ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Troops from the Global Coalition to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) formerly at Taji military base have not been repositioned within Iraq, a senior Iraqi military official said on Monday. Maj. Gen. Tahsin Khafaji, spokesperson for Iraq’s Joint Operation Command, told state media that the troops at Taji “did not re-station anywhere in Iraq,” saying that the US-led coalition is moving in the direction of leaving the country. “The International Coalition troops are committed to handing back all the bases they have been using to the Iraqi government,” Khafaji said, adding that they have established a timeline for the exit. “The handovers come at the request of the Iraqi government, as many bases have completed their training and preparatory tasks, and it became necessary [for the Iraqi government] to receive the bases from coalition forces.” “The US-led coalition will still support Iraqi forces to defeat Daesh in Iraq through airstrikes,” Khafaji added, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The coalition officially departed Taji military base in northern Baghdad on Sunday, making it the eighth base to be transferred to Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) this year. The military force says successes in the campaign to defeat ISIS and protect personnel amid the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted the withdrawals. However, Taji, as well as other sites with a foreign troop presence, are targets of regular rocket attacks said to be by Iran-linked groups. Baghdad invited the international coalition to intervene in Iraq in 2014 as ISIS seized control of vast areas of northern Iraq and neighboring Syria. Some 7,500 foreign troops formed part of the 81-country coalition; over 5,000 of them were American. However, with ISIS territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, US military presence in the country has been met with increasing opposition, particularly from Iran-backed militias and political parties. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi landed in Washington on Thursday to meet with US President Donald Trump and discuss the future of US troops in Iraq. “We [the US and Iraq] continue to work in close coordination to ensure that ISIS is rendered incapable of posing a threat to Iraq and every other nation,” reads a joint statement from Trump and Kadhimi published early Friday following their much anticipated strategic dialogue meeting in Washington DC. At a press conference following Thursday’s meeting, Trump assured that US troops would be “leaving shortly,” deferring to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said they would depart “as soon as we complete the mission.” The President said at a different press conference on Wednesday that the US is withdrawing “rapidly over the course of three years.”
