As Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq, Kurdish Fears Rise, Militias Cheer

BAGHDAD – The final U.S. troops were scheduled to leave Iraq on Wednesday under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington. Iran-backed groups welcomed the withdrawal, while some Iraqis—especially in the Kurdish region—viewed the departure with concern.

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to remove Saddam Hussein from power and withdrew its forces in 2011. Three years later, however, Iraqi authorities invited back a smaller U.S.-led contingent to help defeat the Islamic State group, which had seized broad areas of the country.

As the extremist organization was reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad reached an agreement in 2024 to gradually end the mission.

U.S. forces left bases across most of Iraq last year but kept several hundred troops in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. Those bases have repeatedly come under attack since the United States and Israel began their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi militias have also coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels in attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The Iraqi government initially tied the Sept. 30 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal to a requirement that non-state armed groups surrender their weapons by that date.

Although several less-powerful militias agreed to hand over their arms, influential factions aligned with Iran rejected disarmament or demanded conditions the government was unlikely to satisfy.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has since revised that timetable. In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, he said the deadline for militia disarmament had been extended to June 2027.

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The consequences of the U.S. exit may not be apparent immediately, given that American forces had already been significantly reduced. Still, officials in Iraq’s Kurdish region have raised concerns about the withdrawal, particularly the removal of U.S. air defense systems.

The Kurdish regional government’s Peshmerga Ministry said the area endured more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent conflict between the United States and Iran.

“The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern,” the ministry said.

By contrast, Iran-aligned groups in Iraq have celebrated the end of the U.S. military presence.

“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement.

He also warned al-Zaidi’s government against pursuing what he called American plans, saying that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”