Syrian army takes control of al-Tanf military base as US troops pull out
Al Jazeera
Syria’s defence ministry says its forces have taken control of the strategic base amid coordination with the US.
Syrian forces have taken control of the strategic al-Tanf military base near the border with Iraq and Jordan, the Syrian defence ministry has said, amid the withdrawal of a longstanding United States troop presence at the base.
The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Syrian Arab Army units had taken control of al-Tanf, securing the base and its surroundings, “through coordination between the Syrian and American sides”.
Army units had “begun deploying along the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian” border nearby, the ministry said, while border guards would be deployed in the coming days.
The base was established during Syria’s civil war in 2014 as a key hub for operations by the global coalition against ISIL (ISIS), which at the time controlled large areas of Syria and Iraq until the group was vanquished in 2017.
The US withdrawal from the base comes months after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who the US once deemed a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”, joined the anti-ISIL coalition in November.
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