{"id":246477,"date":"2026-08-12T17:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T17:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246477\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T17:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T17:23:14","slug":"officials-say-us-forces-on-track-to-complete-iraq-pullout-by-sept-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246477\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials say US forces on track to complete Iraq pullout by Sept. 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD \u2013 The U.S. military is on track to pull all of its forces<\/a> out of Iraq<\/a> by the end of September, officials said Wednesday, marking the end of a presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down the much smaller U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State group.<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a presence in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran<\/a> on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met with Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the U.S. Central Command, on Wednesday. Al-Zaidi said in a statement afterward that he had affirmed Sept. 30 as the \u201cfixed and final date for ending the military mission of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and completing the departure of its forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.S. official confirmed that the U.S. expects to complete its pullout by Sept. 30, but declined to say how many troops remain in Iraq or where they would be redeployed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States, Iraq and coalition partners have achieved tremendous success in defeating ISIS and now the Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, will lead the fight against terrorists in Iraq,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

Two Iraqi Kurdish officials said a drawdown of U.S. troops and military equipment from Erbil began about three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.<\/p>\n

The U.S. presence in Iraq grew to more than 170,000 troops<\/a> at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. In December 2011, the final combat troops departed. But in 2014, the rise of the Islamic State group and its capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought U.S. forces back at the Iraqi government’s invitation.<\/p>\n

After IS lost its hold on territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. The U.S. maintained about 2,500 troops<\/a> in Iraq for training and to conduct counter-IS operations with Iraq\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

Iraq also wants to disarm non-state groups<\/p>\n

Iraq’s prime minister has also set a Sept. 30 deadline for non-state armed groups in Iraq to give up their weapons, saying they will have no justification to carry arms once the foreign troops withdraw.<\/p>\n

Some Iraqi militias have justified their existence by pointing to the U.S. military presence, which they describe as an occupation, although the current U.S. mission came at the invitation of the Iraqi government after IS militants rampaged across the country in 2014, seizing large swaths of territory.<\/p>\n

It seems unlikely that the Iraqi government will meet its deadline for disarming non-state groups. Some of the country\u2019s most powerful Iran-backed militias and have said they have no intention of giving up their weapons.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAGHDAD \u2013 The U.S. military is on track to pull all of its forces out of Iraq by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[30690,2290,94,493,82],"class_list":["post-246477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-ali-al-zaidi","tag-brad-cooper","tag-iraq","tag-saddam-hussein","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117083701514454937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}