EVER SINCE President Trump abruptly announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria in December, his top aides, military commanders, congressional leaders and U.S. allies have scrambled to reverse or modify a decision that portended disastrous consequences. It appears they finally made headway. Administration officials said Friday that some 400 U.S. troops will remain in the country, compared with about 2,000 now, split between a northern area along the Turkish border and a southern base near Jordan.

It’s not clear whether that modest deployment will be enough to protect U.S. interests, which include preventing conflict between U.S.-allied forces in Syria and Turkey, ensuring that Islamic State militants in the region do not regroup, and avoiding a strategic windfall for Iran and Russia. But it is a positive step that, with luck, will temper a major strategic blunder by Mr. Trump.

The president announced the abandonment of Syria abruptly and without consulting advisers or allies. He never offered a cogent explanation, merely repeating empty slogans about bringing U.S. troops home from “endless wars” and refusing to become “the Policeman of the Middle East.” Until late this week, he appeared deaf to the senior military officials, Republican senators and European leaders who warned he was badly misreading the situation in Syria and the stakes for the United States.

In reality, the U.S. mission there, unlike those in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been a nearly unqualified success. Having learned the lessons of those earlier wars, American commanders established a light footprint in northeastern Syria and forged an alliance with Kurdish-led local forces. U.S. personnel armed and trained those fighters, and backed them with airpower as they liberated territory from the Islamic State. This campaign incurred seven U.S. combat deaths in four years and left the allies in control of a large and strategic swath of territory. For the first time, Washington had meaningful leverage in bargaining over Syria’s future.

Having dissuaded Mr. Trump, for now, against throwing those gains away, U.S. commanders and diplomats can now return to pursuing the goals they had previously set, which include ensuring that the thousands of remaining extremist fighters in Syria do not regroup and seeking an acceptable settlement of the Syrian civil war. That will necessarily involve curtailing Iran’s presence in the country, including its attempt to entrench fighters and advanced missiles threatening Israel.

The first step will be striking a deal with Turkey to create a buffer zone between it and the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurds — a delicate enterprise that will require Mr. Trump to stand up to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rather than capitulate to his demands. U.S. officials will also try to persuade Britain and France to continue their own deployments of counterterrorism forces in northern Syria; the Europeans had previously said they would not remain in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.

All of this is made more difficult by Mr. Trump’s steadily deteriorating relationships with key European allies and his inclination to accommodate autocrats such as Mr. Erdogan and Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin. For now, however, the president deserves credit for listening to those who warned him against the Middle Eastern pitfall he was blundering into.</s>OMAR OIL FIELD: US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday (Feb 22), eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the militants.

More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.

Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.

Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.

Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.

Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last militants from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.

"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said. "They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."

The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday - mostly women and children - but trucks left near empty on Thursday.

Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.

"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.

David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".

They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority.

"Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said.

"Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.

On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people - mostly oil workers - near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.

The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.

Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.

Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.

But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.

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

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.

Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.

On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined IS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.

A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.

Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.</s>US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday, eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the jihadists.

More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.

Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.

Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.

Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.

Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last jihadists from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.

"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said.

"They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."

The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday -- mostly women and children -- but trucks left near empty on Thursday.

Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.

"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.

David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".

They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority.

"Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said.

"Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.

On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people -- mostly oil workers -- near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.

The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.

Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.

Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.

But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.

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

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.

Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.

On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined IS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.

A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.

Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.</s>Trump in December ordered a withdrawal of the 2,000 American troops in Syria, saying they had defeated Islamic State militants there, even as US-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.

“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.

The decision was announced after Trump spoke by phone to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. A White House statement said the two leaders agreed, regarding Syria, to “continue coordinating on the creation of a potential safe zone.”

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.

Leaving even a small group of US 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.

The commander of US-backed Syrian forces has called for 1,000 to 1,500 international troops to remain in the country to help fight Islamic State and expressed hope the United States, in particular, would halt plans for a total pullout.

The decision to retain peacekeepers could help Trump overcome criticism that he had ordered a precipitous withdrawal from Syria that could lead to Islamic State regaining strength.

