The Pentagon recommitted itself in a statement on Tuesday to scaling back its military mission in Iraq, a process that a US official said will see Baghdad command efforts to combat remnants of ISIL inside its own country, Reuters reported.
Under the plan, the US and its coalition allies would instead focus on combating ISIL remnants in Syria and shift most of their personnel to Iraq's Kurdistan region to carry out that mission, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US had approximately 2,500 troops in Iraq at the start of 2025 and more than 900 in neighboring Syria as part of the coalition formed in 2014 under the pretext of combatting ISIL as it rampaged through the two countries.
ISIL is no longer posing a sustained threat to the government of Iraq or to the US homeland from Iraqi territory. This is a major achievement that enables us to transition more responsibly to Iraq leading efforts for security in their own country, a senior defense official claimed.
The agreement is a boost for the government in Baghdad, which has long worried that US troops can be a magnet for instability.
The US agreed last year with Iraq to depart the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Anbar province and hand it over to Iraq. The US official said that transition was still "in progress," and declined to offer further information.
MNA/
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