Operation Inherent Resolve

This is the name of a military campaign, not of a unit. The United States gave it that name in October 2014, after Islamic State seized Mosul and much of northern Iraq, and a separate standing command prosecutes it. At its height the campaign covered air strikes, training for Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and partnered ground operations in both Iraq and Syria.

Its Iraqi half ran down on a schedule Washington and Baghdad agreed in September 2024, not on anything in the 2026 war with Iran. Ain al-Asad Airbase went to the Iraqi Army in January 2026; Erbil Air Base, where most of the roughly 1,500 Coalition personnel on the Iraq mission were based, closed to American forces on 30 September 2026.

Syria now carries the whole campaign, under the name Washington gave it in October 2014. The Iraqi closure also removed the basing that would have made an Iraq-launched American strike on Iran available, which is why a counter-Islamic State campaign appears in an Iran file at all.