US-led troops exit Iraq

The US-led international coalition has ended its military mission in Iraq after more than a decade of operations against the Islamic State group, marking a major shift in the country’s security arrangements.

Coalition forces were deployed to Iraq and Syria in 2014 after Islamic State seized large areas of both countries and carried out widespread killings and other atrocities. The group lost its territorial control in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces remained in the region to support operations against its remnants.

Baghdad and Washington agreed in 2024 on a phased process to wind down the coalition’s mission, with troops gradually withdrawing from bases across Iraq before their presence was restricted to the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north. The final withdrawal was completed on Wednesday, bringing the coalition’s military mission in Iraq to an end.

The Iraqi government has presented the departure as an important step towards strengthening national sovereignty and removing one of the reasons cited by powerful Iran-backed armed factions for retaining weapons outside state control. Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi declared October 1, the day after the coalition’s departure, as Sovereignty Day.

In a joint statement, the heads of Iraq’s executive, legislative and judicial branches described the occasion as “a national occasion that affirms the completion of Iraq’s path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions”. They also called for greater state control over weapons held by armed groups. “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,” they said.

Zaidi, who took office this year, has pledged to reinforce the state’s monopoly on weapons and push armed factions to surrender their arms to government authorities. His administration initially set September 30 as a deadline for the factions to disarm, but the timeframe was later withdrawn as negotiations continued over efforts to regulate weapons outside formal state structures.

The issue remains contentious, with several powerful armed groups resisting calls to disarm and senior political figures attempting to negotiate a compromise. Some factions have said the departure of foreign forces alone would not satisfy their demands, which also include an end to what they describe as American political and economic interference in Iraq.

Kataeb Hezbollah, one of the country’s powerful Iran-aligned armed groups, welcomed the coalition’s departure, describing it as the beginning of a broader effort to achieve full sovereignty. The group said the withdrawal of “the occupation forces… is a start towards achieving full sovereignty”. However, it also issued a warning to Zaidi’s government. “A government that doesn’t work for the good of its people will be brought down by all possible means,” the group said.

During the campaign against Islamic State, both the US-led coalition and Iran-backed armed factions fought against the jihadist group as a common enemy. Following Islamic State’s territorial defeat, however, the continued presence of coalition troops became a persistent source of tension between the armed factions, the Iraqi government and Washington.

Iran-backed groups repeatedly demanded the departure of US forces and carried out drone and missile attacks against coalition positions. The United States responded on several occasions with strikes against the factions, including operations that killed commanders. Attacks against US-led forces in Iraq’s Kurdistan region later intensified amid wider regional conflict involving Iran and its allies.

The coalition’s departure has also raised security concerns in the Kurdistan region, where residents and officials have questioned how the autonomous region will defend itself against future drone attacks once coalition air-defence capabilities are no longer present.

Despite the end of the coalition mission, Iraqi authorities have stressed that the country’s fight against Islamic State and other militant threats is not over, with responsibility increasingly shifting to Iraqi security forces. The coalition had already ended its presence in Syria earlier this year, making its departure from Iraq another major step in the winding down of the military mission launched against Islamic State more than a decade ago.