Iraq announces complete withdrawal of all US-led foreign forces

US & Iraq – (Special Correspondent / Web Desk)

On Sunday, Iraq announced that US-led coalition forces have completed their withdrawal from military bases across the country’s federal territory, excluding the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north. The military committee overseeing the mission said the evacuation of all bases and coalition advisory headquarters is now finished. These sites are now fully under the control of Iraqi security forces, marking a transition toward bilateral security relations with the United States.

BREAKING:

American forces are leaving Iraq

US announced that negotiations to withdraw from Iraq will begin in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/YpgYKNJ0An

— Globe Eye News (@GlobeEyeNews) January 25, 2024

Most coalition troops had already left under a 2024 agreement between Baghdad and Washington, which outlined the end of the US-led mission in federal Iraq by 2025 and in Kurdistan by September 2026. US and allied forces had been in Iraq and Syria since 2014 to combat the Islamic State group, which had once seized large areas to declare a “caliphate.” Although IS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, sleeper cells remain active.

With the final withdrawal, only Iraqi forces remain, and the military committee emphasized that they are now fully capable of preventing IS from reemerging or crossing borders.

“Coordination with the international coalition will continue with regards to completely eliminating IS’s presence in Syria,” it added.

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It pointed to “the coalition’s role in Iraq offering cross-border logistical support for operations in Syria, through their presence at an airbase in Erbil”, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. In December, two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in Syria in an attack blamed on IS, sparking fears of a resurgence in the country.

The statement added that anti-IS operations would be coordinated with the coalition through the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province in western Iraq.

IS attacks in Iraq have massively declined in recent years, but the group maintains a presence in the country’s mountainous areas.

A UN Security Council report in August said: “In Iraq, the group has focused on rebuilding networks along the Syrian border and restoring capacity in the Badia region.”

Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down a US-led coalition fighting the militant Islamic State group in Iraq by September 2025, with US forces departing bases where they had been stationed. However, a small unit of US military advisers and support personnel remained.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that the agreement originally stipulated a full pullout of US forces from the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq by September. But “developments in Syria” since then required maintaining a “small unit” of between 250 and 350 advisers and security personnel at the base.

Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah oversaw the assignment of tasks and duties to various military units at the base on Saturday following the withdrawal of US forces.