After more than ten years, US forces are to withdraw from their remaining military bases in Iraq on Wednesday.

"Today, the United States and our Coalition partners formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 US-Iraq joint statement and US national interests," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The Pentagon added that it will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to Iraqi partners. 

"This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said.

“It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship,” he said. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi declared that October 1, the day following the coalition's departure, should be celebrated as Sovereignty Day. 

It is "a national occasion that affirms the completion of Iraq's path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions," the heads of the executive, legislative and judicial branches said on Monday.

The troops were deployed in Iraq and Syria in 2014, to tackle the "Islamic State" (IS) terrorist group, which had taken over large swathes of both countries.

The IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces stayed on to battle the group's remnants.

The complete departure of US troops from Iraq comes 23 years after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, triggering widespread upheaval and chaos, before the rise of IS.

Iran celebrates US withdrawal from Iraq

Iran and its allies celebrated the withdrawal of US forces, which was agreed upon in 2024 by then-US President Joe Biden. The agreement has now been executed under Donald Trump's term even as US continues to wage a war against Iran.

Iran, which wants a US-free Middle East, sees the US pullout from Iraq as a triumph for its "axis of resistance" of ​allied armed groups across the region.

The withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq has raised threats of diminished security in the region as Iran-backed Shi'ite militias are vying to gain more control and potentially regroup 'IS'.

US withdrawal leaves Kurds in Iraq anxious

The withdrawal leaves the the federal government and the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, where most of remaining US bases operated, vulnerable. 

Kurds in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan region, told AFP news agency they are increasingly anxious about their safety from drones that have repeatedly targeted their autonomous canton, once the US air defense systems are removed.

 “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 Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said in a statement.

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher

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