Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Airstrikes hit Syrian neighborhood
First-responders search for survivors after airstrikes hit a rebel-held suburb Monday near Damascus, Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says waves of airstrikes hit at least five neighborhoods in the eastern suburb of Ghouta, the only remaining rebel stronghold near the capital.
AL-ASAD AIRBASE, Iraq — The U.S. has started to reduce the number of its troops in Iraq after Baghdad’s declaration of victory over the Islamic State militant group last year, an Iraqi government spokesman and Western contractors said Monday.
The move marks a shift in priorities for the U.S. after the collapse of the extremists’ socalled caliphate late last year. It also comes about three months ahead of Iraqi national elections in which paramilitary groups with close ties to Iran are set to play a decisive role.
Dozens of U. S. soldiers have been transported from Iraq to Afghanistan on daily flights in the past week, along with weapons and equipment, the contractors said.
An Associated Press reporter at the Al-Asad base in western Iraq saw troop movements reflecting the account by contractors. The contractors spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations and declined to reveal the exact size of the drawdown.
“The battle against Daesh has ended, and so the level of the American presence will be reduced,” said government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi, who used the Arabic-language acronym for the Islamic State.
Al-Hadithi stressed that the drawdown — the first since the war against the Islamic State began more than three years ago — was still in its early stages and doesn’t mark the beginning of a complete pullout of U.S. forces.
“Continued coalition presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to the need and in coordination with the government of Iraq,” said Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman.
One senior Iraqi official close to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said 60 percent of all U.S. troops still in Iraq will be withdrawn, according to the initial agreement reached with Washington. The plan would leave about 4,000 U.S. troops to continue training the Iraqi military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
As of late September, there were 8,892 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to a Pentagon report released in November.
The U.S. first launched airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq in August 2014. The intervention was described at the time as “limited,” but as Iraq’s military struggled to roll back the extremists, the coalition’s footprint in the country grew steadily.
“We’ve had a recent change of mission, and soon we’ll be supporting a different theater of operations in the coming month,” U.S. Army 1st Lt. William John Raymond said at the Al-Asad base.
He spoke as he and a handful of soldiers from his unit conducted equipment inventory checks required before leaving Iraq. Raymond declined to specify where his unit was going because the information has not yet been made public.
In the lead-up to the Iraqi elections set for May, the indefinite presence of U.S. troops in the country continues to be a divisive issue.
Al-Abadi, who is seeking another term, has struggled to balance the often competing interests of Iran and the United States, both key allies that have backed him against the Islamic State.
While the U.S. has closely supported key Iraqi military victories over the Islamic State in places like Mosul, some of the Shiite-led paramilitary forces with close ties to Iran have called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. The prime minister has stated that Iraq’s military will need U.S. training for years to come.
“This is a message to those who doubt the government’s decisions regarding the presence of American [forces in Iraq]: There are rules and the promise of a withdrawal,” al-Hadithi said.
Some in Iraq’s Sunni minority community view the U. S. presence in Iraq as a buffer against the country’s Shiite-dominated central government.
“The [ drawdown] is an abdication of responsibility by the coalition,” said Fahad al-Rashed, a member of the provincial council in Anbar province, which has a Sunni majority. He said he recognized that the decision fell within the jurisdiction of the central government but that local officials in Anbar would have asked the U.S. to reconsider.