QAMISHLI, Syria — The US forces that led the coalition against the Daesh terror group will complete their withdrawal from Syria within a month, three sources told AFP on Monday, as troops began leaving a major base.

 

The withdrawal comes as Syria's government has expanded its control to the country's northeast, previously controlled by US-allied Kurdish forces, and formally joined the coalition against Daesh.

 

It also comes as Syrian state media reported that four Syrian security personnel were killed in a Daesh attack in the northern city of Raqqa, which was recently taken back into central government control from Kurdish forces.

 

With Kurdish forces at the forefront, Daesh was territorially defeated in 2019 but retains sleeper cells. On Saturday the group urged its extremists to fight the Syrian authorities.

 

On Monday, Syria's official SANA news agency quoted a security source as saying that "four members of the internal security forces" were killed in an attack attributed to Daesh.

 

Syria's interior ministry said the "terrorist attack" had targeted a checkpoint and that an assailant was also killed.

 

The United States has about 1,000 troops still deployed in Syria.

 

It had intervened in the country in 2014 to fight Daesh, which had taken over swathes of Syria and Iraq in a lightning offensive.

 

A diplomat from a country allied with both the United States and Syria said the withdrawal should be completed within 20 days.

 

The Kurdish source said "the international coalition forces will end their presence, which has lasted for about 12 years, in northern and eastern Syria within a period of three to five weeks".

 

"Over the coming days, successive military convoys will transport logistical supplies, military equipment, radar systems, and missiles from the two remaining bases," he added, referring to Qasrak and Kharab Al Jir, also in Hasakeh province.

 

The withdrawal comes as the US, which long backed the Kurds, has deemed their mission against Daesh to be "largely" over, with Syria joining the international anti-Daesh coalition.

 

After the Syrian authorities' deployment in the northeast last month, the US military said it transferred thousands of Daesh suspects, including many Syrians but also Westerners, to Iraq after they were held in Kurdish-run prisons for years.

 

Syrian authorities had transferred remaining families in Al Hol, the largest camp housing relatives of suspected Daesh fighters, to another site in the north.

 

Thousands of family members of foreign extremists had previously fled the camp and they remain unaccounted for.

 

Human Rights Watch expressed concern over the wellbeing of 8,500 people after the camps of Al Hol, which Damascus shut down on Sunday, and Roj, still under Kurdish control, close.

 

"After control of Al Hol was transferred to Syrian authorities on January 20, most residents reportedly left in a largely unplanned and chaotic manner," the international watchdog said.

 

"The camps have long held thousands of women and children, most of whom have never been charged with a crime and were detained for years in life-threatening conditions because their countries failed to repatriate them."