Last UK and US troops leave Iraq as anti-Islamic State mission ends

It said they had provided "valuable support, training and assistance" to more than 111,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces, including more than 21,000 Peshmerga forces in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.It also said the RAF had conducted thousands of sorties, striking more than 2,300 IS targets. The RAF is expected to continue flying missions over neighbouring Syria, to prevent the remnants of IS from gaining a foothold.The Pentagon said the US would continue to provide "targeted training and intelligence support" to its Iraqi partners.US Central Command said the coalition's joint taskforce remained operational and was now based in Jordan.US forces will also continue their mission against IS in Syria, where the UN estimates that the group has up to 3,000 fighters.This is the third time US and UK forces have withdrawn from Iraq.Tens of thousands of US and British troops were deployed to the country in 1991 following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.They returned to Iraq in 2003, when US President George W Bush ordered Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove the dictator from power and eliminate weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.