US-led coalition forces to fully withdraw from Iraq in two years
Iraqi Defense Minister says the US-led coalition forces who has been stationed in the Arab country for over two decades will withdraw from Iraq in a span of two years.
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Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi made the remarks to the al-Hadath satellite television channel on Sunday.
The coalition would pull out from bases in the capital Baghdad and other parts of federal Iraq, except the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Region, by September 2025, he said, adding that the forces would depart that region by September 2026.
The pullout is "two-phased" and "maybe we will sign the agreement within the next few days," Abbassi said.
He said his American counterpart Lloyd Austin had said at a meeting that "two years were not enough" to carry out the withdrawal, adding, however, that "we refused his proposal regarding an [extra] third year.”
Also on Sunday, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said the country had “taken an important step towards resolving the issue of the coalition's continued presence.”
He praised the Iraqi security forces, saying they were capable of sustaining the country’s stability and asserting, "We will not hesitate to complete the sovereignty of our country.”
There are nearly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in neighboring Syria as part of the US-led coalition.
The coalition has retained its presence, although the Arab countries and their allies defeated Daesh in late 2017.In 2020, the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of expulsion of the foreign forces after a US drone strike assassinated Iran's top anti-terror commander, General Qassem Soleimani, and deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, outside Baghdad International Airport.
Iraq’s Islamic Resistance, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, has also been pressing for an end to the foreign forces’ interference in the country, considering their presence to be illegal.
In early August, the group began escalating its attacks against American targets across the country.
The escalation came in protest at the military interference and the United States all-out support for the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
