IRGC hails US withdrawal, Iraq sets new disarmament deadline

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards hailed Thursday the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq as a “historic victory” and called for American troops to leave the Middle East entirely.

In a statement carried by their official media, the Revolutionary Guards congratulated “the proud nation of Iraq, the united front of the Islamic Resistance and the revolutionary fighters of the Islamic world on this historic victory.”

On Wednesday, the U.S.-led coalition that deployed to Iraq and Syria in 2014 to fight the Daesh terrorist group formally concluded its mission and withdrew.

Daesh, which seized large areas of both countries and committed massacres and atrocities, was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces stayed on to battle the group’s remnants.

“The U.S. must leave the region and entrust the management of security to the nations themselves,” said the statement by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran’s military.

“Two decades of occupation demonstrated that the U.S. presence brought no security; rather, it was the very source of insecurity, terrorism, and instability in the Middle East,” it added.

Baghdad and Washington had recently agreed to wind down the coalition’s mission and its troops withdrew gradually from bases across the country, restricting their presence to the semi-autonomous northern region.

The Iraqi government says the coalition’s withdrawal removes the excuse powerful Iran-backed militant factions have used to retain their weapons.

On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced June 30, 2027, as a new deadline for armed factions to turn over their weapons to the state.

“Oct. 1 is considered a serious beginning to address the issue of weapons outside state control … according to a clear roadmap and agreed timelines extending no later than June 30, 2027,” Zaidi said in a statement, after backing away from an original Sept. 30 deadline.

“Based on the constitutional principle, the decision of war and peace should be left to the constitutional authorities, banning all military action to the contrary,” Zaidi said Thursday.

While some factions have already handed over their weapons to the state, others have refused to disarm. Many fear that the U.S. pullout might boost Iran-backed factions and draw the country deeper into the Middle East war.

Earlier Wednesday, Iraqi armed factions backed by Tehran said that they were “not bound by any timeline or agreement” to surrender their weapons to the state.

Jaafar al-Husseini, a military spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, said at an event celebrating the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces that the factions had been in talks on “regulating” their weapons but had not yet received a response from the Iraqi government.

“Based on this,” he said, “the Islamic Resistance declares that it is not bound by any timetable or agreement that any governmental or political party has spoken of or may speak of.”

Kataeb Hezbollah has called the withdrawal of “the occupation forces … a start toward achieving full sovereignty.”

But the group also threatened Zaidi’s government.

“‘A government that does not work for the good of its people will be brought down by all possible means,” it said.

DAILYSABAH