The United States announced Wednesday that it had completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State group. The last US troops and equipment completed an "orderly departure" from Erbil Air Base in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on September 30, formally ending Operation Inherent Resolve's military mission inside the country under a 2024 agreement between Washington and Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the milestone "reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region," and marks a transition "from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship." He added that the US military will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to Iraqi partners.
President Donald Trump hailed the departure in a social media post, calling it the conclusion of "a very expensive excursion into Hell," and described the withdrawal by the September 30 deadline as "orderly." Appearing later at a White House event, he called the Iraq involvement a "quagmire" and said, "It's been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place."
A new phase for Iraq
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the 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 that the government will ensure non-state groups no longer hold weapons.
The withdrawal is the final step of a process agreed in 2024 between Washington and Baghdad to wind down the coalition's military mission against ISIS. US troops had already pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year, maintaining only a small presence of hundreds of troops in the Kurdish region. For historical context: US troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, departed in 2011, and returned in 2014 when Iraqi authorities invited a smaller US-led mission to fight the Islamic State group, which had seized large swaths of territory.
The handover took place against the backdrop of an ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has repeatedly spilled over into Iraq, with Iran-backed militias firing on US troops and the US striking the groups' strongholds, according to the AP.
Anxious Kurds, celebrating militias
The announcement drew sharply different reactions inside Iraq. Officials in Iraq's Kurdish region expressed anxiety about the departure, particularly the removal of US air defense systems. The Kurdistan region's Peshmerga Ministry said the region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile strikes during the recent US-Iran conflict, and warned that the US departure without an alternative defense system was "a matter of concern." Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani thanked coalition countries for helping defeat ISIS while warning that the terrorist threat persisted.
Iran-allied groups, meanwhile, celebrated. "The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty," said Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia — though his statement also warned al-Zaidi's government against carrying out American plans.
What comes next
Questions loom over the future of Iraq's militias. The Baghdad government had initially linked the September 30 withdrawal deadline to the disarmament of non-state armed groups, but while a handful of less-influential militias have agreed to turn over weapons, powerful Iran-aligned groups have rejected the prospect or set conditions the government would be unlikely to meet. Al-Zaidi has since pushed the disarmament deadline to June 2027, the AP reported.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, said negotiations over the regulation of weapons had not produced an agreement and that it was "not bound by any timeline or agreement" announced by the government — though it said it was open to dialogue that "guarantees Iraq's sovereignty and dignity."
The effects of the withdrawal may not be immediately visible, given that the US military presence had already been scaled down. But with ISIS reduced to scattered sleeper cells rather than an organized military threat, the real test of the post-withdrawal order is whether Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga can fill the gaps left behind — and whether the government can make progress on the long-stalled disarmament of the militias that celebrated the Americans' departure.
