By Michael R. Gordon and Jared Malsin

U.S. troops have vacated a strategic military base in southeast Syria and turned it over to government forces, a U.S. official said, ending a decadelong presence as part of a broader drawdown of American troops in the country.

Syria's military said Thursday it has taken control of the Al Tanf base and secured the area in coordination with the U.S. The Defense Ministry said Syrian forces would begin deploying along the country's borders with Jordan and Iraq.

The move comes as Syria's government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa is working to consolidate control over the country's territory, which during the long civil war was fragmented among a number of militias and foreign powers, including the U.S.

Last month, Sharaa brushed off American opposition and launched an offensive on a swath of northeastern Syria that had been controlled by a Kurdish-led militia backed by the U.S., giving him control of territory, more of the country's borders and key oil fields.

President Trump's special envoy for Syria, Amb. Tom Barrack, said in January that the U.S. would pivot toward cooperation with the Damascus government in the campaign against Islamic State, but the speed of the operation sparked concerns about the security of prisons holding thousands of Islamic State detainees and forced the U.S. to scramble to keep a lid on the extremist group.

That job is now being shifted to Syria's government, which Trump has supported with sanctions relief and a White House visit for Sharaa.

U.S. officials said in recent weeks they were considering a total military withdrawal from Syria after the Kurdish-led militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces, unraveled during Sharaa's offensive. Trump in his first term as president in 2019 ordered a U.S. military withdrawal from Syria before reversing that decision weeks later.

The garrison at Al Tanf sits in southern Syria along the highway between Baghdad and Damascus. It has been a small but important part of the U.S. military deployment in Syria since the U.S. first sent troops to partner with local forces fighting Islamic State, the extremist group that seized control of a vast swath of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The base helped the U.S. put pressure on the extremists in a broad stretch of desert near Syria's borderlands with Jordan and Iraq. It also provided a bulwark against the expansion of Iranian influence, as it was near the routes from Iraq that were used to supply Iranian-backed forces in Syria. That mission became less relevant after forces led by Sharaa overthrew the Assad regime in late 2024 and Israeli operations ground down Iran's militia ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The militia that the U.S. worked with at Al Tanf has joined forces with Syria's government.

Iran-aligned militias have launched attacks on U.S. forces in Syria in recent years, but those groups were mostly pushed out of the country after the Assad regime fell. Sharaa, a former longtime leader of an anti-Iran insurgency, has said he is determined to keep Tehran's influence out of the country.

The U.S. began in January to move Islamic State prisoners from northeast Syria to Iraq, aiming to relocate about 7,000 detainees. The removal of the detainees could set the stage for further U.S. troop withdrawals.

The U.S. is expected to continue to carry out airstrikes against Islamic State. The U.S. military said in early February it carried out five strikes on Islamic State targets from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2.

Those airstrikes and others followed a December ambush by an extremist gunman who killed two U.S. National Guardsmen and an American interpreter near Palmyra, Syria.

The departure of U.S. forces from Al Tanf comes as Trump builds up forces around the region and threatens to launch strikes on Iran if Tehran doesn't agree to a new deal over its nuclear program.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 12, 2026 09:42 ET (14:42 GMT)

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