US Military Withdraws Final Troops From Iraq

The United States completed the withdrawal of its remaining forces from Iraq on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, ending a military presence that began with the 2003 invasion and closing more than two decades of American military engagement in the country.

According to NPR, U.S. Central Command said the last of its forces vacated Erbil Air Base in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, concluding the U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve mission against ISIS. The anti-ISIS coalition previously headquartered in Iraq will now relocate to Jordan, while roughly 1,500 U.S. personnel who had remained in the Kurdish north after a broader pullback in January 2026 have now departed.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi declared September 30 “Sovereignty Day,” a national holiday marking the end of the U.S. military presence. A ceremony in Baghdad at the former joint military command center across from the U.S. Embassy commemorated the mission’s end, held without press access and slated for later broadcast by state television.

“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,” al-Zaidi said, according to DW. He described a “new phase” defined by Iraq’s sovereignty and “balanced partnerships with its friends.”

A Second Withdrawal, and a Different Context

The exit marks the second time U.S. forces have left Iraq. The first withdrawal, in December 2011, ended more than eight years of combat operations after the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. The invasion was justified by claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that ultimately did not exist, and Iraq was found to have no connection to the September 11 attacks.

U.S. forces returned in 2014 at the Iraqi government’s invitation after ISIS seized roughly one-third of Iraq’s territory, forming a coalition that would fight the militant group for years. ISIS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, though it maintains sleeper cells in both countries, many in disputed territory in northern Iraq. In 2024, Baghdad and Washington agreed to phase out Operation Inherent Resolve, transitioning to what officials described as a bilateral security relationship.

The human cost has been immense. At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed over the war’s duration, according to the most conservative estimates from Iraq Body Count, while more than 4,400 U.S. military personnel died in Iraq, per defense ministry figures.

Kurdish and Minority Concerns

The final troops departed from Erbil Air Base in the Kurdistan Region, a long-standing U.S. security partner whose leaders have viewed American forces as a buffer against both Iranian aggression and regional instability.

Yerevan Saeed of the Atlantic Council wrote that the withdrawal “signals the end of an era in which foreign boots provided a buffer against central and regional predation.” He expressed concern that Iraq’s vulnerable ethnic and religious minorities — including Christians, Yazidis, and Kurdish communities — could be left more exposed from October 1 onward.

Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, has called on Baghdad for protection against missile and drone attacks, which have escalated amid a broader Iran war that began in February 2026.

The Militia Question

Iraq remains under intense U.S. pressure to disarm Iran-backed paramilitaries, a central demand of the withdrawal agreement negotiated when al-Zaidi met President Donald Trump at the White House in July 2026. Al-Zaidi agreed to disarm the militias by September 30 but has since asked to extend the deadline to June 2027.

Alina L. Romanowski, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, noted in the same Atlantic Council analysis that the hardest-line armed groups — Kata’ib Hizbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada — “have so far given no indication that they are prepared to surrender their weapons to the state and integrate into Iraq’s armed forces.”

She warned that the departure “will be seen by many in Iraq and across the region as another example of the United States abandoning its partners,” a sentiment echoed in the statement of the paramilitary group Kataib Sayid al-Shuhada, whose spokesman framed the end of U.S. presence as the exit of an occupier whose control over Iraq’s economy and internal affairs amounted to a form of occupation.

Renad Mansour of Chatham House predicted that many armed groups will continue to operate free of the central government for the foreseeable future, saying “many political movements are associated with armed organizations, so it is hard to see a revolution in the security sector happening any time soon.”

Iran’s Gains and America’s Leverage

Analysts broadly view the withdrawal as a significant achievement for Iran, which pressed Iraq for years to expel U.S. forces. Nate Swanson, director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council, argued that seen against that history, the end of Operation Inherent Resolve could be “considered a significant achievement for Iran,” though he noted it is “mostly irrelevant” in the context of the broader Iran war.

Yet the withdrawal may not end American influence so much as change its form. Safwan Al-Amin of the Atlantic Council observed that U.S. influence “becomes more transactional, with economic levers above all the Federal Reserve’s role in Iraq’s dollar access.” Since 2003, Iraq’s oil revenue — the country produces roughly 4 percent of the world’s oil — has been deposited into accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, giving Washington significant leverage over Iraq’s currency.

Omar Al-Nidawi of the Atlantic Council cautioned against a complete disengagement, arguing that a “well-managed transition” would preserve relationships and capabilities while reducing U.S. exposure to militia attacks. He warned that a “complete American disengagement would hand Iran precisely what it wants.”

A Changing Iraq

For many Iraqis, the withdrawal stirs complicated emotions. Ali al-Makhzomy, an Iraqi entrepreneur, told NPR that “Iraqi people never saw American people as their enemy,” recalling a U.S. veteran who returned on a healing trip, moved to tears by how Fallujah had changed.

Sabah al-Numan, spokesman for the chief of the Iraqi armed forces, framed the moment as one of pride and transition. “We are moving from working under the umbrella of the coalition to an equal relationship with them,” he said. “We thank all efforts that the coalition did… But at the end they have to go.”

Meanwhile, Iraq is not entirely free of foreign forces. Turkey maintains five major bases and nearly 100 smaller outposts in northern Iraq, including the Bashiqa-Zilkan camp near Mosul. Both countries have announced Turkey would begin a gradual withdrawal, but Iraqi resistance movements have called for Turkish forces to leave as well.

What’s Next

The withdrawal’s most immediate tests will come in northern Iraq, where ISIS sleeper cells remain active and militias continue to operate outside state control. Iraqi special forces killed two suicide bombers near Kirkuk on September 28, underscoring the residual threat. Daniel B. Shapiro of the Atlantic Council raised one of the central open questions: if Syrian and Iraqi capabilities prove insufficient to prevent an ISIS resurgence, will there be support in the United States for resuming its role in keeping the extremist organization at bay?

For now, Iraq enters October 1 celebrating a milestone its government frames as the completion of national sovereignty — a moment of pride shadowed by unresolved questions about security, disarmament, and the balance of regional power that the two-decade American presence once held in place.