US, Iraq announce end of defeat-ISIS coalition, but troops may stay
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s need for a domestic political win has sent Pentagon officials back to the drawing board to find ways to keep the lid on ISIS in neighboring Syria.
WASHINGTON — Ten years after the Obama administration established an international military coalition to destroy the Islamic State’s (ISIS) so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the US and Iraqi governments announced on Friday the coalition’s mission is scheduled to end in that country next year.
But US officials said the September 2025 deadline wouldn’t necessarily entail an immediate departure of US forces in Iraq. Instead, US military advisers will continue to assist the Iraqi government on counterterrorism operations as they transition to bilateral relations, while the US troop contingent sheds the mantle of the international coalition.
“To be clear, the US is not withdrawing from Iraq,” a senior administration official told reporters in a briefing call on Friday. “This is a transition, and that’s what a transition means."
Iraqi officials, however, have sent a different message. Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi told al-Hadath television earlier this month that all American forces would withdraw from federal Iraq by September 2025, and from the rest of the country by 2026.
