Iraq seeks new 'future relations' with US-led coalition to fight ISIS

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani says Iraq does not need foreign troops any more as its security forces will maintain security

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani is to discuss the fight against drugs trafficking from Syria. Photo: Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office

Iraq and the US-led international coalition formed to fight ISIS in 2014 are to meet in the coming days to discuss what their co-operation will look like in the future, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said on Monday.

Early last month, Iraq sent a high-ranking security delegation to Washington led by Minister of Defence Thabet Al Abbasi to meet US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and other officials for the inaugural US-Iraq Joint Security Co-operation Dialogue.

The two sides discussed the security co-operation in different fields and the continuing fight against ISIS remnants.

They agreed to form a joint committee to "determine the future relation between Iraq and the member states of the international coalition", Mr Al Sudani told local media outlets on Monday.

"The international coalition was formed in 2014 to fight Daesh," he said. "Daesh is gone and we have won with the help of our friends from neighbours and the international community.

"For sure, [the presence of] forces with the size of the International Coalition under that title and with that number of countries needs to be reviewed and that is what we agreed on during the visit to Washington."

The first meeting for the joint committee will be held midway through this month, Mr Al Sudani said, but he did not give a date or place for the meeting.

"The Iraqi delegation clearly declared [in Washington] that Iraq today doesn't need combat troops, and this is a continuation to our stance in every event; we don't need combat troops in Iraq," he said.

But Mr Al Sudani said his country was "not against any bilateral relations with the United States or any other country within the International Coalition to co-operate in the security field".

In 2003, the US led an international coalition to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, claiming it was developing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

None were found in Iraq and the country was plunged into chaos after the invasion.

Nine years later, the US withdrew from Iraq, leaving behind a small number of troops to protect its embassy and to train and assist Iraqis. At its peak, the force numbered 170,000 soldiers in 2007.

But in 2914, combat troops returned to fight ISIS, which controlled about a third of the country at the time, as the US-trained Iraqi security forces melted away.

Despite the defeat of ISIS by the end of 2017, about 5,000 troops remained, along with others from the international coalition, to suppress the terrorist group.

In 2020, former US president Donald Trump reduced the number of soldiers in Iraq to 2,500.

In 2021, both countries agreed to end the US combat mission by December that year, shifting the mission's role to an advisory and educational one.

The presence of the US troops in Iraq has been controversial.

After defeating ISIS, Iran-backed Shiite militias and Tehran have called for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Tension mounted in 2019 and early 2020 after a US drone strike killed Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's elite Quds Force, along with senior Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis at Baghdad Airport.

Mr Al Sudani took over in late October. He was the nominee of the Iran-aligned Co-ordination Framework, the largest political group in the Iraqi Parliament, with 138 of 329 seats.

The group comprises powerful Iran-backed Shiite militias and political parties.