US reduces total number of troops in Iraq amid shift in bases

The U.S. military is shifting some forces in Iraq away from Baghdad and western regions as part of a drawdown from about 2,500 to fewer than 2,000 troops in the country, a senior defense official said.

The Department of Defense confirmed on Wednesday troop movements in the country that have been reported since August, of the U.S. beginning to withdraw or reposition some of the troops involved in the ongoing mission against the Islamic State group, or ISIS. The Pentagon confirmed that the troops are being moved in line with an agreement reached with Baghdad in September 2024 to drastically reduce the American military presence in the country.  That plan called for an initial reduction to start by September 2025 and a second phase to last through 2026.

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“First, we’re ending the forever war in Iraq,’ the senior defense official recently told reporters. “Second, we’re shifting the burden of responsibility for combating ISIS in Iraq, from US and coalition forces to our Iraqi partners. We’ve trained them for a decade and they have the capability to counter ISIS and they have the will. And third, high credit to the Iraqis themselves.”

Once the consolidation of American Forces is complete, there will be fewer than 2,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of whom will be located in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the senior defense official said. The remaining U.S. troops in Baghdad will be tasked with the same type of bilateral security cooperation that American forces conduct in other countries.

The U.S. military’s presence in Iraq has shrunk considerably from 20,000 a decade ago, the senior defense official said, as the Iraqis have shown the ability to lead efforts against ISIS.

The official also confirmed that U.S. troops are in the process of leaving Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, which Iran attacked with ballistic missiles in January 2020 after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the time, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia. The base will eventually be handed back to the Iraqi government.

Though reports of troop movements have circulated since August, the Pentagon announcement is the first acknowledgement by defense officials of the changes. 

In August, the U.S. began moving equipment and troops out of the Al-Asad Air Base and the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, according to multiple reports from the region. When Task & Purpose contacted the Pentagon about these reports in August and September, the department said only that it “continues to review and, as appropriate, adjust its force posture in Iraq.”

A similar reduction appears to be underway in Syria, where American troops have reportedly handed over some bases and outposts to local partners. The senior defense official said that no U.S. troops have been withdrawn from Syria in the past five months.

U.S. and coalition forces have been based in Iraq since 2014 as part of an ongoing fight against ISIS militants. Iraqi bases have been staging grounds for operations in western Iraq and inside Syria, where the U.S. is also reducing its footprint. ISIS’s last stronghold fell in 2019, but coalition troops and local partners — including Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — have continued to hunt for the remnants over the last six years. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that Iraqi and American envoys will meet by the end of the year for additional discussions on the withdrawal, according to the Associated Press. American officials, including new U.S. Central Command head Adm. Brad Cooper, recently met with new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus for security discussions.

Despite the drawdown in both countries over recent months, U.S. forces based in Iraq and Syria remain busy. U.S. Central Command announced in March that a U.S. airstrike had killed ISIS’s chief of global operations in western Iraq. U.S. troops also conducted operations against ISIS in Syria in July and August.