The US will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help recapture Mosul from Islamic State militants, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday on an unannounced visit to the country.
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According to Mr Carter, who met top Iraqi officials on Monday, the new American forces should arrive in the coming weeks.
The extra troops, including engineers and logistics experts, would help local forces planning to retake the IS stronghold of Mosul, Mr Carter said.
“The point of seizing that (Qayara) airfield is to be able to establish a logistics and air hub in the immediate vicinity of Mosul”, Carter told reporters. Iraqi government forces, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, have since managed to recapture most of the territory.
Obama approved the additional forces on Carter’s recommendation after consulting with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, U.S. Central Command commander Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, and the commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the release said.
Some of them will go to the Qayara airbase which Iraqi forces recaptured on Saturday near the northern city, he added during a trip to Baghdad.
Moreover, Baghdad and Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, do not appear to have agreed on a plan for Mosul, and any significant participation by Kurdish or Shi’ite forces in a Mosul campaign, one USA official said, “would create a whole new set of problems that the Abadi government is incapable of managing, or even mitigating”.
Coupled with coalition air support, the results have seen the ISIS group losing roughly half its territory in Iraq and about 20 percent of its Syria claim, the Pentagon said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
“Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi has received his Canadian counterpart and the military delegation accompanying him”, the ministry said in a statement.
“We will provide more if and when the Iraqi security forces can make good use of them, and if Prime Minister Abadi requests them”, he said. But the facilities are damaged by years of fighting, and may require repairs to be operational.
Asadi, who participated in the Kuwait invasion, said the armored component was “not at that level” but was the largest used in the fight against Islamic State. “Air strikes and drone attacks-on people in a vehicle, in the desert, in a hospital, or at a wedding party-may sometimes kill individual terrorists (and always other people), but do nothing to stop terrorism”. And last Thursday, an attack at a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad killed 37 people.
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The developments follow two large-scale attacks claimed by the Islamic State group last week in which more than 300 people were killed. Some U.S. advisers based at Camp Speicher, about 100 miles south in Tikrit said some left their base and drove to “secure areas” closer to the front lines in three or four vehicles in order to maintain better communications with Iraqi forces.
