Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the end of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, a stabbing attack on a FlyDubai flight en route to Israel, and Russia’s nuclear threats against NATO.

U.S. forces have finally left Iraq.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the end of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, a stabbing attack on a FlyDubai flight en route to Israel, and Russia’s nuclear threats against NATO.

U.S. forces have finally left Iraq.

Iraqis celebrated the United States’ long-awaited withdrawal on Wednesday, as many had blamed Baghdad’s years of instability on the foreign military’s presence. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of U.S. troops were killed during Washington’s two decades of involvement. However, with the Iran war still active across the region, experts warn that the United States’ departure now leaves behind a power vacuum that U.S. adversaries are likely to take advantage of.

U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to oust Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, and they remained in the country until 2011 to support its Shiite-led government. Less than three years later, though, U.S. forces returned to help fight the Islamic State. Then, in 2024, President Joe Biden struck an agreement with Baghdad to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq by September 2025. However, developments in neighboring Syria led Iraq to allow a small contingent of U.S. advisors and security personnel to remain beyond that deadline. U.S. forces also continued to operate from the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

In recent months, U.S. forces have carried out military operations against pro-Iranian paramilitary groups in Iraq, which have claimed responsibility for repeated strikes on U.S. troops in the region as well as a recent drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. Despite Baghdad remaining the only Middle Eastern government to maintain close military and political ties with both Tehran and Washington, analysts argue that Iraq has become a secondary battlefield in the Iran war; of the 18 U.S. service members killed since the Iran war began in February, seven died ​in Iraq.

Wednesday’s withdrawal could........

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