Iraq: Last US soldiers have left

TT

Published 17.41

 

The last US soldiers have left Iraq. Archive photo. Photo: Hadi Mizban/AP/TT

Iraq announces that the US has fully completed the withdrawal of forces from the federal part of the country.

US military bases and headquarters have been evacuated and are "fully controlled by Iraqi security forces", the government in Baghdad announced on Sunday.

The troop withdrawal applies to the entire so-called federal Iraq, but not the areas in the partially autonomous northern Kurdistan region.

The complete US withdrawal follows an agreement between Baghdad and Washington from 2024. According to the agreement, US soldiers are also to have left the Kurdistan region by September 2026.

A US-led military coalition was deployed in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamist terrorist movement IS in both countries. ISIS was largely defeated in Iraq in 2017, but terrorist cells still operate in the country.