IS was behind two large-scale attacks last week that killed around 300 people.
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The additional troops means the USA has 4,647 “military personnel on official assignment in Iraq”.
Back in December and January, President Barack Obama and Carter laid out 10 strategic goals – some of them geographical, some of them functional – that needed to occur before Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and the Syrian counter-IS forces could retake Raqqah and Mosul, Islamic State’s de-facto capital in Syria and largest stronghold in Iraq.
Carter said that the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency, which leads the US Department of Defense’s efforts to combat improvised explosive devices, would provide additional assistance to improve security in Baghdad.
The territorial gain, which followed the recapture of a key air base nearby at the weekend, further isolated Mosul in preparation for a government assault to recover Iraq’s second largest city 60 km (40 miles) to the north. Since then, he has steadily increased the number of troops in Iraq and given them more authority.
Islamic State has been turning increasingly to suicide bombings, which USA and Iraqi officials have touted as proof that battlefield setbacks are weakening the jihadists.
Sadr, whose supporters twice stormed Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone earlier this year, called for a reprieve from protests during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week.
Mosul, in the northern part of the country, has been in the hands of the Islamic State since the summer of 2014 when its forces displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, many of whom left with little to no possessions.
Carter said the general and his staff would bring “that substantial experience and tradecraft that we learned by hard experience in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
Iraqi military officials said in interviews Monday that there was substantial damage to the air base that would require significant repairs.
The airfield is “one of the hubs from which…”
“We know that there are al-Qaida and (Islamic State) components in Afghanistan”, he said.
Iraqi forces were already improving the base’s perimeter in case of a counterattack from the nearby town of Qayara, which Islamic State militants still hold, another US official in Baghdad said. Among the troops who are being deployed to the airfield are engineers who have expertise in building and fixing runways.
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However, there is still debate in Washington about the timing of an offensive on Mosul.
