Summary
The U.S. has started to reduce the number of its troops in Iraq following Baghdad's declaration of victory over Daesh (ISIS) last year, an Iraqi government spokesman and Western contractors said Monday.
One senior Iraqi official close to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said 60 percent of all U.S. troops still in Iraq will be withdrawn, according to the initial agreement reached with Washington. The plan would leave about 4,000 U.S. troops to continue training the Iraqi military.
As of late September, there were 8,892 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to a Pentagon report released in November.
The U.S. first launched airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq in August 2014 .
...