Erbil says American military support survives a lapsed agreement, and Washington has not said so

The National reported on Friday 29 August, under the byline of Mina Aldroubi, that the Kurdistan Region says US military support is not ending despite the expiry of a security co-operation agreement. The Files has the report’s headline, byline and date; the load-bearing detail — which agreement lapsed, on what date, which official in Erbil is speaking, and whether any American body has confirmed the account — is not yet on the record in anything we have been able to read. No statement from US Central Command, the US Embassy in Baghdad or the Pentagon has been retrieved, and no comment from the federal government in Baghdad. What is confirmed is the shape of the American footprint the claim describes. The Iraqi Defence Ministry announced on Saturday 17 January 2026 that US forces had completed their withdrawal from Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar, with Army Chief of Staff Lt Gen Abdul Amir Rashid Yarallah overseeing the handover, as Military Times reported three days later.

What remains sits at Harir Air Base in Erbil province. A Small Wars Journal analysis published on 20 January 2026 noted the obvious constitutional feature of that arrangement: Harir lies where “Iraq’s central government does not exercise full authority.” An earlier drawdown schedule, described by the Jerusalem Post on 19 January, had hundreds of troops leaving by September 2025 and the remainder by the end of 2026. The frame most often bolted onto that timetable — a departing America and a reviving Islamic State — is not what the evidence currently shows. The Soufan Center’s IntelBrief of 23 June 2026 assessed IS activity in Iraq and Syria as remaining historically low, with 2026 attack levels far below those of the mid-2010s even allowing for a recent rise in operations, and with that rise weighted towards Syria rather than Iraq.

The security vacuum on Iraqi territory this year has been filled from a different direction. On 29 July, Al Jazeera reported joint Saudi–US strikes on Iran-aligned groups across Iraq, following attacks Riyadh said had been “launched from Iraqi territory and carried out by Iran-aligned terrorist militias.” The Saudi statement added: “The Kingdom emphasises that it does not seek escalation but will respond to any aggression it faces.” The Popular Mobilisation Forces said at least 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded at its sites — a casualty figure produced by an Iraqi state security institution about strikes carried out by a state Baghdad is not at war with, and reported alongside a federal position articulated by an entirely different arm of the same government.

Assessment: Treat this as a claim by one party about its own security guarantee, made at a moment when Erbil has every incentive to project continuity to its own public, to Baghdad and to Ankara. The tell will be whether any American institution repeats it on the record, and whether the federal government objects to a bilateral military relationship with a region rather than with the state. That second question is the one to watch: a residual US presence anchored in Erbil converts a coalition legacy into a Kurdish asset. Note also what the July strikes established — the constraint on Iraqi territory is no longer the Islamic State, and no longer only American.