Pentagon chief Ashton Carter held talks Monday in Baghdad on the fight against the Islamic State group and the strategy to recapture Iraq’s second city Mosul from the jihadists.
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During his visit, Mr. Carter also met with Iraqi Prime Minster Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khalid al-Obaidi, who both reasserted their intent to retake Mosul by the end of this year. But it could be in the coming weeks and months.
Carter laid out the US vision for Qayara for the first time, describing its recapture as a key strategic victory.
He said most of additional troops include engineers, logistics personnel and other forces will be devoted to the build-up of the Qayara air base, south of Mosul.
Carter compared the role of Qayara to how forces used the eastern city of Makhmour. A US artillery unit is also providing cover for operations south of Mosul. Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin was killed there in March in an IS rocket attack.
“These additional USA forces will bring unique
capabilities to the campaign and provide critical enabler support to Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight”, Carter said.
The new troops will bring the authorized level of USA troops in Iraq to about 4,600.
Some U.S. and allied military and intelligence officials warn that aside from its elite counterterrorism force, the Iraqi military is not ready to take on Islamic State militants in Mosul without significant assistance from the Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militias. They previously had been limited to advising at headquarters and division levels, further from the battle.
A senior USA military official said the number of additional troops is what Gen. Sean MacFarland, commander of the coalition against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, had asked for, and the official added that there could additional troop requests in the future.
“At every step in this campaign, we have generated and seized additional opportunities to hasten ISIL’s lasting defeat”.
Mosul is considered crucial.
FILE – Smoke rises after airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants in a village east of Mosul, Iraq, May 29, 2016. A number of those 10 included retaking some of those cities.
But Islamic State militants still control large swaths of the country and continue to launch deadly attacks, including a massive suicide bombing last week at Baghdad’s bustling commercial area of Karada. As many as 186 died in the attack. These included a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left almost 300 people dead, the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of IS.
“So, there will be US logistics support”, Carter told reporters after arriving in the Iraqi capital. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will use surveillance aircraft to collect intelligence, and will begin training Iraqi forces inside the country. The Pentagon has announced a series of measures to speed up the war, including a revised mission to train anti-IS rebels in northern Syria and extra advisers for Iraqi forces.
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The latest force increase came less than three months after Washington announced it would dispatch about 200 more soldiers to accompany Iraqi troops advancing towards Mosul.
