France pulling military personnel out of Iraq: US official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An undetermined number of French military personnel are pulling out of Iraq, a US official and an Iraqi military spokeperson said on Wednesday, in what is likely to be a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The spokesperson for Iraq’s caretaker prime minister and commander-in-chief Adil Abdul-Mahdi told state-owned newspaper al-Sabaah on Wednesday that French troops stationed in Iraq had already left the country.

“The French troops have left Iraqi territory,” Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

A US official who wished to remain anonymous told Rudaw English on Wednesday that the withdrawal has yet to end.

“France is in the process of pulling their advisors out of Iraq,” the US official said.

French troops form part of the US-led Global Coalition against Islamic State (ISIS), an 81-country alliance established as ISIS swept through Syria and Iraq in 2014. The coalition has primarily provided air support to Iraqi operations, as well as training and advisory support to Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

Almost 1,000 French military personnel are stationed across the Middle East as part of Operation Chammal, the French component of the anti-ISIS coalition's operations. Approximately 200 of these troops were stationed within Iraq.

The reason of the withdrawal is still unclear, but is most probably due to the coronavirus pandemic that other armies have cited as a reason for troop withdrawals and suspension of military action.

Coalition partner the United Kingdom announced on Thursday that it would be withdrawing its troops from Iraq in response to the pandemic.

“Following the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been a reduced requirement for training from the Iraqi Security Forces and a subsequent pause in the Coalition and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation training missions in Iraq,” read a Ministry of Defense statement.

The French withdrawal also comes amid a plan to reposition US-led coalition troops inside Iraq to defend itself against persistent militant group attacks on bases where they are stationed.

Earlier this month, coalition spokesperson Colonel Myles B. Caggins III told Rudaw English the repositioning is due to threats posed by Iranian-backed groups and remnants of ISIS.

“The coalition will look at where to position its advisers from now on as things have been changed, and it is likely that our operation will adjust based on the threats,” he said.

US troops handed over al-Qaim military base in western Iraq’s Anbar province to the Iraqi security forces last week as part of a plan to reposition US-led coalition troops inside Iraq.

The coalition officially announced the total withdrawal of US troops from al-Qaim base on Thursday. The coalition statement released last week confirmed that “the coalition will remain in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, but will operate from fewer locations”.

US troops also plan to withdraw from two others military bases inside Iraq — Qayyarah military air base south of Mosul and the K-1 base northwest of Kirkuk city. A rocket attack on K-1 by an Iran-backed militia that killed a US military contractor set off a chain of Washington-Tehran hostility that brought the two countries close to the brink of war, and resulted in the US assassination of high-profile Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad airport in January.

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