The Pentagon has announced it will deploy an additional 560 troops to Iraq to fight the extremist group the Islamic State.
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Iraqi forces recaptured the strategically-located base on Saturday from ISIS.
Health official Ihsan Radi said nine people were killed and 30 others injured in the attack.
The recapture of Qarayyah, one of the biggest air bases in Iraq, is seen as a breakthrough in the mission to liberate Mosul, and comes just weeks after Iraq declared it had regained full control of Falluja, ISIS’ main stronghold in the country, as the militant group loses more ground.
The interior ministry spokesman, Brig Gen Saad Maan, said the troops were “practising for a planned military parade for a specific occasion”.
The envelopment of Manbij by US -trained opposition forces has taken a “hub” for Islamic State foreign fighters, Col. Chris Garver, the coalition spokesman based in Baghdad, told reporters last month.
The airfield has two runways, officials said, making it easier to move supplies and personnel.
The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has reportedly pledged to retake Mosul for ISIS militants by the year’s end. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
So long as ISIS controls them, would-be jihadists will be enticed to launch attacks in the name of the existing Islamic State caliphate.
Carter called it a strategic victory.
USA technical engineering support likely will be needed for bridging because Islamic State has blown up the bridges into Mosul, and police training might also be needed to help stabilize the city once Islamic State has been thrown out.
Iraqi forces have been moving toward Mosul from the south, and the airfield was considered a key objective, since it will serve as a base from which to support the attack on the city. Marine Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin was killed there in March in an IS rocket attack.
American advisers are already working with Iraqis on a brigade level, but have not yet accompanied them on operations on the battalion level, United States officials who wished to remain anonymous told AP.
President Barack Obama hailed the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011 as a major achievement of his presidency, but the war against IS has drawn the American military ever deeper back into Iraq. They would still be behind front lines. They previously had been limited to advising at headquarters and division levels, further from the battle. But the Iraqis do not seem to be able to prevent the Islamic State from carrying out devastating suicide attacks in Baghdad, including one earlier this month whose death toll has reached 300 people.
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“The presence of foreign troops is an understandably combustible issue for Iraq; the scars of past battles are, for many Iraqis, equal to current battles against the Islamic State”, the report stated. As many as 186 were killed.
