The United States has begun the first phase of its planned military withdrawal from Iraq, with the process set to continue until September 2026.
On Monday, Iraqi media reported that a convoy of U.S. military trucks transporting equipment departed Ain al-Asad Air Base in western Anbar Province toward the Syrian border. The move marks the initial implementation of a withdrawal agreement reached between Washington and Baghdad in July 2024.
Under the deal, U.S. forces are to vacate most of their bases by September of this year, including Ain al-Asad and Baghdad International Airport. The final stage of the withdrawal will see American forces leave Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, including Erbil Air Base, by September 2026.
The agreement briefly faced uncertainty following last July’s change of administrations in Washington and heightened regional tensions after Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June. However, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani reaffirmed last month that all U.S. and coalition troops would depart Iraq on schedule. U.S. officials have also confirmed that the timeline remains unaffected by regional developments.
The United States first withdrew from Iraq in 2011 after an eight-year occupation but returned in 2014 to lead operations against ISIS, which had seized nearly a third of the country. Following ISIS’s defeat in 2017, the U.S. presence increasingly came under criticism, particularly from paramilitary groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Many of these groups, aligned with Iran and part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” carried out attacks on U.S. bases in 2019 and 2020.
Tensions escalated again after October 7, 2023, when the “Islamic Resistance of Iraq,” composed of various PMF factions, launched renewed strikes on U.S. installations in Iraq and Syria, demanding an American withdrawal. Those attacks ceased in April 2024 after Baghdad pledged to negotiate an exit plan with Washington, culminating in the July agreement.
Baghdad has long argued that the U.S. presence provoked such militias and that a full withdrawal would incentivize the PMF to integrate more fully into Iraq’s state security apparatus.