Senate bill to withdraw US troops from Syria fails to pass

A US Senate bill aiming at withdrawing some 900 US troops stationed in Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) has failed on Thursday after senators struck down the motion.

US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the bill, which called for the removal of US forces from Syria unless their deployment was authorised by Congress, as opposed to by the White House.

The bill would have mandated US troops to be withdrawn from Syria within 30 days if Congress did not approve their deployment.

"The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East. Yet, 900 US troops remain in Syria with no vital interest at stake," Sen. Paul told the US outlet The Intercept.

The US mission in Syria and Iraq started in 2014, nominally to combat the so-called Islamic State group (IS), which was territoriality defeated in 2019 but continued to carry out sleeper cell attacks.

US troops are mainly present in an advisory capacity, training and equipping local partners on the ground, which in the case of Syria is the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The call for the withdrawal came as US forces come under more frequent attacks in Syria and Iraq by Iranian-linked militias, with over 76 attacks since mid-October.

Pentagon officials have said the aim of these attacks have been aimed at forcing US troops out of Syria and Iraq, and that militias were taking advantage of the Israel-Hamas war for their gains.

The US authorised US troops to be sent to Syria as part of OIR in 2014 by the US President, not Congress.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, however, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, a bill called the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorised operations against al-Qaeda.

The AUMF has been continually extended since 2001, and successive US presidents have argued that the US mission in Syria is covered under the bill, as IS is the same as Al Qaeda.