As the last US troops exit Iraq, Kurdish fears rise and militias celebrate

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BAGHDAD (AP) — The last U.S. troops were slated to leave Iraq on Wednesday under an agreement between Baghdad and Washington, a move celebrated by Iran-backed groups but which some other Iraqis found concerning, particularly in the Kurdish region.

U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. They departed in 2011, but three years later, Iraqi authorities invited a smaller U.S.-led mission to fight the Islamic State group, which had rampaged across Iraq, seizing large swaths of territory.

With the extremist group reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind the mission down.

U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi militias also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.

The Iraqi government initially linked the Sept. 30 deadline for U.S. withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.

While a handful of less-influential militias have agreed to turn over their weapons, powerful groups close to Iran rejected the prospect or set conditions for disarming that the government would be unlikely to meet.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has since walked back the deadline. He told The New York Times earlier this month that the deadline for militia disarmament has been pushed to June 2027.

The effects of the U.S. withdrawal may not be immediately visible, particularly since the U.S. military presence had already been scaled down. But officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure and particularly about the removal of U.S. air defense systems.

The Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent U.S.-Iran conflict.

“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 statement said.

Iran-allied groups in Iraq, meanwhile, have celebrated the U.S. withdrawal.

“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 added a warning to al-Zaidi and his government not to carry out American plans, threatening that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”