Pentagon says will maintain under 1,000 troops in Syria as US Congressmen visit Damascus

The United States will roughly halve the number of troops it has deployed in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, the Pentagon has said. It comes as two lawmakers and members of Republican Party held talks with Syrian officials in Damascus.

"Today the secretary of defence directed the consolidation of US forces in Syria... to select locations," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Friday, without specifying the sites where this would take place.

"This deliberate and conditions-based process will bring the US footprint in Syria down to less than 1,000 US forces in the coming months," he said.

"As this consolidation takes place, consistent with President Trump's commitment to peace through strength, US Central Command will remain poised to continue strikes against the remnants of (Daesh) in Syria," Parnell added, referring to the military command responsible for the region.

America's Syria pullback

Washington has had troops in Syria for years as part of international efforts against Daesh, which rose out of the chaos of the country's civil war to seize swaths of territory there and in neighboring Iraq over a decade ago.

Daesh has since suffered major defeats in both countries.

Meanwhile, two US Congress members landed in Damascus on Friday to meet Syrian officials, the first visit by American lawmakers to the war-ravaged country since Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power in December.

The two are US Representatives Cory Mills of Florida, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana.

Both are members of President Donald Trump's Republican Party.

Mills met Syrian President Ahmed Alsharaa on Friday night, said a person in the delegation.

They discussed US sanctions and Iran during a 90-minute meeting.

The source said Stutzman was set to meet on Saturday with Alsharaa.

Asked about meeting a leader still sanctioned by Washington, Stutzman cited examples of Trump's administration engaging with Iranian and North Korean leaders.

"We shouldn’t be afraid to talk to anybody," he said, and said he was eager to see how Syria would deal with foreign fighters and rule the country's diverse population inclusively.

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Source: TRT