US military vehicles drive in Hasakah, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of Islamic State.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces – the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against Islamic State for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be “not enough” to contain the threat of Islamic State.

“The threat of Islamic State has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time … and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on Islamic State,” he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

Islamic State, also known as ISIS and Daesh, ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of Islamic rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But Islamic State has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate Islamist rebels.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign jihadists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad’s fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that Islamic State had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.

The post US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the US knew exactly where Iran‘s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was “hiding,” that he was an easy target but would not be killed, at least for now.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin,” Trump said.

The post Trump Says US Won’t Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, ‘At Least Not for Now’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A hooded man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration

An anti-Iranian government hacking group with potential ties to Israel and a track record of destructive cyberattacks on Iran claimed in social media posts on Tuesday that it had destroyed data at Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah.

The group — known as Gonjeshke Darande, or “Predatory Sparrow” — hacked the bank because they accused it of helping fund Iran’s military, according to one of the messages posted online.

The hack comes amid increasing hostilities between Israel and Iran, after Israel attacked multiple military and nuclear targets in Iran last week. Both sides have launched multiple missile attacks against each other in the days since.

Reuters could not immediately verify the attack on Bank Sepah. The bank‘s website was offline on Tuesday and its London-based subsidiary, Bank Sepah International plc, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Customers were having problems accessing their accounts, according to Israeli media.

Gonjeshke Darande did not respond to multiple messages sent via social media.

“Disrupting the availability of this bank’s funds, or triggering a broader collapse of trust in Iranian banks, could have major impacts there,” Rob Joyce, the former top cybersecurity official at the NSA, said in a post on X.

In 2022, Gonjeshke Darande claimed responsibility for a cyberattack against an Iranian steel production facility. The sophisticated attack caused a large fire at the facility, resulting in tangible, offline damage. Such attacks are usually beyond the capabilities of activist hackers, security experts say, and would be more in line with the capabilities of a nation state.

The group has also been publicly linked by cybersecurity researchers to a 2021 cyberattack that caused widespread outages at gas stations across Iran.

Israel has never formally acknowledged that it is behind the group, although Israeli media has widely reported Gonjeshke Darande as “Israel-linked.”

The post Suspected Israeli Hackers Claim to Destroy Data at Iran’s Bank Sepah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.