US completes Iraq troop withdrawal, ending 12-year fight against Islamic State
The last American troops have left Iraq and Operation Inherent Resolve has formally ended, 12 years after it began, under a withdrawal deal sealed in 2024.
The United States completed the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq on Wednesday, formally concluding Operation Inherent Resolve after a 12-year campaign against the Islamic State. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the mission’s end, while President Donald Trump described the “orderly” departure of coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base in a Truth Social post (The Week; TBS News).
“October 1 will be a new day in the course of the Iraqi state, with the country free of any foreign military presence and the completion of national sovereignty over its territory,” said Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who has declared “Sovereignty Days” to mark the occasion (The Week).
The timetable was inherited: it grew out of a phased agreement negotiated in 2024 between the Biden administration and then-prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. By late 2025 about 1,500 personnel were gathered at Erbil, and the coalition’s regional task force headquarters now moves to Jordan. Trump, speaking at a White House Hispanic Heritage Month event, hailed the end of what he called “a very expensive excursion into hell” after years of “very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place” (TBS News; Mid-day).
The prime minister used the moment to set a June 2027 deadline for bringing non-state militia weapons under government oversight. But the exit also stripped Erbil of its Patriot and C-RAM air defences, alarming the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the Pentagon concedes Islamic State is broken but not finished (The Week).
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