US withdraws from Iraqi airbase, transfers Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq

US forces left Iraq’s Ain al Assad Airbase in Iraq’s Al Anbar Governorate, according to Iraq’s Defense Ministry, CNN reported on January 19. The redeployment of forces away from the large base was widely expected, and Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani, have been calling on the US to leave the country over the last several years.

The shift in US forces took place as clashes escalated in Syria between the Syrian government and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). On January 21, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the US would transfer up to 7,000 Islamic State detainees from facilities in Syria to Iraq.

Iraq’s Security Media Cell, an official government source, announced in a statement on X on January 18 that the US-led coalition against the Islamic State had completed its “evacuation of all military bases and command headquarters in the official federal areas of Iraq.” The statement noted that the implementation of this withdrawal had been in the works since an agreement reached between US and Iraqi authorities in September 2024.

The US and Iraq issued a joint statement in November 2025 on the shifting relationship between the two countries, the Security Media Cell added. US forces began to leave Ain al Assad Airbase in August and September 2025, according to Shafaq News. Only a small number of Americans remained at the base prior to the final redeployment, primarily advisors who stayed in the last months of 2025 due to security developments in Syria, Arab News reported. US forces have moved from Ain al Assad to facilities in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.

The Security Media Cell also noted that Iraq’s armed forces “now possess the full will and capabilities to extend security throughout all parts of the homeland.” Iraq believes that the Islamic State no longer constitutes a strategic threat and that Iraq’s forces are capable of preventing its resurgence, the statement noted.

In 2011, US forces also left Iraq, eight years after the 2003 invasion. Americans returned to the country to help Baghdad fight a resurgent Islamic State in 2014, an effort that eventually became Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition against the jihadist group. After the major defeat for the Islamic State in the Battle of Mosul in 2017, the US began drawing down forces. The withdrawal rate increased in 2020 after attacks on US forces by Iranian-backed militias in 2019. Iranian-backed militias have continued their attacks on US forces over the last several years. Iran also launched ballistic missiles at Ain al Assad Airbase after the US killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.

The US redeployment of forces to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has taken place as the security situation in Syria is rapidly changing. Syrian government forces took over a swath of eastern Syria between January 16 and 21, pushing the Syrian Democratic Forces back to several small pockets of control. The government advance has put it in control of hundreds of miles of the Syrian side of the Iraq-Syria border east of the Euphrates. The Syrian government has also taken control of several large camps and prisons housing Islamic State detainees.

On January 21, US Central Command said that it had launched a new mission to transfer Islamic State detainees to Iraq in an effort to keep them secure. “The transfer mission began while U.S. forces successfully transported 150 ISIS fighters held at a detention facility in Hasakah, Syria, to a secure location in Iraq. Ultimately, up to 7,000 ISIS detainees could be transferred from Syria to Iraqi-controlled facilities,” CENTCOM said.

“We are closely coordinating with regional partners, including the Iraqi government, and we sincerely appreciate their role in ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS,” US Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of CENTCOM, noted. “Facilitating the orderly and secure transfer of ISIS detainees is critical to preventing a breakout that would pose a direct threat to the United States and regional security,” he added. CENTCOM did not say where the detainees would be transferred within Iraq.

Iraqi authorities have expressed concern about the clashes between the Syrian government and the SDF. On January 21, Iraq’s prime minister traveled to the border between the two countries to conduct a field tour, his office said in a statement on X. Sudani met with forces deployed along the border and visited Ain al Assad Airbase, which his office noted had recently been handed over from the anti-Islamic State coalition.

Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDD’s Long War Journal. He is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024).