PerspectivePentagon Report: U.S. Pullout from Syria Strengthens Terrorists

The impulsive decision by President Trump to pull most U.S. troops out of northeastern Syria in early October has strengthened the Islamic State terrorist group in that country, despite the U.S. military’s recent killing of the group’s leader, according to a new Pentagon assessment.

John M. Donnelly writes in Roll Call that accodring to an audit produced by Glenn Fine, the Defense Department inspector general, who is the lead IG for overseeing U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq,

ISIS is reconstituting its forces and readying new plans for terrorist attacks in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal and Turkey’s subsequent invasion of Syria, and other forces in the area are unlikely to prioritize counterterrorism as the U.S. military did, according to an intelligence report summarized in a Pentagon audit published Tuesday.

The Defense Intelligence Agency told Fine that ISIS is “likely to exploit the reduction in counter-terrorism pressure to reconstitute its operations in Syria and expand its ability to conduct transnational attacks,” he wrote. “The DIA also stated that absent counter-terrorism pressure, ISIS would likely have more freedom to build clandestine networks.”

The intelligence agency also told Fine that ISIS “probably will attempt to free” ISIS members detained in prisons in Syria. The terrorist group will likely have the “time and space” to target the West and provide support to its global branches and networks, Fine wrote. 

In the longer term, he said, ISIS will probably seek to “regain control of some Syrian population centers and expand its global footprint.”