ERBIL, September 11, 2026 (Ghufran): The US-led coalition has begun withdrawing its forces from Iraq’s Kurdistan region ahead of the September 30 deadline to end its military mission in Iraq, Kurdish Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed said on Thursday. The coalition had already withdrawn from its other bases in Iraq in January and is now stationed only in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, with forces currently deployed at Erbil International Airport. Under a 2024 agreement between Baghdad and Washington, the coalition is scheduled to complete its withdrawal by September 30 after concluding its mission against the Islamic State (IS). Ahmed said the withdrawal process had already started, with coalition personnel being transferred daily to locations outside Iraq. A senior Iraqi official also confirmed the pullout from Kurdistan. US-led forces were deployed to Iraq and Syria in 2014 to fight IS, which was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, although remnants of the group remain active in remote areas. The coalition’s presence has remained a source of tension with Iran-backed armed factions in Iraq, which have targeted coalition troops in recent years. Iraqi authorities hope the coalition’s withdrawal will remove a key justification cited by some armed groups for refusing to hand over their weapons to the state.