The end of the mission of this military alliance, which includes the United States or France, is justified by the decline of the jihadist group in Iraq and the capacity of the Iraqi forces to ensure the security of their country.
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The mission of the international coalition led by the United States against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Iraq will end “no later than the end of September 2025”announced Washington and Baghdad on Friday September 27. The announcement comes after months of discussions between the United States and Iraq on the future of the coalition, created in 2014, and which includes troops from several countries, notably France and Great Britain, fighting the ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The two parties agreed on a “two-phase transition plan”said a US official. The first will last until the end of September next year and will involve the “end of the presence of coalition forces in parts of Iraq”. “The second phase, between September 2025 and September 2026, concerns Kurdistan” Iraqi, autonomous region in the north of the country, Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbassi declared in early September.
The press release does not detail what will happen to the American troops deployed in Iraq, approximately 2,500 soldiers. The international coalition, however, will continue its operations in Syria.
Negotiations concerning the future of the coalition were initiated in the winter of 2023, to defuse the repercussions on Iraq of regional tensions: drone strikes and rocket attacks claimed by pro-Iran armed groups targeted the coalition internationally, in Iraq but also in Syria, with the war in Gaza as a backdrop. In retaliation, the United States carried out deadly strikes against pro-Iran factions.
Iraq proclaimed its “victory” against ISIS at the end of 2017, but jihadist cells remain active in the country and continue to sporadically attack army and police personnel, particularly in rural and remote areas, outside major cities. To justify the withdrawal of the coalition, Baghdad assures that its security forces are now capable of leading the battle against IS alone, believing that the jihadist group is now weakened and no longer represents the same threat as before.