BAGHDAD: US combat troops will not stay on in Iraq after the fight against Daesh is over, Iraq’s prime minister said Friday — a statement that followed an Associated Press report on talks between Iraq and the US on maintaining American forces in the country.
A US official and an official from the Iraqi government told the AP this week that talks about keeping US troops in Iraq were ongoing.
In his statement, Haider Al-Abadi emphasized that there are no foreign combat troops on Iraqi soil and that any American troops who stay on once Daesh militants are defeated will be advisers working to train Iraq’s security forces to maintain “full readiness” for any “future security challenges.”
While some US forces are carrying out combat operations with Iraqi forces on and beyond front lines in the fight against Daesh, Al-Abadi has maintained that the forces are acting only as advisers, apparently to get around a required parliamentary approval for their presence.
Any forces who remained would continue to be designated as advisers for the same reason, the Iraqi government official had told the AP.
Currently, the Pentagon has close to 7,000 US troops in Iraq, many not publicly acknowledged because they are on temporary duty or under specific personnel rules. At the height of the surge of US forces in 2007, there were about 170,000 American troops in the country. The numbers were wound down eventually to 40,000, before the complete withdrawal in 2011.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces pushed further into Mosul from the north on the second day of a new push to speed up the nearly seven-month attempt to dislodge Daesh, commanders said Friday.
Daesh tried to block the troops’ northerly advance into their de facto Iraqi capital with suicide car bombs and sniper fire, Brig. Gen. Walid Khalifa, deputy commander of the 9th brigade, told Reuters in Hulayla, west of Musherfa.
His troops had killed about 30 militants and destroyed five car bombs before they could be used against them, he said.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the joint operations command, told Reuters the militants “didn’t have time to make barriers, the advance since yesterday has been good.”
An army statement said the Second Musherfa district as well as the Church and Mikhail’s Monastery area had been retaken.
The US-backed Iraqi forces’ new foothold aims to open escape routes for the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind Daesh lines and, in turn, help troops’ progress.
Rasool said Iraqi forces rescued 1,000 families on Thursday.
Footage taken by a drone operated by the Iraqi 9th Armored Division over the northwestern suburb of Musherfa and seen by Reuters, showed the militants had scant defenses there, unlike in other parts of Mosul where streets are blocked by anti-tank barriers and vehicles.
No US combat troops to stay in Iraq after anti-Daesh fight: PM
No US combat troops to stay in Iraq after anti-Daesh fight: PM
Turkiye’s Kurdish party says Syria deal leaves Ankara ‘no excuses’ on peace process
- Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq
ANKARA: Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party said on Monday that the Turkish government had no more “excuses” to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) now that a landmark integration deal was achieved in neighboring Syria.
On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus — a move that Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK.
“For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF’s integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process,” Tuncer Bakirhan, co-leader of the DEM Party, told Reuters, in some of the party’s first public comments on the deal in Syria.
“The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government’s turn to take concrete steps.” Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan’s government against concluding that the rolling back Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkiye.
“If the government calculates that ‘we have weakened the Kurds in Syria, so there is no longer a need for a process in Turkiye,’ it would be making a historic mistake,” he said in the interview.
Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. Erdogan urged swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces.
Turkiye, the strongest foreign backer of Damascus, has since 2016 repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb the gains of the SDF — which after the 2011–2024 civil war had controlled more than a quarter of Syria while fighting Islamic State with strong US backing.
The United States has built close ties with Damascus over the last year and was closely involved in mediation between it and the SDF toward the deal.
Bakirhan said progress required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border.
“What needs to be done is clear: Kurdish rights must be recognized in both Turkiye and Syria, democratic regimes must be established, and freedoms must be guaranteed,” he said.
Meanwhile, outlawed Kurdish militants in Turkiye said they will “never abandon” Kurds in Syria following the offensive by Damascus.
You should know that we will not leave you alone. Whatever the cost, we will never leave you alone.. we as the entire Kurdish people and as the movement, will do whatever is necessary,” Murat Karayilan of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was quoted as saying by Firat.
Karayilan said the Damascus-led offensive was an “attempt to nullify” the peace process in Turkiye.
“This decision by international powers to enable these attacks, will be a black mark for the US, the UK, Germany, France and other international coalition states,” he said.
On Monday, at least 500 people rallied in Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir against the Syrian offensive. Clashes erupted when pollice tried to break up the protest.
The pro-Kurdish DEM party, the third largest force in the Turkish parliament, called for a rally on Tuesday in the town of Nusaybin, located on the border with Syia.
*With Reuters and AFP
