US to leave 200 troops in Syria after forces withdrawal

The United States will leave around 200 troops in Syria for a period of time, the White House has announced, as President Donald Trump backed away from a complete withdrawal of forces from the war-torn country.

"A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Thursday.

A senior administration official said Trump’s decision had been in the works for some time. It was unclear how long the 200 troops would be expected to remain in the area or where exactly they would be deployed.

Trump in December ordered a withdrawal of the 2,000 American troops in Syria, saying they had defeated Islamic State militants there, even as U.S.-backed Syrian forces continued a final push against the group’s last outpost.

But Trump has been under pressure from multiple advisers to adjust his policy to ensure the protection of Kurdish forces, who supported the fight against Islamic State and who might now be threatened by Turkey, and to serve as a bulwark against Iran’s influence.

The decision to keep US troops in Syria was announced after Trump spoke by phone to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A White House statement said the two leaders agreed, regarding Syria, to "continue coordinating on the creation of a potential safe zone".

"It's not a large number of forces. It's too small to be militarily significant. So it has to be political," the former Pentagon official said from the city of Bethesda, near the US capital, Washington.

The US troops' task will be to keep the peace between Turkey and Kurdish forces, he said.

Leaving even a small group of U.S. troops in Syria could pave the way for European allies to commit hundreds of troops to help set up and observe a potential safe zone in northeast Syria.