forces from Syria during his first term, but faced opposition from the Pentagon because he was seen as abandoning Washington’s Kurdish allies, leaving them vulnerable to a Turkish attack.

Türkiye considers the Syrian Democratic Forces a terrorist organization due to its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been waging a long-term insurgency in Türkiye.

The number of US troops rose to more than 2,000 after a Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, as Iranian-backed militants targeted US forces and interests in the region in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

The force has since been reduced to about 900, but Trump has given no indication that he plans a complete withdrawal in the near future.

After Saturday’s attack, US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack posted on X: “There remain a limited number of US forces deployed in Syria only to finish the mission of defeating ISIS once and for all.”

The US presence “empowers local Syrian partners who are able to take the fight to these terrorists on the ground, ensuring that US forces do not have to engage in another costly and large-scale war in the Middle East,” he said, adding: “We will not waver in this mission until ISIS is completely destroyed.”