The Iraqi military has officially announced the completion of the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from all military bases within federal Iraqi territory, excluding the Kurdistan region.
The military committee overseeing the mission’s conclusion stated on Sunday, “We announce today… the completion of the evacuation of all military bases and leadership headquarters in the official federal areas of Iraq of advisers.”
According to the statement, these sites are now under the “full control of Iraqi security forces.” This marks a transition to a new phase of “bilateral security relations with the United States.”
The withdrawal follows a 2024 agreement between Baghdad and Washington, which stipulated the end of the coalition’s combat mission by the end of 2025 in federal Iraq and by September 2026 in the Kurdistan region.
Coalition forces were originally deployed in 2014 to combat the Islamic State (IS) group after it seized large areas of Iraq and Syria. While IS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, its sleeper cells remain active.
The committee affirmed that Iraqi forces are now “fully capable of preventing the reappearance of IS in Iraq and its infiltration across borders.”
Coordination against IS will continue, particularly concerning the group’s presence in Syria. This will be managed through the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province and will involve logistical support from the coalition’s presence at an airbase in Erbil.
