The United States continues to draw down its forces in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria and will eventually limit their presence to a single base in Rmeilan, home to some of the country’s major oil-producing fields, according to two officials who spoke not for attribution to Al-Monitor. The withdrawal is in line with the Trump administration’s plans to reduce its troop presence in Syria to fewer than 1,000 personnel by the end of the year and consolidate at a single base, down from a total of eight bases, as announced earlier by Syria envoy and US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack in an interview with private Turkish broadcaster NTV.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that US forces had pulled out of two more bases — Tel Baydar and al-Wazir in Hasakah — after earlier withdrawals from two others in the Euphrates River Valley and Deir Ezzor, also home to oil and gas fields. US forces have been partnering since 2014 with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight the Islamic State (ISIS). An estimated 2,000 US Special Forces were deployed in the area until the drawdown began.

A senior Syrian Kurdish official said US forces were pulling out of al-Shadadi, another base in Hasakah that was frequently targeted by Iran-backed Shiite militias until they were forced to leave Syria when longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December.

The accelerated pullout comes amid the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel. American troops would be among the most vulnerable if the Iranian military or Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq decided to retaliate for the ongoing Israeli air campaign, which has decapitated the top echelons of Iran’s security forces and inflicted heavy damage on its nuclear and oil facilities, among other targets. The risk to US forces in Syria and Iraq can only grow as the Trump administration weighs Israel’s demands for it to join the war, the sources briefing Al-Monitor said.