On December 19, 2018, President Donald Trump ordered all remaining U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Syria. The U.S. had been conducting direct combat operations in Syria since April 2017. Department of Defense officials said they expected the troop withdrawal to take no more than 30 days. In a video posted to Twitter, Trump said, “We have won against ISIS. Our boys, our young women, our men – they’re all coming back, and they’re coming back now.” According to The New York Times, this move was the catalyst for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s retirement, which was announced Thursday night. Click here to read more about the conflict in Syria and the Trump administration.