Trump to decide 'very quickly' on US pullout from Syria

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he expects to decide "very quickly" whether to remove US troops from war-torn Syria, saying their primary mission was to defeat Daesh and "we've almost completed that task."

A decision by Trump to withdraw from Syria would conflict with the views of his top advisers.

In fact, as Trump addressed reporters at the White House, high-ranking US officials spoke elsewhere in Washington about the need to stay in Iraq and Syria to finish off the militant group, which once controlled large swathes of territory in both countries, and keep it from rising up again.

At a news conference with the presidents of the Baltic nations, Trump was asked whether he still favoured pulling US troops out of Syria.

"As far as Syria is concerned, our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of ISIS," Trump answered, using another acronym for Daesh. "We've completed that task and we'll be making a decision very quickly, in co-ordination with others in the area, as to what we will do."

The mission is "very costly for our country and it helps other countries a helluva lot more than it helps us," Trump said.

"I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation," he said during the appearance with his counterparts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Trump also noted that the Baltic states were partners with the US in the anti-Daesh coalition.

The main Daesh holdout in Syria is in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, where momentum by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose main component is the YPG, has stalled in recent weeks as many YPG members have shifted west to the Afrin area to fight Turkish forces. 

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch in January to clear the Afrin enclave from the YPG, which had long been firing rockets into Turkish territory from the region.

The YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, which is not only on Turkey's terror list, but also on those of the US and the EU.

Pentagon officials have publicly raised the prospect of this giving Daesh the breathing room it needs to regroup.

Many have warned that a premature US withdrawal from Syria would cede the country to Iran and Russia, which have supported Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad. Iran's continued presence in Syria is especially troubling to neighbouring Israel, a US ally that regards Iran as an existential threat.

Some high-ranking Trump administration officials urged caution.

Leone Lakhani is in Washington for more on what's factoring into Trump's decision, despite the military's assessment. 

Gen Joseph Votel told a conference at the US Institute for Peace that the United States would have to continue its work against remnants of Daesh in eastern Syria. Votel is commander of US Central Command, which oversees US military operations across the Middle East, including Syria.

Votel said the military campaign has been largely successful but was not over.

"The hard part, I think, is in front of us, and that is stabilising these areas, consolidating our gains, getting people back into their homes, addressing the long-term issues like reconstruction of towns and cities badly damaged by the fighting and by Daesh's scorched-earth tactics. "There is a military role in this, certainly in the stabilisation phase."

Trump was expected to discuss Syria at a meeting later on Tuesday with his national security team. It was not immediately clear whether he would make a decision on withdrawing troops at that time.

Also on the meeting agenda was the fate of some $200 million in US stabilisation assistance for Syria that the White House put on hold after Trump said during a speech in Ohio last week that he wanted to leave Syria "very soon." The State Department was to have spent the money on building up the country's infrastructure, including power, water and roads.

At the same Institute of Peace event, State Department envoy Brett McGurk said, "We want to keep eyes on the prize, on ISIS, because ISIS is not finished."

A third US official, Mark Green, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, also argued at the conference that US stabilisation efforts in Syria are critical to a lasting defeat of Daesh.