Syria\u2019s defence ministry says its forces have taken control of the strategic base amid coordination with the US.<\/p>\n
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By Al Jazeera and News Agencies<\/p>\n
Published On 12 Feb 202612 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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Syrian \u2060forces \u2060have 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.<\/p>\n
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, \u201cthrough coordination between the Syrian and American sides\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Army units had \u201cbegun deploying along the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian\u201d border nearby, the ministry said, while border guards would be deployed in the coming days.<\/p>\n
The base was established during Syria\u2019s civil war in 2014 as a \u200ckey 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cSpecially Designated Global Terrorist\u201d, joined the anti-ISIL coalition in November.<\/p>\n
The US military has not officially commented on the pullout, but Trump has expressed an interest in withdrawing US troops from Syria since his first term.<\/p>\n
Syrian government expands control<\/p>\n
The pullout also follows \u2060a US-brokered deal to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces \u2013 a key US partner in the fight against ISIL \u2013 into Syrian government institutions, an agreement the US hailed as a major step towards national unity and \u2060reconciliation in Syria.<\/p>\n
Last month, as al-Sharaa\u2019s government pushed to expand<\/a> its control over the country, Syrian government forces captured large areas of previously Kurdish-held territory in northeast Syria, amid deadly clashes with the SDF.<\/p>\n A ceasefire<\/a> was later struck<\/a> between the sides.<\/p>\n Amid the advance of Syrian forces, the US military has been transferring<\/a> thousands of ISIL prisoners from jails previously run by the SDF in northeastern Syria, as the facilities were transferred to Syrian government control.<\/p>\n US drawdown<\/p>\n While the size of the US deployment in Syria has fluctuated over the years, with precise figures often unclear due to the classified nature of many operations, a Pentagon announcement in July 2025 said there were about 1,500 American soldiers in Syria.<\/p>\n The size of the deployment currently stands at 900, The Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground reported<\/a> that US military personnel appeared to be drawing down their presence from watchtowers surrounding a military installation in the al-Shaddadi area in northeastern Hasakah province.<\/p>\n Soldiers were also seen lowering the US flag from one tower, while equipment used to manage aircraft takeoffs and landings at the base\u2019s airstrip was no longer visible.<\/p>\n The US carried out a round of \u201clarge-scale\u201d attacks against ISIL<\/a> in Syria in January following an ambush that killed two US soldiers<\/a> and a civilian interpreter in the city of Palmyra in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syria\u2019s defence ministry says its forces have taken control of the strategic base amid coordination with the US.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,12,171400,129,3,1207,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-464331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-isil-isis","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-syria","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}