In the past week, the Pentagon has acknowledged that its footprint in Iraq and Syria is bigger than it has claimed for years

Two camps in northeastern Syria, al-Hol and Roj, hold thousands of alleged Islamic State fighters and their family members. In a new Syria, their fate is in question.

Assad, old alliances have crumbled, and global powers are figuring out their relationships with Syria’s new de facto leaders.

The number of US troops in Syria has regularly surged higher than the Pentagon has publicly disclosed since at least 2020, and in recent months increased to more than double the roughly 900 troops the US has long said are in Syria,

President Trump’s dilemma in Syria is to let a terrorist state emerge at the heart of the Middle East on his watch or to violate his campaign promise of “no more foreign wars."

A Pentagon spokesman said the increase was unrelated to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad to rebel forces in early December.

"I believe there will be violent fighting, the end of which we do not know," a top Syrian Democratic Council official told Newsweek.

With the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and an uncertain future, U.S. troops in the region must navigate a geopolitical minefield.

The United States, US military has said that it killed two fighters from the terrorist group Islamic State in Syria and wounded another. “The terrorists

Will he walk the walk and not just talk the talk? And if he doesn’t win in the elections, will he peacefully stand aside for whoever does win?” one analyst said.

Assad’s ouster has raised urgent questions about the 2,000 troops who serve as a bulwark against ISIS and Iran.

During the course of Syria’s brutal civil war, Assad used chemical weapons more than 300 times against his own citizens, causing thousands of casualties. The worst such attack was a barrage of sarin-filled rockets launched against the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013 that killed an estimated 1,