Baghdad:

Iraq and the United States held the first round of talks on Saturday over the future of American and other foreign troops in the country, with Baghdad hoping the discussions will lead to a timeline for reducing their presence.

About 2,500 US troops are still deployed in Iraq as part of the international coalition anti-Islamic State group formed in 2014 – the year the jihadist group captured large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

But US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria faced frequent attacks by Iran-aligned groups after the Israel-Hamas war began in October, leading to US retaliatory strikes and Iraqi condemnation of US “aggression” against their territory. Made complaints.

The volatile situation has forced Iraq’s prime minister – whose government depends on the support of Iran-aligned parties – to leave the coalition, although talks had been planned since an initial meeting in Washington in August.

A US military official told AFP that a “unilateral drone strike” on Saturday targeted the Ain al-Asad base, where coalition forces are stationed in Iraq’s western Anbar province.

An Iraqi security official confirmed the drone strike, with the US official saying it was not immediately clear whether it caused any casualties or damage.

Earlier the office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani released a photo of him posing with top-ranking officials from both the Iraqi armed forces and the US-led coalition.

“Their Joint Commission began its work today in Baghdad to review the mission of the global coalition against Daesh,” the Sudanese office said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

“Military experts will oversee the end of the global coalition’s military mission against Daesh a decade after its inception and the successful accomplishment of its mission in partnership with Iraqi security and military forces.”

Farhad Alaeddin, a Sudanese foreign affairs adviser, told AFP that the talks “and whatever progress is made will determine the length of these talks.

Alauddin said, “Iraq is engaging other countries participating in the international coalition for bilateral agreements that are in the best interests of Iraq and these countries.”

The US-led coalition said in a statement that Saturday’s meeting was part of a process to “assess progress in the coalition’s primary defeat-Daesh mission, as well as discuss future adjustments to the coalition’s mission and presence in Iraq.” Was.

It added that the Joint Military Commission “will work to set the conditions for transforming the mission in Iraq”.

On Thursday, Washington said it had agreed with Baghdad on the launch of “expert working groups of military and defense professionals” as part of the joint commission established in the agreement with Baghdad.

The three working groups will examine “the level of threat posed by ISIS, the operational and environmental needs and strengthening the growing capabilities of Iraqi security forces,” Sudanese’s office said.

US Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh acknowledged that the US military presence in Iraq “will certainly be part of the conversation moving forward”.

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry is considering “a specific and clear timeline… and beginning a gradual drawdown of its (coalition’s) advisers on Iraqi soil.”

There have been more than 150 attacks targeting coalition troops since mid-October, many of them claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose coalition of Iran-linked groups fighting for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza. Opposes US support.

In 2014, IS declared a “caliphate”, which they brutally ruled before their defeat in Iraq by Iraqi forces backed by the US-led coalition in late 2017. However, jihadist cells still continue to carry out sporadic attacks on the army and police.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)