Washington: The Pentagon resumed on Tuesday to scale down his military mission in Iraq, a process a US official said will see Baghdad command efforts to fight the remains of Daesh inside his own country.
According to the plan, the United States and its coalition allies would instead focus on fighting Daesh residue in Syria and switching most of their staff to Iraq’s Kurdistan region to carry out this mission, the official said and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The United States had about 2,500 troops in Iraq at the beginning of 2025 and more than 900 in neighboring Syria as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to fight Daesh as it ramped through the two countries.
When transitions are completed, the total number of US forces in Iraq numbering will number fewer than 2,000, and most of them will be in Erbil, the official said. A final number has not yet been decided, the official added without offering a timeline.
US troops back in Baghdad will focus on normal bilateral security co -operation issues, not the fight against ISIS.
“Isis no longer poses a sustained threat to the government of Iraq or to the US homeland from Iraqi territory. This is a great achievement that allows us to transfer more responsibly to Iraq, leading efforts to security in their own country,” a senior official said.
The agreement is a boost for the government in Baghdad, which has long been concerned that US troops can be a magnet for instability, often targeted by Iran-adjusted groups.
Last year, the United States agreed with Iraq to leave the Ain al-Asad airflow in the Western Anbar province and hand over it to Iraq. The US official said the transition was still “in progress” and refused to offer further information.
Although the Trump administration has also outlined plans for a step-down in Syria, the official said it was conditions and “we remain in kind of a status quo situation” at the moment.
The United States is concerned about the sustained presence of Daesh fighters in Syria and the risk of thousands being held in prisons could be released.
Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda leader, led rebel forces crashing Bashar al-Assad’s government last year. US President Donald Trump met him in Riyadh in May.
The Middle East leaders and their Western allies have warned that Daesh could exploit the political instability in Syria to arrange a comeback there.
