DAMASCUS: Syria said on Thursday it had taken control of all military bases hosting US troops who were deployed in the country for years leading an international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group.
In recent months, Syria´s new Islamist government has expanded its control to
parts of the country´s northeast that were previously held by US-allied Kurdish forces, while the government has also formally joined the international anti-IS coalition.
The US intervened in Syria in 2014 to fight IS, which had taken over swathes of Syria and Iraq in a lightning offensive. Syria´s foreign ministry said in a statement that it “welcomes the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government”, adding that the move was carried
out “in full coordination between the Syrian and American governments”.
Damascus said it viewed the US move as reflecting “a shared assessment that the circumstances which originally necessitated the American military presence in Syria... have fundamentally changed”.
“The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counterterrorism efforts from within, in cooperation with the international community,” it added.
