US withdraws final troops from Iraq

 

TT-AP

 

Published 10.46

 

An Iraqi soldier stands amidst the rubble of a building destroyed in an attack in March of this year. Photo: Ali Jabar/AP/TT

After two decades of chaotic warfare and battles against jihadists, the US is bringing home its last remaining troops from Iraq.

Numerous powerful Shiite militias with close ties to Iran remain in the country. Kurds in the north fear being left vulnerable.

Most US troops returned home last year, but a few hundred had remained in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq.

These troops have now left the airbase in Erbil and taken their equipment with them, the Pentagon announced. According to the Pentagon, it is now up to Iraqi forces—"including the Peshmerga and other security forces in Iraqi Kurdistan"—to keep Iraq secure and prevent the resurgence of IS.

Bases belonging to the Kurdish autonomous region have repeatedly come under attack by Iran or its proxies since the US and Israel began their conflict with Iran earlier this year.

Multiple deployments

The US invaded Iraq in 2003 with the aim of ousting then-dictator Saddam Hussein, based on false intelligence claiming he had developed weapons of mass destruction. US forces were withdrawn in 2011, but new troops were deployed three years later to lead an international coalition against the rising threat of IS. After ISIS had largely been defeated—or at least decimated—the US and Iraq agreed that American troops would return home by September 2026 at the latest.

Alongside the US withdrawal, the Iraqi government has sought to disarm the powerful militia groups operating in the country, several of which have close ties to Iran. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has extended the deadline for this disarmament; in a recent interview with *The New York Times*, he stated his intention to have the process completed by the summer of next year.

"Defeated"

The militia group Kataib Hezbollah—part of the Iranian "Axis of Resistance" in the Middle East and closely allied with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard—is now celebrating the departure of the "defeated occupation forces."

The autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, however, is deeply concerned. When the US recently withdrew from Kurdish bases in neighboring Syria, the Kurds faced pressure from all sides and were eventually forced to submit to the country's new Islamist-led government.

According to local authorities, Kurdish areas in Iraq have been targeted by more than a thousand drones and missiles during the broader conflict.

"The fact that the US is leaving Iraqi Kurdistan amidst the region's complex circumstances, without providing a defense system, is alarming," a statement read.