Iran Press/ America: Quoting several US officials, The Wall Street Journal wrote in a piece that the Pentagon over the next two or three months would reduce military presence in Iraq by roughly one-third, Xinhua reported.
That would bring US force levels roughly back to where they were in 2015 when the United States was in the early phase of its campaign against the Islamic State, according to the report.
The report said that the actual number of troops left might be slightly more than 3,500, due to Pentagon counting rules that often exclude troops on temporary assignments.
Currently, there are over 5,000 US troops deployed in Iraq to support Iraqi forces in battles against remnants of the Islamic State, mainly for training and advisory purposes.
The United States and Iraq held a strategic dialogue in June, the joint statement of which said that the United States would reduce forces from Iraq over the coming months.
As the presidential election looms, President Donald Trump has recently doubled down on the effort of pulling his country out of 'endless wars'.
Last week, he reiterated his intention to withdraw US troops from Iraq, but no detailed timeframe has been released yet. "At some point, we obviously will be gone. We've brought it down to a very, very low level," Trump told reporters in the White House during his meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Aug. 20.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed that US troops in Afghanistan would be reduced to less than 5,000 by the end of November.
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