US Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie said on Saturday about 500 US personnel in east Syria were expected to resume operations against Islamic State in the coming days and weeks.
Islamic State has lost nearly all its territory in Syria and US forces killed its former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last month, but the group that once controlled a third of Syria and neighboring Iraq is still seen as a threat.
The administration of President Donald Trump shocked US allies last December by saying Washington was pulling out virtually all of its troops from Syria.
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It said later it decided to keep a residual force in the northeastern part of the country, focusing on preventing Islamic State from staging a comeback and attacking the oil fields there.
"Now I've got about 500 US personnel generally east of the Euphrates east of Deir al Zor up to Hasaka, northeast all the way up into extreme northeast Syria," McKenzie told reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue security summit in Bahrain.
"It is our intention to remain in that position working with our SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) partners to continue operations against ISIS down the Euphrates river valley where those targets present themselves," he added.
Turkey launched and then halted an offensive against the YPG, the main component of the US-backed SDF that helped the United States defeat Islamic State, which it sees as a terrorist group with links to Kurdish terrorists on Turkish soil.
Moscow, the main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said this week it was also in the process of deploying more Russian military police to northeast Syria, setting up field hospitals for civilians, distributing humanitarian aid and rebuilding infrastructure.
