Widespread reports on Thursday say the very last US military convoy has finally departed Syrian territory, with the years-long occupation of the primarily northeast oil and gas rich sector over in a 'mission accomplished' fashion.
It brings to a final close the 14-year long bloody proxy war which overthrew the Assad government and ultimately installed a pro-US/Saudi axis puppet, in the person of founding Syrian Al Qaeda Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, now known as President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Hundreds of thousand of people lost their lives in the regime change war, with the country and its economy left in a sanction-starved and conflict-demolished state of ruins.
The US-backed Syrian Foreign Ministry declared Washington had decided to "complete its military mission" in the country. "The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counter-terrorism efforts from within, in co-operation with the international community," it said, happy to now be back in control of the domestic oil and gas supply.
The ministry "welcomes the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government," adding that "the handover of these sites was carried out ... in full coordination between the Syrian and American governments."
While Pentagon propaganda had for years touted an 'anti-ISIS' mission, the real purpose of the troop presence was to cut off Damascus under Assad of its sovereign natural resources, and to arm and prop up a Kurdish-Arab coalition called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
All the while, the CIA supported Sunni hardline jihadists who were indistinguishable from ISIS in their ideology in the fight against the Syrian Army, and the civilian population which often largely supported the secular Ba'ath government. The broader strategy has long been to destroy the Tehran-Baghdad-Hezbollah 'Shia axis' - even if that meant using ISIS as a tool of regime change.
Ironically, in the process of this US handover of oil and gas facilities back to post-Assad Damascus, the Kurds were thrown under the bus. Their dream for an autonomous enclave (Rojava) once again proved illusory, and in the long term the Kurds will find themselves at the mercy of Sunni fanatics on the one hand, and Turkish state under Erdogan on the other.
Following the US withdrawal, Jolani regime troops moved into Qasrak Base in Hasakah Governorate in north-eastern Syria on Thursday. Earlier, in February, the US exited the Shaddadi in eastern Syria and Al-Tanf on the Syria–Jordan–Iraq border.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the completion of the process for "turning over all of our major bases in Syria." But it also said US forces "continue to support partner-led counter-terrorism efforts."
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Repositioning troops related to ongoing anti-Iran operations...