Pete Hegseth (since 25 January 2025) Mette Frederiksen (since 27 June 2019) Lars Løkke Rasmussen (until 27 June 2019) Helle Thorning-Schmidt Dick Schoof (from 2024) Mark Rutte(until 2024) Keir Starmer (since 5 July 2024) Rishi Sunak (until 5 July 2024) Liz Truss (Until 25 October 2022) Boris Johnson (until 6 September 2022) Theresa May (until 24 July 2019) David Cameron (until 13 July 2016) Stephen Hillier Anthony Albanese (since 23 May 2022) Scott Morrison (until 23 May 2022) Malcolm Turnbull (until 24 August 2018) Tony Abbott (until 15 September 2015) Trevor Jones David Johnston Emmanuel Macron (since 14 May 2017) François Hollande (until 14 May 2017) Jean-Yves Le Drian Pierre de Villiers King Salman King Abdullah († 2015) Mohammad bin Salman King Mohammed VI Abdelilah Benkirane Bouchaib Arroub Mohamed bin Zayed (since 14 May 2022) Khalifa Al Nahyan (until 13 May 2022) Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Tamim Al Thani Hamad bin Ali Al Attiyah Salih Muslim Muhammad Masoud Barzani Olaf Scholz (until January 2022) Angela Merkel (until 8 December 2021) Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Volker Wieker Stephen Harper (until November 2015) Justin Trudeau (until February 2016) Thomas J. Lawson (until February 2016) Bashar al-Assad  Dawoud Rajiha (until 2012) Fahd Jassem al-Freij (until 2018)Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (until 2020) Ali Mahmoud Abbas  Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev (until 2020) Mikhail Mishustin (from 2020) Sergei Shoygu Valery Gerasimov Viktor Bondarev Sergey Rudskoy(Chief of Gen Staff.

In mid-January 2018, the Trump administration indicated its intention to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to accomplish US political objectives, including countering Iranian influence and ousting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

[174][175] In 2019, the coalition saw decisive results in its intervention against the Islamic State; the terror group lost its last remaining territory in Syria during the battle of Baghuz Fawqani[176] and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died during a US special forces raid in Idlib in October 2019.

[177] The Trump administration ordered all US forces to withdraw from Rojava in early October ahead of a Turkish incursion into the region, a controversial move widely seen as a reneging of the US's alliance with the SDF in favor of NATO ally Turkey.

[178] However, by November 2019, US troops instead repositioned to eastern Syria, reinforcing their presence in the al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor governorates, with the subordinate mission of securing SDF-controlled oil and gas infrastructure from the IS insurgency and the Syrian government.

A 2006 memorandum by US diplomat William Roebuck of the embassy in Damascus stated:We believe Bashar's weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as...the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists.

Many of our suggestions underline using Public Diplomacy and more indirect means to send messages that influence the inner circle.According to Seymour Hersh and activist Robert Naiman, Roebuck, who went on to be charge d'affairs of the Libyan embassy under Obama, also considered the advantages of promoting religious sectarianism in Syria.

[187] A simultaneous $1 billion covert program called Timber Sycamore conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) aimed at fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was more successful, but was decimated by Russian bombing, and canceled in mid-2017 by the Trump administration.

[205] In addition to the covert CIA program,[206] on 17 September 2014, the US House of Representatives voted to authorize the executive branch to overtly train and equip Syrian rebels against ISIL forces, at a cost of $500 million.

US airstrikes were conducted against an ISIL military base known as the "Osama bin Laden Camp" while at the same time, two dozen US special forces soldiers dropped from helicopters near an ISIL-held building, thought to be for high-value prisoners.

[225] On 8 December 2024, following the end of the Assad regime and takeover by the SDF and Syrian opposition, the United States Central Command announced renewed operations and air strikes against ISIL cells and targets within Syria.

[206] John R. Allen, President Obama's envoy to the international coalition against ISIL, stated "It is clearly part of our plan, that not only we will train them, and we will equip them with the latest weapons systems, but we will also protect them when the time comes".

[240] Jane's Defence Weekly reported that in December 2015 the US shipped 994 tonnes of weapons and ammunition (including packaging and container weight), generally of Soviet-type equipment from Eastern Europe, to Syrian rebel groups under the ongoing CIA Timber Sycamore operation.

[255] Commenting on Obama's address, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich [ru] opposed the US intervention against ISIL in Syria "without the consent of the legitimate government" and said that "this step, in the absence of a UN Security Council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law".

[287] On 17 March 2016, the day after the declaration of the Federation of Northern Syria, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter praised the Syrian Democratic Forces as having "proven to be excellent partners of ours on the ground in fighting ISIL.

They manned an artillery battery of M-777 Howitzers whilst additional infantrymen from the unit provided security; resupplies were handled by part of the expeditionary force's combat logistics element.

[301] On 16 January 2019, a suicide bombing claimed by ISIL in the SDF-controlled town of Manbij killed four US personnel and injured three servicemen, making it the deadliest attack on Coalition forces in the country since the intervention.

By 9 February, hundreds of US airstrikes and ground support for the SDF continued as the Kurdish-led force began its final assault on the last ISIL holdouts trapped in a small cluster of hamlets in eastern Syria (including Al-Baghuz Fawqani and southern Al-Marashidah) no larger than a few square miles.

The US was not seeking a United Nations mandate for the deployment and did not envision asking NATO to sponsor the mission, an administration official said at the time, adding that the troops would not technically be "peacekeepers," a term that carries restricted rules of engagement.

On 29 March, US officials reportedly said the Pentagon's latest plans called for cutting its combat force in northeastern Syria roughly in half by early May 2019, or to about 1,000 troops, and would then pause pullout operations.

[319] Senior US military officials said that troops abandoned bases as far south as Tabqah and Raqqa and consolidated all personnel and essential equipment near Kobanî to await airlifts and convoys out of the country throughout coming weeks.

[320][322] On 16 October, two Operation Inherent Resolve F-15 jets bombed their section of the Lafarge cement factory base, located between Kobanî and Ayn Issa, "to destroy an ammunition cache and reduce the facility's military usefulness" as Turkish-backed militias advanced towards the area.

"The location had been the headquarters of the de facto Defeat-ISIS coalition in Syria," Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Myles Caggins III said, adding that "No US forces or equipment were ever in jeopardy and remain within separate, secure facilities."

[332] While Syrian government troops gradually re-established its presence in the region, Russia and Turkey continued to occupy and conduct patrols throughout north east Syria as well, in accordance with the Sochi Agreement.

While US forces continued to reduce its presence in northern Syria by the hundreds to avoid Syrian-SDF and Turkish fighting, the US simultaneously shifted more resources south and east into the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor Governorate.

He added that "DOD [Department of Defense] personnel or contractors are not authorized to provide assistance to any other private company, including its employees or agents, seeking to develop oil resources in northeastern Syria.

Separate from Turkey's own occupation zone in northern Syria, the deal was reached partly to prevent a potential future Turkish ground incursion into Rojava against US-backed Kurdish forces.

[370] The buffer zone agreement was proven to be short-lived and collapsed on 7 October, after US President Donald Trump gave his approval for a Turkish ground offensive into Rojava, and ordered the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria.

"[372] On 29 September 2014, several groups including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the Aleppo Media Center, and the Local Coordination Committees reported that US strikes hit a grain silo in the ISIL-controlled town of Manbij in northern Syria, killing two civilians.

[390][391] On 18 March 2019, during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, a US special operations-led airstrike killed up to 80 people, including 64 civilians, almost exclusively women and children, and 18 ISIL militants, according to The New York Times.