The US-led coalition started withdrawing from the K1 and Qayyarah military bases and will hand them over to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).
Today, Sunday, March 29, The US-led coalition withdrew from the K1 military base and handed it to the ISF.
K1 military base is located 15 km northwestern Kirkuk, and besides the ISF, the US-led forces had been stationed there since 2017.
According to a statement the international coalition issued today, their withdrawal is neither because of the outbreaks of coronavirus in Iraq nor is it because of the recent militia rocket attackes targeted them.
The statement shows that the international coalition will relocate its troops, and the relocation plan had long been discussed with the Iraqi government.
In the statement, he also indicates the international coalition is in Iraq at the invitation of the government and “continues anti ISIS advising,” while they have suspended training the ISF and the other Kurdish forces due to the spread coronavirus.
The international coalition withdrew its 300 personnel from the K1 military base and transferred one million dollars of property to the ISF in the base.
The US-led coalition, since mid-2014, has taken part in the fight against IS in Iraq through training, equipping, and advising the ISF and the Peshmerga forces as well as airstrikes.
On March 26, the coalition also withdrew from Qayyarah military base and handed over to ISF.
In the Qayyarah military base, nearly 800 personnel withdrew and provided one million and 700 thousand dollars worth of equipment to the ISF.
The military base, which is located 16 km western Qayyarah sub-district in Nineveh province, was built in the late 1970s by the former Iraqi Baathist regime. The US force later used the base in 2003.
In January 2020, the Iraqi parliament passed a nonbinding resolution to expel all foreign troops in the country. The resolution was voted on after the US airstrike that killed Qassem Suleimani, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy chief of the Popular Mobilization Committee.
