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# US Completes Iraq Withdrawal as Anti-ISIS Mission Ends
- URL: https://www.theoceaniacables.com/us-completes-iraq-withdrawal-as-anti-isis-mission-ends/
- Published: 2026-09-30T23:29:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-30T23:29:42.000Z
- Description: Last US forces left Erbil on 30 September. ISIS is down to desert cells; Iran-backed militias are the second threat Baghdad now holds alone.
- Author: The Oceania Cables
- Tags: United States, Middle East, Conflict

## **Summary:**

The last United States forces and equipment left Erbil Air Base on 30 September 2026, ending the Operation Inherent Resolve mission in Iraq. Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell called it the successful conclusion of a 12-year campaign that defeated Islamic State (ISIS) as an organised military threat in Iraq and across the region, and a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort.

President Donald Trump marked the departure in a Truth Social post that called the Iraq war a quagmire born of bad decision-making and credited his first term with the defeat of ISIS. He contrasted the orderly withdrawal with Afghanistan, where equipment was left behind and 13 service members died. The caliphate the United States came to fight, he declared, no longer exists. Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Ali Faleh al-Zaidi, marked the date in Baghdad as Sovereignty Day, declaring the international coalition’s mission over and Iraq’s assumption of full responsibility for its security and stability.

Iraq’s security challenges do not end with the departure. The United Nations counts the remaining ISIS fighters in the low hundreds, and the Iran-aligned militias that attacked American forces through the mission’s final months have kept the rockets, missiles and drones they refused to surrender.

## **Detailed Report**

### **1\. Central Command Closes the Iraq Mission**

United States Central Command said on 30 September that the departure of American forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marked the end of the Operation Inherent Resolve mission in Iraq. The move, it said, was part of a planned transition to a United States–Iraq bilateral defence relationship. Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve remains operational and is now headquartered in Jordan, from where United States forces continue the counter-ISIS mission in Syria alongside coalition partners and the Syrian government.

The command said the task force had advised, assisted and enabled partner forces in the fight against ISIS since CENTCOM established it in 2014\. American and coalition forces began departing federal Iraq last October, as part of a transition that culminated in the removal of personnel and equipment from Erbil Air Base in September. Erbil had been the main operational hub for the task force and hosted most of the 1,500 American and coalition personnel supporting counter-ISIS operations.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, thanked the tens of thousands of American service members, diplomats and civilian personnel who answered the call in Iraq.

> *Because of your grit, sacrifice and professionalism, ISIS no longer poses a systemic threat to Iraq’s national security and Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, now possess the capacity, leadership, and operational independence to unilaterally manage threats to their homeland.*

> *As we step back and hand full primary responsibility for Iraq’s security to the Government of Iraq and the brave people of Iraq, U.S. and Coalition forces stationed across the region will remain ready to respond to any ISIS threats that arise. Maintaining our vigilance and readiness is essential to protecting the U.S. homeland and strengthening regional security.*

Parnell, the Chief Pentagon Spokesman, said the United States and its coalition partners had formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 United States–Iraq joint statement. He called the departure from Erbil the successful conclusion of the military mission that defeated ISIS in Iraq, and a milestone marking a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship. The Department of War, he said, would continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to Iraqi partners, and the United States remained committed to ensuring ISIS could never reconstitute from Iraqi territory.

### **2\. President Trump Announces the Last Departure**

President Trump announced the departure on Truth Social on 30 September.

> *Today, I am pleased to announce, that the last American Forces are leaving Iraq! It has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, but soon, that will be part of History. This is a Great Day for America and, importantly, we leave with Iraq having a wonderful new Prime Minister, Ali al-Zaidi, somebody I supported from the beginning and fully endorsed. He won an Election that he was not expected to win, and did so, in a landslide! Launched in 2003 under the presidency of George W. Bush, and continued under the Administration of Barack Hussein Obama in 2014, and Sleepy Joe Biden, Operation Inherent Resolve ends in 2026 under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump. This Day is a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated by the Trump Administration, First Term, along with other very bad and dangerous players. Unlike Afghanistan, where much Military Equipment and everything else was left behind, and 13 Warriors lie dead, with many badly wounded, this orderly departure of Coalition forces and equipment from Erbil Air Base marks the end of a very expensive excursion into Hell. I set a clear mission, gave our Commanders the tools to finish it, and refused to let a temporary presence become a permanent one. I had a choice to stay or to leave, and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home! Prime Minister al-Zaidi, is outstanding, and he will hopefully be able to handle things very well. We came to fight a caliphate. There is no longer a caliphate. We are going home!*

Speaking to reporters the same day, according to Reuters, Trump repeated the quagmire framing and called Zaidi “a fantastic guy” and “a friend of mine,” saying the orderly departure from Erbil marked the end of “a very expensive excursion into hell.” “We came to fight a caliphate,” he said. “There is no longer a caliphate, so we are going home indeed.”

### 3\. Prime Minister Zaidi Declares Sovereignty Day in Baghdad

Prime Minister Zaidi, as commander-in-chief, hosted the official ceremony in Baghdad on the morning of 30 September. The coalition commander and Iraqi military and security chiefs attended. The Prime Minister’s Office published the following lines from his speech.