“This is a clear direction to our allies and coalition members that we will be on the ground in some capacity,” the senior US administration official said.

Until now, European allies have balked at providing troops unless they received a firm commitment that Washington was still committed to the region.

Belgian Defense Minister Didier Reynders told reporters on Thursday before a meeting with acting Pentagon chief Patrick Shanahan that the issue of keeping troops in Syria in the future would be a matter for discussion with US officials.

Turkey wants to set up a safe zone with logistical support from allies and says it should be cleared of the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist group.

The White House did not say where exactly its troops would be based. In addition to northeast Syria, officials have talked about the importance of keeping some troops at the strategic Tanf garrison on the Iraq-Jordan border.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the initial plan was to have some troops in northeastern Syria and some at Tanf. The official said planning was ongoing and could change.

The Tanf garrison was set up when Islamic State fighters controlled eastern Syria bordering Iraq. But since the militants were driven out, Tanf has assumed a role as part of a US strategy to contain Iran’s military buildup.

US officials have told Reuters that while in Munich last week, Shanahan held a meeting on Syria with a small group of defense ministers. They talked about needing some sort of security arrangement in northeast Syria after the United States left. Shanahan will meet his Turkish counterpart on Friday.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham issued a statement applauding Trump’s decision to keep a small contingent of US troops in Syria as part of an international stabilising force, saying the president had followed sound military advice that would help avoid the problems the United States faced in Iraq.</s>OMAR OIL FIELD: US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday (Feb 22), eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the militants.

More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.

Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.

Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.

Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.

Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last militants from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.

"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said. "They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."

The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday - mostly women and children - but trucks left near empty on Thursday.

Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.

"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.

David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".

They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority.

"Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said.

"Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.

On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people - mostly oil workers - near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.

The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.

Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.

Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.

But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.

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

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.

Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.

On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined IS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.

A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.

Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.</s>US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday, eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the jihadists.

More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.

Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.

Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.

Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.

Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last jihadists from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.

"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said.

"They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."

The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday -- mostly women and children -- but trucks left near empty on Thursday.

Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.

"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.

David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".

They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority.

"Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said.

"Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.

On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people -- mostly oil workers -- near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.

The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.

Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.

Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.

But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.

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

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.

Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.

On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined IS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.

A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.

Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.</s>US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday, eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the jihadists.

More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.

Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.

Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.

Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.

Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.

Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last jihadists from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.

"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said.

"They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."

The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday -- mostly women and children -- but trucks left near empty on Thursday.

Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.

"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.

David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".

They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.

Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority.

"Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said.

"Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.

On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people -- mostly oil workers -- near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.

The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.

Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.

Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.

But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.

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

At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.

But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.

Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.

On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined IS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.

A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.

Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.</s>How John Bolton Won the Beltway Battle Over Syria

John Bolton, the U.S. national security advisor and longtime Iran hawk, has won a crucial victory with the partial reversal of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria.

In an apparent softening of Trump’s abrupt announcement last December that the United States would pull out completely from Syria—a move that blindsided U.S. allies and prompted the resignation of his defense secretary, James Mattis—the White House now concedes that a “small peacekeeping group” of about 200 soldiers will remain in the country “for a period of time.” The sudden decision was announced in a late Feb. 21 statement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

The decision came just hours after a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two leaders agreed to continue coordinating the creation of a potential safe zone on Turkey’s border with Syria, according to the White House. It’s the second time in recent months that a major decision on Syria followed a phone call between Trump and Erdogan.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is scheduled to meet with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar at the Pentagon on Friday afternoon.

Under the new strategy, the continued U.S. troop presence will not just be limited to northeastern Syria, where the U.S.- and coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are still fighting the remnants of the Islamic State. In addition to keeping a couple hundred troops in the northeast, a small force will remain at the Tanf garrison, a remote base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan, a senior administration official told Foreign Policy.

Maintaining a presence in Syria, particularly at Tanf, which straddles a potential Iranian supply route through Iraq to Syria, has been a goal of Bolton’s for months. During a January trip to the region aimed at reassuring allies that the United States was not backing down from its strategy to counter Iranian aggression, Bolton reportedly discussed with Israeli officials the plan to leave forces at the base as a way to diminish Tehran’s influence in the region.

