US forces have withdrawn completely from Iraq after two decades, with the pullout completed by Wednesday (September 30).
The withdrawal deadline was Wednesday, but it was completed a day early, a spokesman for Iraq’s defence ministry told Al Jazeera. There are no longer any troops from the US-led coalition in Iraq, and Iraqi forces are capable of protecting the country’s sovereignty without them, he said.
The withdrawal comes 23 years after the US-led invasion of 2003, which toppled then President Saddam Hussein and installed a Shia-led government. US forces fought counter-insurgency campaigns for years, first against Saddam loyalists and then against al-Qaeda, and widespread instability and chaos followed, eventually leading to the rise of the Islamic State group (IS).
The United States withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011 but returned less than three years later, helping Iraqi forces fight IS in a major war from 2014 to 2017. Nearly twice as many Americans were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom as in the war in Afghanistan over the same period, and about 4,500 US troops died in Iraq over more than two decades.
The withdrawal was agreed in 2024 under then President Joe Biden, and Donald Trump’s administration carried it out amid the war against Iran.
The completion of the withdrawal opens a new era for Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said it marks a new day for Iraq, which will be free of all foreign military presence, with national sovereignty fully established over all its territory.
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