US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi confirmed in a joint statement that US forces will not have a combat role in Iraq by the end of the year, and their role will be limited to training and combating "terrorism."

At the conclusion of the round of dialogue between them at the White House on Monday evening, a joint US-Iraqi statement was issued, which stated that "the Iraqi government affirms its commitment to protecting the members of the international coalition (to combat ISIS").

The statement added that there will be no US forces with a combat role in Iraq by the end of the year, and that the coalition forces are present at the invitation of the Iraqi government.

During the meeting, Biden said that his administration is committed to strengthening the partnership with Iraq, explaining that the American role will be linked to consulting, providing assistance in the field of training and confronting the Islamic State.

Al-Kazemi had said in media statements on Sunday that his country no longer needs foreign combat forces on Iraqi soil in order to fight ISIS, adding that the security and army "are able to defend the country without the US-led coalition forces."

On the other hand, the official in charge of foreign relations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Sefin Dizayi, said that the KRG does not support the withdrawal of the international coalition forces from Iraq, due to what he described as the country's instability, interference by other countries in its internal affairs, and the incompleteness of its military capabilities.


military presence

There are currently about 2,500 American soldiers in Iraq whose missions are to confront the remnants of the Islamic State.

An international coalition led by America invaded Iraq in March 2003, based on accusations that the government of late President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam was ousted from power, but such weapons have never been found.

In recent years, the US mission has been to help defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In a separate context, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq announced today the injury of 3 of its members after a drone bombed a camp in Najaf Governorate, south of the capital, Baghdad.

He stated that what he described as hostile drones targeted, with two air strikes, a warehouse for equipment and mechanisms belonging to the Imam Ali Combat Team, one of the crowd's factions, which led to a huge fire in it.

Sources told Al Jazeera that missiles were launched from the warehouse as a result of the burning and landed on a residential neighborhood, causing material damage, while a missile landed on a school in the same neighborhood, but it did not explode.

For his part, the security media denied monitoring the presence of drones at the scene, and said that the explosion may have been caused by poor storage and high temperatures.