Tanf was originally a U.S. outpost to train local Syrian fighters. But as the Islamic State has steadily crumbled, Tanf has become a crucial buttress against Iranian influence. Officials in 2017 established an “exclusion zone” about 34 miles around the garrison, which allows U.S. troops to claim self-defense in striking Iranian or other forces moving through that area.

But a continued U.S. presence at Tanf, which is far from the fight against the Islamic State in northeastern Syria, poses major risks. An incident at the garrison in 2017 involving the transport of an Iranian port-a-potty nearly led to a confrontation between U.S. and Iranian forces, illustrating just how quickly even minor events could escalate on the complex battlefield there.

Furthermore, leaving small forces in both Syria and Iraq to “watch Iran” rather than fight the Islamic State raises legal questions. U.S. troops are able to fight nonstate militants, such as the Islamic State or al Qaeda, under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), a response to 9/11. But U.S. military forces are not authorized to target state actors—such as Iranian, Russian, Syrian, or proxy regime forces in Syria—unless they are attacked and are responding in self-defense.

“Congress hasn’t authorized an anti-Iran mission in Syria. The truth is the legal basis for the U.S. military presence in Syria, the 2001 AUMF, is pretty shaky and needs to be revisited,” an aide for Sen. Bernie Sanders told FP in early February. “Any move by the Trump administration to expand that authorization even more to include operations against Iran will definitely draw a response from Congress.”

Still, the decision to maintain troops in northeastern Syria is a win for Syrian Kurds, who have been a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State. The move may be in part directed at bolstering other U.S. allies in the region, particularly the British and the French, who are reportedly hesitant to remain in Syria after U.S. troops depart.

But European defense officials have rebuffed the idea that they are looking for a quick exit. During a meeting at the Pentagon on Thursday, Shanahan and Belgian Defense Minister Didier Reynders flatly denied that European allies had rejected the U.S. request to stay in Syria.

“No, we didn’t say that,” Reynders said of discussions at the Munich Security Conference about the situation in Syria. “It was a very open discussion in Munich about that—but without the refusal from all different countries like you said.”

However, he noted that he would insist on one condition for a continued European presence—a legal mandate to remain on the ground in Syria. It is unclear where that mandate would come from.</s>BAGHOUZ: A convoy of trucks evacuated dozens of people including women and children from the Islamic State group's last Syria redoubt Wednesday, bringing US-backed forces closer to retaking the last sliver of the "caliphate".

The implosion of the jihadist proto-state which once spanned swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq has left Western nations grappling with how to handle citizens who left to join IS.

Around 15 trucks carrying men, women and children exited the last patch of IS territory in eastern Syria, according to AFP correspondents.

Women wearing face veils, several children -- including young veiled girls -- as well as men were seen inside the vehicles.

Their exact number and nationalities were not immediately clear.

The convoy passed a position of the Kurdish-led SDF, which are spearheading the battle against the jihadists, after leaving the last IS holdout in the village of Baghouz, near the Iraqi border.

READ HERE | Take back over 800 ISIS fighters captured in Syria, Donald Trump tells European allies

SDF fighters watched as double-trailer trucks made their way across the arid plain, dotted in places with grass and yellow flowers.

SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said the trucks were evacuating a first batch of civilians, but some remained inside.

"After many days of trying, we were able to evacuate the first batch today," Bali told AFP.

The number of people who quit the holdout would become clear once the convoy arrived at a nearby SDF screening site, he said.

"We don't know if IS fighters are among them, we will know at the screening point," Bali said.

Backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition, the SDF have trapped IS fighters in less than half a square kilometre (0.2 square miles) of Baghouz.

The SDF have slowed their advance in recent days to protect civilians ahead of a final push to defeat the jihadists.

Thousands of people -- mostly women and children related to IS members -- have streamed out of Baghouz in the past weeks, but the flow had largely stopped in recent days.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said a deal appeared to have been reached with the jihadists.

