The advise-and-assist teams – made up of about a dozen troops each – would embed with Iraqi brigades and battalions, likely putting them closer to the front lines and at greater risk from mortars and rocket fire.
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In Baghdad yesterday, Carter said the new actions against ISIL are coming “on top of what we’re already doing”.
The additional US military support announced Monday is meant to help accelerate the fight for Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the senior defense official said. And Obama will also be in Riyadh to talk with Gulf leaders about the fight against the Islamic State and ask for their help in rebuilding Ramadi, which took heavy damage in the battle. The terrorist group captured the city in summer 2014 and uses it as its de facto headquarters.
Lt. Gen. Sean McFarland, the commander of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, told reporters that more American troops could be deployed.
The additional troops will not be sent to do the fighting as emphasized by President Obama. The U.S. move could add even more problems to those faced by Iraq PM Abadi who is under pressure not to allow further USA ground troops in Iraq. If that happens, “we’ll have another discussion about it”, he said.
The new authority would not change their role of being advisers to Iraqi forces.
“We expect there will be a lot of such opportunities as the envelopment of Mosul progresses”, he said.
Apaches, meanwhile, will be able to provide vital close air support that will be key in helping Iraqi forces dislodge Daesh. Today’s move will put the “official” figure at over 4,000.
In October it was revealed that more than 500 Yazidi women and young girls were abducted by ISIS fighters when they stormed the Sinjar region, also in northern Iraq, in August 2014 and slaughtered more than 5,000 of its men.
Cash-strapped Islamic State terror group is suffering a budget shortage after their recent loss of territory in the Southern part of Mosul, the jihadi group is selling these oragns to raise much needed funds for their fighters awful salary.
Speaking to US troops at the airport in Baghdad, Carter also said that the USA will send an additional long-range, rocket-assisted artillery system to Iraq.
It was Carter’s third trip to Baghdad since he became defense secretary.
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that he expected Mosul to be retaken from the ISIS “eventually”.
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Iraq is struggling with low oil prices and a political crisis that threatens to weaken its army’s attempt to retake Mosul. And the Pentagon will also provide $415 million to Kurdish peshmerga fighters who have been pivotal to the effort in northern Iraq. Carter didn’t elaborate on the plan, but the Kurds have complained they were getting short-changed in weapons and ammunition by the Iraqi central government in Baghdad.
