US-led coalition forces have officially initiated their withdrawal from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, adhering to the established September 30 deadline to conclude the anti-ISIL (Daesh) military mission.
Interior Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Rebar Ahmed, confirmed that coalition personnel are departing daily toward locations outside Iraq, a statement corroborated by senior Iraqi officials. Following the drawdown from other Iraqi military installations earlier this year in January, coalition troops had remained concentrated at Erbil International Airport for final logistics and troop movements.
Originally deployed in 2014 to combat the territorial expansion of ISIL across Iraq and Syria, the coalition oversaw major military operations until the group’s territorial defeat in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019. Defense analysts view this withdrawal—amid persistent regional security tensions—as a pivotal juncture for Iraq’s domestic security framework and internal political stability.
