IRBIL — The last American troops have departed Iraq’s Irbil air base, completing the United States’ military withdrawal from the country, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The final departure of U.S. personnel from the base marks the definitive end of the American troop presence in Iraq.
The withdrawal brings the 12-year Operation Inherent Resolve to a close, according to the AP. The operation served as the U.S. military mission in Iraq, and its conclusion ends the formal American military campaign that had been underway in the country for more than a decade.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi attended a handover ceremony at the air base marking the transfer of the installation, the AP reported. The ceremony formalized the end of a U.S. troop presence that in recent years had numbered about 2,500 personnel stationed across Iraq.
Over the course of America’s military involvement in Iraq, roughly 4,500 U.S. service members were killed, according to the AP. The toll covers the full span of American military engagement in the country, an engagement that stretched across more than two decades of deployments and operations.
The AP framed the completion of the withdrawal as unfolding amid an ongoing U.S.-Iran war, characterizing the drawdown against the backdrop of a wider regional conflict involving the United States and Iran. The wire service’s framing placed the end of the Iraq mission within the context of that broader confrontation.
With the final troops now gone from Irbil, the United States no longer maintains a military footprint in Iraq under the Inherent Resolve mission, according to the AP. Tuesday’s handover closes out the 12-year operation and returns full control of the installation to Iraqi authorities, bringing the American mission in the country to its formal end.