US prepares to withdraw troops from Syria: Reports

The US is preparing to withdraw all its troops from Syria, US media are quoting defence officials as saying.

The decision, if confirmed, would upend assumptions about a longer-term U.S. military presence in Syria, which U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other senior U.S. officials had advocated to help ensure Islamic State cannot reemerge.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

Some 2,000 troops have helped rid much of north-eastern Syria of IS, but pockets of fighters remain.

U.S. officials said that the U.S. is preparing for a complete withdrawl from northeastern Syria. The paper cited sources people familiar with the matter, adding that the "move that throws the American strategy in the Middle East into turmoil."

It had been thought US defence officials wanted to stay to ensure the militant group could not rebuild.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the presence of U.S. forces in Syria was becoming a dangerous obstacle to finding a peace settlement and accused Washington of keeping its forces there illegally.

The U.S. committed in September to keep troops in Syria indefinitely to bolster Kurdish forces in the northeast of the country in an effort to keep Iranian influence out of the area.

Turkey has complained over the slow implementation of a deal with Washington to pull YPG Kurdish fighters out of Manbij, which lies in mainly Arab territory west of the Euphrates, back to the eastern bank of the river.