But at a news conference last week, he also said Iraqi military decisions must respect the delicate ethnic balance in Nineveh province, where most of the population is Sunni Arab, with pockets of Kurds, Shiites, Christians, Yazidis and other minority groups. Mosul is the IS group’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
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A small team of United States troops later inspected the fragmented ordinance and found one bit with a suspicious, tar-like black oily substance that they tested in the field.
US officials have said for some time that they expect the Mosul operation to begin in October.
More than 40 ISIS terrorists were killed in an unsuccessful counterattack on troops of the Iraqi 71st in the Qayara area, a Ninewa Operations source said, adding that it suffered no casualties in the attack.
A dual offensive targeting Mosul and ISIL’s de facto capital in Syria at Raqqa was hinted at by Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the US officer commanding the anti-ISIL effort, in a July 11 news conference.
The military has requested approval to send 500 more troops to Iraq to assist in missions to retake Mosul from the Islamic State.
“We were striking targets to weaken (IS-held) Mosul from the very beginning of the campaign”, said Sampson, who is based in the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar.
It’d function as the first chemical weapons assault on coalition forces in Iraq, if supported. Two years on we have made significant progress.
General Carleton-Smith said: “Coalition aircraft have destroyed close to $1billion in Daesh cash stockpiles”.
“I do not think our relationship with our partner forces could be any better”, said Sampson.
If approved, this move will effectively increase the number of U.S. troops deployed in the country to 4,900, though it should be noted that Washington insists that these soldiers are not involved in the direct fight with the jihadist group and are simply on an advise-and-assist mission. We anticipate that they will do whatever is necessary when they get desperate and they are pretty desperate at the moment’.
Militants have fired surface to air missiles at RAF jets dropping bombs over Syria and Iraq.
Florian Gottschalk, an official with Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief, said about 600,000 of those fleeing Mosul were expected to head to Baghdad.
The US-led anti-ISIS coalition provided CNN with video of a September 10 airstrike against an ISIS tactical unit aboard a boat near Bayji, Iraq.
The security protocols at the base have not changed as a result of the attack, the official said.
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According to Reuters, the town has been “surrounded by Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias allied to the government” for several months.
