After 23 years, US to pull out last troops from Iraq by September 30

JUST IN: The US will pull its last troops out of Iraq by September 30, ending a military presence of more than 23 years.

After 23 years, the last American troops are leaving Iraq. Washington has set the date, September 30, and when it passes, a military presence that began with the 2003 invasion is over.

Think about what that span covers. The fall of Baghdad, the insurgency, the surge, the rise of ISIS and the long fight to push it back. These pictures show what that presence looked like on the ground, convoys and heavy vehicles that became part of the Iraqi landscape for a generation.

For Baghdad, this is sovereignty finally standing on its own. For the Pentagon, it closes one of the longest chapters in modern American military history. And for the wider region, everyone from Tehran to Riyadh is now recalculating what an Iraq without American boots actually means.

Seven weeks from now, a war that started before some of its last soldiers were born officially runs out of road.

This is Angel Manalo, reporting for HIT.

Source Read the original reporting at timesofindia.indiatimes.com