Carter, who arrived in Baghdad earlier Monday, announced the U.S. is sending 560 additional troops to Iraq as part of the stepped-up fight against the “cancer” of ISIL.
Advertisement
Yesterday, visiting USA defence secretary Ash Carter announced that Washington will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help battle IS.
“The additional troops will provide a range of support for Iraqi security forces, including infrastructure and logistical capabilities at the airfield near Qayyarah”, the Pentagon said in a statement.
A small group of US forces surveyed the airfield shortly after it was seized by the Iraqis, but USA military officials said it was unclear how much time it would take before cargo planes and other aircraft could land there.
“We were surprised by how destroyed the base was and how they had done it in an organized way”, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, the commander of Iraqi counterterrorism forces, who planned and participated in the operation to retake the airfield.
Carter compared the role of Qayara to how forces used the eastern city of Makhmour.
Carter is in Afghanistan to meet with USA commanders in the wake of a pledge by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies to keep troop levels stable as they battle a resilient Taliban. ISIS seized Mosul in June 2014.
Carter said numerous new troops will work from an air base near Qayara, which was recaptured Saturday by Iraqi forces and is about 40 miles south of Mosul. USA officials said a team of American troops went into Qayara for a quick site assessment Sunday and left.
Carter compared its strategic importance to that of a base near Makhmour, a hub for Iraqi forces on the opposite side of the Tigris river that is also used by USA troops. Residents of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, should “get ready for the liberation of their areas”, he said.
Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top US commander in Iraq, said troops already have received warning orders to deploy and will flow in “relatively soon”.
He is in Iraq to discuss the Iraqi army’s plans.
Over 200 US troops, backed by additional American air power and a shipment of heavy weapons, were ordered into Iraq earlier this year to support the Mosul offensive, which administration officials had hoped would be under Iraqi control by the end of the year.
USA defense officials and the Iraqi leadership hope to move on the city by the end of this year. Before arriving in Baghdad, he said the base will be a hub to help Iraqi forces “complete the southern-most envelopment of Mosul”. They had previously been limited to advising at the headquarters and division levels, which are further from the battle.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul from IS before the end of the year, though it is unclear when a concerted campaign will begin. In addition to the capture of the airbase at Qayyarah, Iraqi forces backed by coalition air power and other support recently freed the city of Fallujah from ISIL’s control after previous gains in Ramadi, Hit and Rutbah.
The US troop deployment figure understates the actual number of service members in the country.
Advertisement
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but the Islamic State has a history of carrying out similar attacks in the region. As many as 186 were killed.
