BAGHDAD – The final U.S. troops were expected to leave Iraq on Wednesday under a withdrawal agreement with Baghdad. Iran-aligned factions welcomed the move, while other Iraqis—especially officials in the Kurdish region—voiced concern over what comes next.
The United States invaded Iraq in 2003, ousting Saddam Hussein, and withdrew in 2011. Three years later, however, Baghdad asked Washington to return with a smaller, U.S.-led force after the Islamic State group swept through the country and captured extensive territory.
As Islamic State militants were pushed back into scattered sleeper cells, the United States and Iraq reached an agreement in 2024 to gradually end the mission.
American forces left bases across most of Iraq last year, retaining only several hundred troops in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. Those facilities have repeatedly faced attacks since the United States and Israel began their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi militias have also worked with Yemen’s Houthi rebels in attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Baghdad initially tied the Sept. 30 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal to a requirement that non-state armed groups surrender their weapons by the same date.
A small number of less powerful militias agreed to hand over their arms. More influential factions with close ties to Iran rejected disarmament outright or imposed conditions the government was unlikely to satisfy.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has since softened that position. In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, he said the militia disarmament deadline had been extended to June 2027.
The immediate impact of the U.S. departure may be limited because the American military presence had already been sharply reduced. Still, authorities in Iraq’s Kurdish region have warned about the exit, particularly the removal of U.S. air-defense systems.
The Kurdish regional government’s Peshmerga Ministry said the region endured more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent conflict between the United States and Iran.
“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 ministry said.
Iran-aligned factions in Iraq, by contrast, have hailed the end of the U.S. military presence.
“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement.
He also warned al-Zaidi’s government against implementing U.S. policies, saying that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”
