By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Pentagon recommitted itself in a press release on Tuesday to scaling again its army mission in Iraq, a course of {that a} U.S. official mentioned will see Baghdad command efforts to fight remnants of Islamic State inside its personal nation.
Beneath the plan, the U.S. and its coalition allies would as an alternative concentrate on combating Islamic State remnants in Syria and shift most of their personnel to Iraq’s Kurdistan area to hold out that mission, the official mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity.
The U.S. had roughly 2,500 troops in Iraq at the beginning of 2025 and greater than 900 in neighboring Syria as a part of the coalition fashioned in 2014 to fight Islamic State because it rampaged by means of the 2 nations.
As soon as the transitions are accomplished, the full variety of U.S. forces in Iraq will quantity fewer than 2,000, and nearly all of them will likely be in Erbil, the official mentioned. A closing quantity has but to be decided, the official added, with out providing a timeline.
U.S. troops remaining in Baghdad will concentrate on regular bilateral safety cooperation points, not the counter-ISIS combat.
“ISIS is now not posing a sustained risk to the federal government of Iraq or to the U.S. homeland from Iraqi territory. It is a main achievement that allows us to transition extra responsibly to Iraq main efforts for safety in their very own nation,” a senior protection official mentioned.
The settlement is a lift for the federal government in Baghdad, which has lengthy nervous that U.S. troops is usually a magnet for instability, steadily focused by Iran-aligned teams.
The U.S. agreed final 12 months with Iraq to depart the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Anbar province and hand it over to Iraq. The U.S. official mentioned that transition was nonetheless “in progress,” and declined to supply additional data.
Though the Trump administration has outlined plans for a drawdown in Syria as effectively, the official mentioned that was conditions-based and “we stay in sort of a establishment state of affairs” in the meanwhile.
The U.S. is anxious concerning the persistent presence of Islamic State fighters in Syria, and the danger that hundreds being held in prisons might be freed.
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda chief, led insurgent forces that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s authorities final 12 months. U.S. President Donald Trump met him in Riyadh in Might.
Center East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that Islamic State may exploit the political instability in Syria to stage a comeback there.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Further reporting by Kanishka Singh; Enhancing by Tom Hogue and Lincoln Feast.)
