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American forces exit Iraq after two decades
A US-led coalition deployed in Iraq more than a decade ago under the pretext of fighting the Daesh terrorist group completed its withdrawal from Iraq on September 30, with the last troops leaving a base in Erbil under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington.
The US invaded Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein’ regime, which the US falsely accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction.
The collation of the US and its allies withdrew their troops in December 2011, but returned in 2014 after Daesh seized large swathes of territory, committed massacres and forced thousands of women and children into slavery.
The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces stayed on to battle the group’s remnants.
The United States and Iraq agreed in 2024 to wind down the coalition’s mission, and its troops withdrew gradually from bases across the country, restricting their presence to the autonomous northern Kurdistan region.
On Wednesday, the US announced the mission’s formal conclusion.
“Today, the United States and our Coalition partners formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 US-Iraq joint statement and US national interests,” the Pentagon said.
The US Department of Defense however added that it would “continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners".
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi hailed the end of the mission as the start of a new chapter.
“A new phase has begun, defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, unity of decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends,” Zaidi said at a ceremony on Wednesday.
He had also declared that October 1 would be celebrated as Sovereignty Day.
It is “a national occasion that affirms the completion of Iraq’s path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions", the heads of Iraq’s executive, legislative and judicial branches said on Monday.
They added that “the presence of weapons outside state authority must be addressed... in line with timelines set by the government, in a manner that strengthens state sovereignty".
Zaidi, who came to power this year with the US’s blessing, has vowed to reinforce the state’s monopoly on arms and ensure that armed factions hand over their weapons to the state.
His government initially set September 30 as the deadline for factions to disarm, but later withdrew the time limit as talks continued to “regulate” weapons – an issue that has fueled division and is expected to take much longer to resolve.