US Forces Exit Iraq After Two Decades
Washington completes military withdrawal as Iraq enters a new security phase amid regional tensions
- US completes its military withdrawal from Iraq after more than two decades
- Final troops leave after the 2024 Washington-Baghdad agreement
- Withdrawal follows the end of the US-led anti-ISIS mission
- Iraq faces new security challenges involving militias and Islamic State remnants
By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON –US forces on Wednesday were slated to pull out from their last bases in Iraq after an agreement between Baghdad and Washington – a move celebrated by Iran-backed groups.
According to reports, about 4,500 Americans have died during the over two decades of war in the region.
US troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein and departed in 2011. Three years later, the Iraqi authorities invited a smaller US-led mission to fight the Islamic State group that rampaged across the country, seizing large swaths of territory.
The extremist group was reduced to scattered sleeper cells, the two nations had in 2024 agreed to wind the mission down, The Associated Press reported.
In 2025, US troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq, but continued to maintain a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region.
These bases have regularly come under attack ever since the US and Israel carried out deadly strikes against Iran on February 28 this year.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.
The Iraqi government had linked the September 30 deadline for US withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said that the deadline for militia disarmament has been pushed to June 2027.
The officials in Iraq’s Kurdish region expressed anxiety about the departure, especially regarding the removal of US air defense systems.
The Kurdish regional government’s Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region faced over 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent US-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.
