US begins troops withdrawal from Syria

The United States has started withdrawing its troops from Syria, a US military official confirmed on Friday.

The New York Times (NYT) quoted the spokesman for the United States-led coalition against the Islamic State, Colonel Sean Ryan, as saying that the US-led coalition had "begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria."

However, the military official denied providing any further details regarding the "specific timelines, locations or troop movements."

President Donald Trump, who was on his first trip to visit troops stationed in Iraq in December last year, defended his decision of pulling out armed forces from Syria stating that the US military gains against the Islamic State terror group are the reason he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria.

President Trump had also stated that the Islamic State (ISIS) has been destroyed and now he wishes to bring the troops back to their homeland.

"If anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an ISIS loaded mess when I became President, they would be a national hero. ISIS is mostly gone, we're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time-fighting ISIS remnants......," Trump tweeted.

The US President's impulsive decision to withdraw troops from Syria was announced on December 19 last year, after declaring the ISIS to have been fully 'destroyed', created a rift between him and the US military.

The previous week, Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the US will withdraw its troops from Syria only after defeating ISIS and ensuring that the Kurds are safe.

Bolton, who travelled to Israel to reassure the US ally of the Trump-ordered withdrawal, said there was no stipulated time for the pullout of American forces in Syria, but insisted that it was not an "unlimited commitment.