The final contingent of British and American military personnel has officially departed Iraq, concluding a decade-long mission that successfully dismantled the Islamic State’s territorial ambitions.
The withdrawal, coordinated between the US and the Iraqi government, fulfills an agreement reached two years ago to transition full security responsibility to local forces.
President Donald Trump hailed the exit as a significant victory, noting that the mission achieved its primary objective of crushing ISIS while signaling an end to long-standing entanglements in the region.
The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed that coalition forces successfully trained over 111,000 Iraqi security personnel and conducted thousands of sorties to neutralize extremist threats.
While the military mission in Iraq has concluded, the Pentagon emphasized that the US will maintain its counter-terrorism focus in neighboring Syria and continue providing intelligence support to regional partners.
The departure leaves the Iraqi government with the primary task of managing internal security challenges, including the ongoing threat posed by Iranian-backed militias that have frequently targeted coalition bases.
Despite the complexities of the region, the coalition’s exit marks a definitive end to the combat operations that began in 2014, allowing American and British forces to pivot away from a decade of nation-building and toward more strategic national security priorities.
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