Kurdish general urges Trump to leave US troops in north-east Syria

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in this area is the US presence on the ground,” Abdi told the Guardian, adding that if the 2,000 US troops were withdrawn, it would lead to the “resurgence” of “many factions, including IS”.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.

Regional stability has come under threat since the sudden fall of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in December, and his replacement by a government led by the Sunni rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. That has given IS a chance to regroup and to allow Turkey and its allies to attack the SDF, seizing the town of Manbij with the help of airstrikes.

The Biden administration has been focused on “mediation efforts” between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish authorities, Abdi said. He described the situation between the two sides as “partially stable”, with only limited clashes around the area of the Euphrates.

Future stability and security in the strategic region stemmed from maintaining the US military presence, Abdi said. Any “US forces withdrawal”, the general said, would lead to “another chaotic situation, and this may lead to another civil war since many factions are threatening the Kurds”.

Turkey has long opposed Kurdish independence and argues that some Syrian Kurdish units, the YPG and YPJ, are linked to the banned PKK separatist movement in its own country.

On Friday, Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, threatened to launch a military operation against the Syrian Kurds if they failed to meet Ankara’s demands. “We will do what’s necessary,” he said in a television interview.

It had been thought that 900 US troops were based in north-east Syria, but last month the Pentagon said the figure stood at 2,000. In 2019, during his first term in office, Donald Trump said he would withdraw all US forces from Syria, triggering a Turkish offensive against the Kurds. He later defended the decision on the grounds that the Kurds had not fought alongside the US in the second world war, but subsequently changed his mind.

Trump’s return to power later this month has prompted speculation that the US troops could be withdrawn. On Tuesday, Trump praised Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, at a press conference but was opaque when asked specifically if US troops would be withdrawn. “I won’t tell you that, because that’s part of a military strategy,” he said.

Abdi made a plea for European support while Trump considers his options. The general said the SDF “had not fought only on behalf of their people and their forces but against IS on behalf of the European countries”. European allies would not abandon the anti-IS coalition now, he added.