Islamic State Kirkuk attack kills policeman after US withdrawal

At least one Iraqi federal policeman was killed and four others were wounded on Monday when Islamic State militants attacked a federal police site southwest of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, two security sources told Reuters. The attackers used semi-automatic machine guns and sniper fire against the federal police regiment stationed near Hawija, about seventy kilometers southwest of Kirkuk. Monday's Islamic State Kirkuk attack marks the first reported assault by the militant group on Iraqi security forces since the United States completed its withdrawal from Iraq five days earlier, ending the military mission.

The Islamic State Kirkuk attack drew no immediate claim of responsibility, but security and army sources said militants of the group, which remains active in the area, were involved. The attack lands at a delicate moment for Baghdad. The United States had led a coalition that supported Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State, including efforts to prevent the militant group from regrouping. Washington said it would continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support after the withdrawal, while Iraqi forces would take full responsibility for the country's security and for suppressing Islamic State remnants.

The shadow of the US exit

Just days before the attack, the United States announced the completion of its troop withdrawal from Iraq. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that US troops and equipment had completed an "orderly departure" from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. According to the Pentagon, the milestone reflected a 12-year campaign that defeated Islamic State as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region, and marked a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the withdrawal as the beginning of a "new phase, one defined by Iraq's sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends." He said Iraqi security forces will continue the fight against Islamic State and the government will ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons. Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, praised the tens of thousands of American service members, diplomats, and civilian personnel who supported the mission, and said US and coalition forces stationed across the region would remain ready to respond to any Islamic State threats that arise.

The departure ended the Iraq chapter of the counter-Islamic State mission launched in 2014, with the roughly fifteen hundred American and coalition personnel who had been based at Erbil now gone and the task force headquarters relocating to Jordan while operations continue in Syria.

Hawija and the sleeper cell warning

The Islamic State Kirkuk attack came from precisely the direction Iraqi security officials had feared. Ahead of the withdrawal, officials told Reuters that despite the defeat of Islamic State's self-declared caliphate, the group retains sleeper cells in Iraq. Those officials warned that a security vacuum could provide an opening for Islamic State to regain strength, with Iraqi forces now having to contain the group without the coalition's military presence. The warning carried particular weight in the Kurdish region, where many fear a resurgence of the militant group as well as more attacks by Iran-linked groups, possibly emboldened by the departure of US forces. Iran-backed groups in Iraq celebrated the withdrawal, while Baghdad touted the end of the US mission as a sign of the country's increasing strength and sovereignty.

Hawija itself has long been contested ground. The area around Kirkuk, rich in oil and divided by sectarian and ethnic lines, was among the territories the militants held at the height of their power, and it has remained a corridor where remnants of the group stage hit-and-run attacks. For years, Islamic State fighters have used the rugged terrain of the Hamrin mountain range and rural villages around Hawija to evade sweeping operations, regrouping in small cells that Iraqi forces have struggled to root out. Monday's Islamic State Kirkuk attack, using both machine guns and sniper fire, suggests a level of planning that goes beyond a spontaneous ambush.

What happens next is a test of the arrangement the withdrawal left behind. The Pentagon has framed the departure as a handover to capable partners, with targeted training and intelligence support continuing from a distance. Baghdad insists its forces are ready. But the Islamic State Kirkuk attack is the first violent challenge to that claim, and it arrives before the new order has had time to prove itself. For Iraqis watching from Baghdad to Erbil, the question is whether the country's security apparatus can hold the line alone. The answer will shape not only the fight against the group's remnants but also the wider contest over Iraq's sovereignty, as militias and rival regional powers position themselves in the space the coalition mission leaves behind. For the latest on the fallout from the Islamic State Kirkuk attack, see the Reuters reporting on the Kirkuk attack.