"There have been negotiations for the surrender of the last IS fighters," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

"There are reports of a deal, but we don't know the details yet," he said.

On Tuesday, the SDF said several IS fighters and dozens of civilians handed themselves over to the Kurdish-led force.

Spokesman Adnan Afrin said a convoy of trucks had entered Baghouz to transfer jihadists and their relatives out to SDF-held territory.

The spokesman said foreigners were among those who left the pocket, but did not say where they were from, or if they were civilians.

The Free Burma Rangers volunteer group said 40 people had exited the enclave on Tuesday, including a French woman with two infants.

The United Nations on Tuesday said around 200 families, including many women and children, were "reportedly trapped" in the last IS holdout.

Hundreds of alleged jihadists, including foreigners, have been detained after fleeing the pocket in recent weeks.

At its height, the IS "caliphate" spanned an area the size of the United Kingdom, with the jihadists implementing their brutal rule on millions.

After years of battling IS, the SDF hold hundreds of foreigners suspected of being IS fighters, as well as related women and children.

Syria's Kurds have long urged their home countries to take them back, but many European nations have been reluctant.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged European powers to take back hundreds of their citizens who fought for IS in Syria.

Britain, however, has rebuffed Trump's appeal and is expected to revoke the citizenship of a teenager who fled London to join the jihadists aged just 15, a lawyer for her family said Tuesday.

Shamima Begum, 19, is being held in a refugee camp in northeast Syria.

At the weekend, she gave birth to her third child, and appealed to British authorities to show "compassion" by allowing her and her baby to return.

The United States said Tuesday it was weighing options on an American woman detained in Syria who says she wants to return home.

Hoda Muthana, a 24-year-old from Alabama who became a prominent online agitator for the extremists, said in an interview published Sunday with British daily The Guardian that she had been brainwashed online and "deeply regrets" joining the movement.

While declining to discuss Muthana's case, US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said that the status of US citizens detained in Syria "is by definition extremely complicated".

Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the Badia desert and has claimed deadly attacks in SDF-held areas.

Syria's war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.</s>(Hatha al-Youm | Iraq News )-OMAR OIL FIELD, Syria - US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday, eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the jihadists.More than four years after ISIS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and children left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.Most were women and children, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.Earlier on Friday, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.Fellow SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last jihadists from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold."When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and ISIS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said."They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the ISIS pocket on Wednesday -- mostly women and children -- but trucks left near empty on Thursday.- 'Many French women' -Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners."The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and children trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britain, he told AFP.Human Rights Watch urged the SDF and the US-led coalition supporting it to make protecting civilians a priority."Civilians leaving Baghouz is a relief but it should not obscure the fact that this battle appears to have been waged without sufficient consideration to their wellbeing," the New York-based watchdog's counterterrosim director, Nadim Houry said."Just because they may be families of ISIS members or sympathised with them does not take away their protected status," he said, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.Beyond Baghouz, ISIS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.On Thursday, they detonated a car bomb that killed 20 people -- mostly oil workers -- near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.- US 'peacekeepers' -Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump.Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against ISIS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring Turkey.But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal."A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.At the height of its rule, ISIS imposed its brutal ideology on an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, attracting thousands of supporters from abroad.But some of those foreigners have been killed, while the SDF holds hundreds more.Syria's Kurds have long requested that their home countries take them back, but foreign governments have been reluctant.On Thursday, the father of an Alabama woman who joined ISIS in Syria sued to bring her home after the Trump administration declared she was not a US citizen.Hoda Muthana, 24, says that she regrets joining the extremists and is willing to face prosecution in the United States.A London teenager, meanwhile, faced being left stateless after Britain revoked her citizenship and authorities in Bangladesh, where her parents were born, said they did not want her.Shamima Begum travelled to Syria in 2015 aged just 15, but after giving birth in a refugee camp last weekend says she wants to go home.
The United States' allies France and the United Kingdom say they won't keep their troops in Syria after the United States pulls out.