US and Iraq to announce conclusion of defeat-ISIS coalition

Ten years after the Obama administration formed an international military coalition to dismantle the Islamic State's (ISIS) self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the US and Iraqi governments are poised to announce that the coalition's mission will conclude next year, News.Az reports citing foreign media.

But US officials said the deadline wouldn’t necessarily entail an immediate departure of US forces in Iraq. Instead, US military advisers will continue to assist the Iraqi government on counterterrorism operations as they transition to bilateral relations, while shedding the mantle of the international coalition.

“To be clear, the US is not withdrawing from Iraq,” a senior administration official told reporters in a briefing call on Friday. “This is a transition, and that’s what a transition means."

In the agreed-upon two-phase pivot, all coalition forces and at least some American forces are expected to withdraw from certain bases in federal Iraqi provinces by September 2025.

Others are expected to remain at bases in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region until at least September 2026 in order to support the presence of some 900 US troops, mostly US Special Operations forces, in northeast Syria, which, along with local Kurdish-led militias, are keeping the lid on some 9,000 imprisoned ISIS fighters captured during the war.

Despite today's announcement, US officials said they remain in discussions with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's government on how many American troops will remain in the interim period – and at which bases.

”We intend to stay connected in an advise-and-assist capacity with the [Iraqi] Counter Terrorism Services, the Joint Operations Command, the Air Force and the Kurdish peshmerga," a senior US defense official told Al-Monitor during the phone briefing.

"We will continue to discuss with Iraq, in the bilateral context, how we can continue to advise and assist and enable them in conducting necessary counter-ISIS operations beyond [2026]," the senior US defense official said.

"The 10-year mark of the D-ISIS global coalition is a natural time to assess the coalition's military mission in Iraq," a senior administration official told reporters on Friday.

Privately, Western officials familiar with the discussions admit that the decision is largely political and came at Baghdad's request.

Embroiled in a political scandal over alleged widespread eavesdropping by his office, the Iraqi prime minister is seeking a political victory among his support base in parliament among the predominantly Shiite Coordination Framework bloc, which has links to Iraqi militias armed and trained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Successive Iraqi governments have repeatedly pressed Washington to announce an end to the coalition's mission in order to relieve threats by the militias against political leaders in Baghdad.

News.Az