Iraqi Kurds are threatened by ISIS and Iran-backed militias, whose attacks have accelerated over the past year. Losing U.S. air support will dramatically worsen the region’s security situation. Photo courtesy of Kurdistan24 via screengrab.
With U.S. forces leaving Iraq on September 30, Kurdish leaders warn their region will be left exposed to Iran-backed militias and ISIS without American air defenses and support.
On September 30, the last U.S. troops are scheduled to leave Iraq, closing a U.S. military chapter that began with the 2003 invasion. The departure completes a two-phase plan Washington and Baghdad announced in a September 2024 joint statement. The first phase ended the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’s military mission in Iraq no later than the end of September 2025.
The second allowed the coalition to continue supporting operations in Syria from Iraq until at least September 2026, subject to conditions on the ground and consultations between Washington and Baghdad. U.S. forces pulled out of federal Iraq, and the remaining troops became concentrated at Harir Air Base in Erbil Governorate. During a July White House meeting, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi confirmed the end-of-September date, and President Donald Trump said, “We don’t think we need the military there anymore.”
In August, after meeting U.S. Central Command commander Brad Cooper, al-Zaidi called the deadline “fixed and final.” His office said October 1 will mark “a new day” for Iraq, which will be free of any foreign military presence. The U.S. presence, which peaked above 170,000, is now down to the hundreds of remaining troops. On September 24, the U.S. signed an agreement handing Iraq the U.S. Embassy’s Diplomatic Support Site at Baghdad International Airport, a hub that Iran-backed groups repeatedly targeted during the war.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said the handover was part of efforts to end the coalition’s mission and the foreign military presence in Iraq. The Cabinet declared a four-day holiday, September 30 through October 3, to mark “Sovereignty Days.” Baghdad says the coalition will be replaced by bilateral cooperation in the economic, development, energy and security fields.
Kurdish leaders have warned that the withdrawal will leave their region exposed. In a televised interview with Al Sharqiya TV, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) President Masoud Barzani said the pullout could recreate the security vacuum that followed the 2011 U.S. departure and preceded the rise of ISIS. “I am afraid of the same scenario,” Barzani said.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani told Al-Monitor that the region has been unable to acquire effective air defenses and has relied on the Americans, who intercepted most incoming missiles and drones. “Withdrawal of these air defense systems will definitely put us at risk,” he said. The U.S. has already moved eight Patriot batteries to Jordan, and Britain has moved its Rapid Sentry system to Cyprus.
Security threats have continued in the final days before the withdrawal. On Sunday, Iraqi forces confronted an ISIS cell in Altun Kupri, between Erbil and Kirkuk. Two militants wearing explosive belts were killed, and a third, who transported ISIS members, was wounded and arrested.
A civilian was killed and two counterterrorism personnel were wounded. Early Monday morning, three drones struck Azadi Camp in Koya, east of Erbil, between 1:40 and 2:10 a.m., without causing casualties. The camp houses families of Iranian Kurdish opposition Peshmerga fighters. A senior official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) told local media that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out the strike with three Hadid-110 drones.
Monday’s strike was one of more than 1,000 attacks on the Kurdistan Region since February 28, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. The KRG’s Department of Media recorded 809 attacks between February 28 and April 20, resulting in 20 civilian deaths and 123 injuries.
Erbil Governorate was hit hardest, with 477 attacks, including 419 drone strikes and 58 missile strikes, which killed 10 civilians and injured 83. By Rudaw’s tracking, the total had passed 950 attacks by Iran and allied Iraqi armed groups as of early August, with 32 people killed and 154 wounded. In the first weeks of the war, Iran carried out most of the strikes on Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, while Iran-backed Iraqi groups claimed most attacks on other targets in the region.
The deadliest attack came on March 24, when six Iranian ballistic missiles struck two Peshmerga positions in Soran, killing six Peshmerga and wounding 30, according to the KRG Peshmerga Ministry. On April 7, a drone struck a home in Zargazawi village, Erbil province, killing a Peshmerga member and his wife. The couple, Musa Anwar Rasool and Mujda Asaad Hassan, left behind two children.
Erbil Governor Omed Khoshnaw said Baghdad had remained silent about the attacks. Coalition troops have also been hit: in March, a drone attack in Erbil wounded six French soldiers, and Italy temporarily pulled its personnel from a base after a separate strike. On August 17, two Hadid-110 drones launched from across the Iranian border struck Masrour Barzani’s private office and the home of the head of the region’s Security and Intelligence Agency.
Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the region have been targeted repeatedly. The Komala party said more than 108 missiles and drones had struck its headquarters and camps since the war began.
Even before the U.S.-Iran conflict began, the Kurds were subjected to frequent attacks. Between July 14 and 16, 2025, drones struck five oil fields in the Kurdistan Region, damaging the region’s energy production. On November 26, 2025, two explosive-laden drones launched from the outskirts of Tuz Khurmatu hit the Khor Mor gas field, the 11th attack on the site since 2022. The strike cut up to 80 percent of the region’s electricity supply. Local officials blamed Iran-backed militias, while Iraq’s investigation named no group.
ISIS remains active in territories disputed between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the federal government in Baghdad. In January, Peshmerga forces repelled an attack on a frontline position in Tuz Khurmatu. In December 2021, ISIS struck a Kurdish village in Makhmur, 60 kilometers southwest of Erbil, killing 13 Peshmerga and civilians.
The withdrawal is also going ahead without the disarmament of the militias. Al-Zaidi had tied disarmament to the U.S. exit, but he has pushed the deadline to June 30, 2027, beginning with a 90-day period in which the militias would halt attacks in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to strike them. The most powerful Iran-aligned militias, Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, have rejected disarming or set conditions the government is unlikely to meet.
Masrour Barzani said the Kurdistan Region supports the withdrawal but hopes it will not leave a security vacuum.
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