Kurdish general urges Trump to leave US troops in north-east Syria
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Exclusive: SDF leader says removal of 2,000-strong force would leave door open for Islamic State resurgence. The leader of the Kurdish forces that control north-eastern Syria has called on Donald Trump to maintain a US military presence in the region, warning that a retreat would risk a resurgence of Islamic State in the country.
Gen Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said IS had increased its strength in the desert after seizing arms from the collapsed Assad regime, while the Kurdish forces were coming under increased pressure from Turkey and its Syrian proxies.
“The key factor of stabilisation in this area is the US presence on the ground,” Abdi told the Guardian, adding that if the 2,000 US troops were withdrawn, it would lead to the “resurgence” of “many factions, including IS”. Members of the terrorist group were plotting to strike detention centres holding IS prisoners, Abdi said, where they hoped to “take advantage” of the fact that Kurdish forces were “mainly having their hands full” in defending their region from Turkey and its allied Syrian National Army (SNA).
Abdi said he believed the US president-elect would recognise the risks involved in withdrawal, partly because “the recent terrorist attacks in the US itself” – a reference to the IS-inspired attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day – “was an indication to the incoming president that the terrorist threat is increasing”.
The SDF have acted as ground troops since 2014, helping the US, UK and other western countries remove IS from its strongholds in north-east Syria. Since then, tens of thousands of former IS fighters and supporters have been detained indefinitely in prisons and camps in the region, including Shamima Begum, the London woman stripped of British citizenship in 2019.
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