Iraq’s last remaining American troops departed on Wednesday, ending a military mission that began in 2014, as Baghdad opened a four-day public holiday it is calling “Sovereignty Days.”
The withdrawal closes a 23-year US military presence in Iraq that started with the 2003 invasion, according to Al Jazeera. A few hundred soldiers had remained in advisory roles under the coalition formed in 2015 to fight Islamic State, known as ISIL or ISIS.
Iraq’s Council of Ministers declared the holiday from September 30 through October 3, with government offices resuming work on October 4, Al Jazeera and the National reported. The Kurdistan Regional Government is marking a separate, overlapping observance.
September 30 will be the fixed and final date for ending the military mission of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and completing the departure of its forces.
The statement, issued by the office of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, added that “October 1 will mark a new day in the trajectory of the Iraqi state, as Iraq will be free of any foreign military presence,” according to Al Jazeera. Al-Zaidi told the UN General Assembly his government was “striving to ensure that the state is the ultimate decision-maker in matters of peace and war, and that weapons and tools of power remain in the hands of its constitutional institutions.”
US forces first invaded Iraq in 2003 and peaked at more than 170,000 troops in 2007 before a full withdrawal in December 2011, according to the National. They returned in 2014 at Baghdad’s request after Islamic State seized large parts of Iraq and Syria. Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 on a framework to end the coalition mission by 2026, and al-Zaidi pushed for the September 30 deadline during a visit to Washington in July, an Iraqi official told Al Jazeera.
A parallel effort to disarm Iran-aligned militias has not kept pace. The Iraqi government has pushed that deadline back to June 2027 after Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba refused to hand over weapons until foreign troops had fully left, the National reported. Other factions, including Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Imam Ali and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Saraya al-Salam, say they have already placed their weapons under state control.
Security gaps
Iraq’s Kurdistan region has been hit by more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks since Iran’s war with Israel and the United States began in February, according to the National. The US has removed Patriot and C-RAM air-defense systems from its former base in Erbil.
The threat is real – we are vulnerable, we are being attacked.
Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani made the comment to the Financial Times, calling the loss of air defenses “shameful,” according to Al Jazeera. Sunni politician Atheel al-Nujaifi said Islamic State “is not dead, and its cells are not as dormant as we reassure ourselves,” the National reported, days after two suicide bombers linked to the group were killed in northern Iraq on September 28.
Douglas Silliman, a former US ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait now with the Arab Gulf States Institute, said the withdrawal helps al-Zaidi “politically weaken” Iran-linked militias but called the decisions ahead “a very difficult series” for both Washington and Baghdad, according to Al Jazeera. Renad Mansour of Chatham House said the militias remain “in full-on war mode” alongside Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Lahib Higel of the International Crisis Group urged Washington to avoid “pressuring al-Zaidi into a military confrontation” he cannot win, saying Iraq needs “space to find its own balance.”
What comes next
Iraqi and US officials said ties would shift from a military coalition to bilateral security cooperation with Washington, NATO and other partners, likely built on the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement, according to the National. At a White House meeting in July, President Donald Trump promised “a lot of deals” tied to Iraq’s oil reserves, while al-Zaidi has pledged an economic expansion that includes petrochemical projects and new fuel routes bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reported.
The government’s next deadline is June 2027, the date it has now set for bringing all militia weapons under state control.