What the US withdrawal means for Iraq
The US withdrawal from Iraq shifts responsibility for the country’s security to Baghdad as Iran-backed militias remain outside the government’s full control.
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The US withdrew the last of its conventional troops from Iraq this week, formally ending a more-than-decade-long mission to destroy the Islamic State jihadist group.
The long-anticipated withdrawal comes as the Pentagon has been reshuffling its forces across the broader Middle East amid the US-Iran war.
But the move risks leaving the Pentagon's Kurdish partners in Iraq vulnerable to attacks by Iran and its proxies, while handing off to Baghdad the burden of reining in Iraq's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-backed militias.
