The last US combat brigade pulled out of Iraq at dawn yesterday, a key milestone in the withdrawal of US forces more than seven years after the US-led invasion ousted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Under the cover of dark, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, crossed the border into Kuwait ahead of the planned declaration of an end to US combat operations in Iraq by an Aug. 31 deadline.
“Yes, they did,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Bloom said, when asked if the brigade had crossed into Kuwait. “The last one crossed at about 6am this morning.”
PHOTO: REUTERS/US ARMY
“They have a few more days to clean the equipment, prepare the equipment, get it ready for shipment and then they’ll fly out [to the US],” he said.
It took two days for 360 vehicles and 1,200 soldiers to travel from Camp Liberty on Baghdad’s outskirts and Camp Taji north of the capital, through the Shiite south, and into the Gulf emirate, Bloom said.
He said the rest of the 4,000-strong brigade left Iraq by air.
Captain Russell Varnado at Camp Arifjan, a major US base about 70km south of Kuwait City, said “the combat troops have finished moving.”
“The troops are transitioning now. They are scheduled to go back home soon,” he said, without giving a specific date.
About 56,000 US soldiers remain in Iraq, with that figure set to drop to 50,000 by Sept. 1. At that point, the US mission in Iraq will be re-named “Operation New Dawn,” from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” — the name given to US operations here since the invasion.
The remaining 6,000 soldiers who will leave the country in the next two weeks are clustered throughout Iraq, Captain Sarah Baumgardner said.
“It is about a transition to a change of mission, going from combat operations to stability operations,” Major General Stephen Lanza said in an interview with US television channel MSNBC.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
RSS