Abstarct: This study investigates the influence of Arabic syntactic transfer on the academic writing performance of pre-intermediate Iraqi university EFL students through an integrated approach combining error analysis and contrastive analysis. Theoretically, the study adopts Corder's (1967) frxamework of error analysis, which views learner errors as systematic evidence of interlanguage development and learning strategies rather than mere failure. However, for the practical classification of syntactic errors, the study employs the Surface Structure Taxonomy developed by Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1982), which categorizes errors into omission, addition, misformation, and misordering. The questionnaire demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach's Alpha coefficients exceeding the conventional threshold. The corpus analysis identified a total of 360 syntactic errors. Misformation errors constituted the largest proportion (35.6%), followed by omission (28.3%), misordering (21.1%), and addition (15.0%). Article-related errors dominated both the misformation and omission categories, reflecting the significant structural differences between the Arabic and English article systems. Subject-verb agreement errors, tense-related errors, and word-order errors including adjective-noun misordering directly mirroring Arabic syntactic conventions were also prominent. The questionnaire findings revealed high mean scores across all three domains, with Syntactic Errors in English Sentence Structure ranking first (M = 4.20), followed by Academic Writing Difficulties and Syntactic Awareness (M = 4.17), while the perceived Influence of Arabic on English Academic Writing ranked third (M = 4.09) but remained within the high category. Within the Arabic-influence domain, the highest-rated items were related to mental translation and thinking in Arabic before writing. The interview analysis produced five major themes: thinking in Arabic before writing in English, difficulty with English sentence structure, problems with articles and grammatical agreement, dependence on literal translation, and the need for additional writing practice and feedback. The study concludes that Arabic syntactic transfer remains a significant factor influencing the academic writing of Iraqi EFL students, operating through direct structural transfer, cognitive mediation via mental translation, and grammatical mapping. The findings support instructional approaches that emphasize contrastive awareness, sentence construction, guided writing practice, and meaningful corrective feedback rather than isolated grammar teaching alone. Pedagogical implications, recommendations for stakeholders, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.