US Military Completes Iraq Withdrawal  09/30 06:27

   The U.S. military announced on Wednesday that it has completed the 
withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight 
the Islamic State group. The last U.S. troops left an air base in northern Iraq 
under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.

   BAGHDAD (AP) -- The U.S. military announced on Wednesday that it has 
completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year 
mission to fight the Islamic State group. The last U.S. troops left an air base 
in northern Iraq under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.

   The withdrawal, agreed on two years ago, comes against the backdrop of the 
ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has also sometimes spilled 
over into Iraq, with Iran-backed militias firing on U.S. troops and the U.S. 
striking the groups' strongholds.

   Baghdad touted the end of the U.S. mission as a sign of the country's 
increasing strength and sovereignty.

   The withdrawal was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups but raised concerns 
among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region. Meanwhile, 
questions loom around the future of the Iraqi militias, which the Baghdad 
government has sought -- with little success so far -- to disarm.

   Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that U.S. troops and 
equipment had completed an "orderly departure" from the air base in Irbil, in 
northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

   "This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated 
ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region," he said. 
"It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led 
security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship."

   Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and 
described the U.S. withdrawal as the beginning of a "new phase, one defined by 
Iraq's sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its 
forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its 
friends."

   He said Iraqi security forces will continue the fight against IS and the 
government will ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons.

   U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. They departed in 
2011, but three years later, Iraqi authorities invited a smaller U.S.-led 
mission to fight the Islamic State group, which had rampaged across Iraq, 
seizing large swaths of territory.

   With the extremist group reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and 
Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind the mission down.

   U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but 
maintained a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semiautonomous 
northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the 
U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi 
militias also have coordinated with Yemen's Houthi rebels to attack Saudi 
Arabia.

   The Iraqi government initially linked the Sept. 30 deadline for U.S. 
withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.

   While a handful of less-influential militias have agreed to turn over their 
weapons, powerful groups close to Iran rejected the prospect or set conditions 
for disarming that the government would be unlikely to meet.

   Al-Zaidi has since walked back the deadline. He told The New York Times 
earlier this month that the deadline for militia disarmament has been pushed to 
June 2027.

   The effects of the U.S. withdrawal may not be immediately visible, 
particularly since the U.S. military presence had already been scaled down. But 
officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure 
and particularly about the removal of U.S. air defense systems.

   The Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region 
had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent 
U.S.-Iran conflict.

   "The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these 
complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a 
matter of concern," the statement said.

   Iran-allied groups in Iraq, meanwhile, have celebrated the U.S. withdrawal.

   "The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is 
the beginning of full sovereignty," Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official 
with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement.

   He added a warning to al-Zaidi and his government not to carry out American 
plans, threatening that "any government that does not work for the benefit of 
the people will be overthrown by all means."