Withdrawal of Half of US Troops to Be Completed in Days: PM
Speaking at a ceremony on Tuesday marking the centenary of the Iraqi Army Day, al-Kadhimi said several groups of US forces left Iraq in the past few months, RT Arabic reported.
The withdrawal of the rest of them will continue according to the schedule, he added.
More than half of the US troops will pull out of Iraq in the coming days, the prime minister said.
Only hundreds of the US forces will remain for cooperation in the fields of training, rehabilitation, armament, and technical support, al-Kadhimi said.
He further called 2021 the year of success for Iraq and hailed the Iraqi armed forces’ preparedness to protect the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and people’s dignity.
In January last year, Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country following the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
The legislators used an extraordinary parliamentary session to vote on a resolution requiring the government to press Washington and its allies to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