> *We announce the end of the international coalition’s mission against ISIS to show that cooperation between friendly forces and friendly peoples produced a victory over one of the darkest chapters of extremism and brutality in history.*

> *Our people’s uprising alongside our armed forces was the starting point of a phase in which our forces reorganised command systems, mobilised resources, unified efforts and seized the initiative.*

> *Friendly states extended a helping hand to Iraq in that decisive confrontation, and our armed forces successfully reorganised and rearmed.*

> *Joint Operations Command was, throughout the years of the war on terrorism, the heart of coordination and the mind that gathered information and carried out planning and command inside a national battle.*

> *We extend thanks and appreciation to all friendly states that took part in the international coalition, and to its commanders, officers, trainers and advisers who worked alongside our security forces.*

> *The end of the international coalition’s mission does not mean the end of our battle against terrorism. It is Iraq’s transition to a phase in which it assumes full responsibility for its security and stability.*

> *The transfer of Joint Operations tasks to the Office of the Commander-in-Chief embodies an institutional form for managing this effort under the authority of the state and its supreme command.*

> *A new phase has begun whose title is Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision and balanced partnerships with its friends.*

> *Security cooperation will remain an open path with friends from the international coalition and will be more effective and more focused.*

> *Cooperation will employ technology and digital techniques in the service of goals that support security and stability.*

> *The mission ended in victory, and the responsibility for protecting that victory now rests on all of us.*

> *There will be no weapon outside the umbrella of the law, and no force outside state institutions, in accordance with the constitution, what our wise religious authority has called for and what our people want.*

The same morning, Zaidi chaired an extraordinary meeting of the ministerial National Security Council on military and security tasks after the coalition’s departure. He told the meeting, according to National Security Council spokesman Sabah al-Numan, that the security and military decision now belonged entirely to Iraq’s official state institutions. The council discussed readiness, coordination, intelligence and modern technology, and directed the Military Industrialisation Authority to partner with specialised foreign firms — with partnerships, the council said, to be built without bloc politics.

### **4\. Official Assessments of ISIS Strength in Iraq**

The United Nations assessed in a report published in July that ISIS in Iraq was at its weakest, with its strength put at low hundreds of fighters able to carry out unsophisticated operations only. The group kept a limited presence in desert areas, where it generated an estimated $500,000 a year — enough, the UN found, to sustain basic operations. Some member states assessed that those constraints had led ISIS to a more selective approach to recruitment, prioritising capable youth and foreign terrorist fighters.

The US Lead Inspector General report for Operation Inherent Resolve, covering January to March 2026, recorded that ISIS showed little ability during those months to exploit the instability and distraction of Iraqi security forces. Admiral Cooper told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that ISIS attacks in Iraq and Syria were at their lowest levels since 2013 and had fallen by 70% since 2023\. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in the Lead Inspector General report covering April to June 2026, assessed that in Iraq ISIS “almost certainly remains severely degraded, focused on its own survival, and unable to exploit instability” arising from Operation Epic Fury.

The inspectors also assessed the detainee population Iraq took in during the year. Central Command completed the transfer of 5,704 ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraqi custody on 13 February, in a mission that had been announced for up to 7,000\. The men came from about 70 countries; Iraq said more than 3,500 of them were Syrian. The January-to-March report found the recently transferred detainees held to the ideology but showed no capacity in those months to orchestrate escapes.

### **5\. Iraq’s Second Threat: The Iran-Aligned Militias**

ISIS is not the only armed threat Iraq faces as the American forces leave. Iran-aligned militias — Kataib Hezbollah, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Harakat al-Nujaba among them, likely under IRGC guidance — spent the final months of the coalition mission attacking United States forces and diplomatic facilities across Iraq.

The January–March Lead Inspector General report for Operation Inherent Resolve said the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Policy reported that the Iraqi government had failed to protect American, coalition and allied personnel from more than 500 attacks, and that the United States mission in Iraq said it alone sustained more than 600 between 28 February and 23 March. Targets included hotels, oil infrastructure, diplomatic sites, airports and Iraqi military and intelligence facilities — radar at Umm Qasr port, the F-16 base at Balad and Camp Taji among them. Erbil airfield took regular missile and drone fire.

A drone strike on the Iraqi National Intelligence Service headquarters on 21 March killed an Iraqi employee. A rocket attack on a base of the Peshmerga — the Kurdish armed forces of the Kurdistan Region — on 24 March killed 6 Peshmerga fighters and wounded at least 30\. On 28 and 29 March, militia drones struck the residences of Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Region, and Masoud Barzani, its former president — an attack the IRGC itself formally condemned. In March, Iraq reported militia drones near al-Karkh prison, where many of the detainees transferred from Syria in February were held.

The April–June Lead Inspector General report recorded hundreds of attacks against United States forces and diplomatic facilities from the start of Operation Epic Fury. Zaidi gave the factions a 30 September deadline to surrender their weapons. Two prominent groups agreed to turn weapons in; others refused. Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve told the inspectors that the groups refusing still held rockets, missiles, unmanned aircraft and, in some cases, air-defence systems capable of threatening United States personnel and facilities.

The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr dissolved his movement’s Promised Day Brigade militia on 30 September and called for weapons to sit only under the state. Ashab al-Kahf, one of the Iran-aligned factions, threatened a military response to any foreign presence from that night. An official of Kataib Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned militia, said the group would monitor Iraqi airspace and try to shoot down aircraft it considered hostile, according to Iraqi reporting on 30 September.

After the government took office in May, Zaidi set a 90-day halt to attacks from 30 September and a weapons handover ending on 30 June 2027.

### **Conclusion**

The coalition mission in Iraq ended on 30 September with an orderly departure that Washington and Baghdad both recorded as a victory. What Iraq is left holding is a remnant ISIS force the United Nations counts in the low hundreds and Iran-aligned factions that refused Zaidi’s first weapons deadline and kept their rockets, missiles and drones. The disarmament clock now runs to 30 June 2027.