On Monday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the USA would be sending 560 troops to Iraq to help the Iraqi Security Forces. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged all Iraqis to celebrate the recapture of Fallujah by the security forces and vowed the national flag would be raised in Mosul soon.
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The additional 560 United States forces being sent to Iraq will remain hidden from public view given that much of the population blames foreign – and especially U.S. military intervention – for creating and strengthening the terrorist group, the private intelligence firm Soufan Group said in a report on Tuesday.
Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year. The additional troops will bring the official number of USA service members in Iraq to 4,647 – far fewer than the 130,000 the United States had in the country about a decade ago.
However, there is still debate in Washington about the timing of an offensive on Mosul.
Iraqi government forces deployed in most of Baghdad on Tuesday, closing off main roads and snarling traffic.
The airfield is “one of the hubs from which…”
The decision to extend support to Iraqi forces is based on a recommendation made by the Defence Secretary, as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford, US Central Command commander General Joseph Votel, and Operation Inherent Resolve commander lieutenant general Sean MacFarland.
Army Gen. John Nicholson told reporters that about 400 of the forces deployed outside Afghanistan will be part of the US commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation advise-and-assist mission. The airfield, situated south of Mosul, was retaken by Iraqi soldiers on Saturday.
US forces have already visited Qayara to check on its condition, and advisors can offer specialised engineering support in Mosul, US officials said.
IS has carried out bloody attacks against civilians as they lose ground, including a bombing in Baghdad earlier this month that killed 292 people, one of the deadliest to ever hit the country.
It’s an important moment, because only when Mosul, ISIS’s biggest prize in Iraq, and Raqqa, the capital of its self-declared caliphate in Syria, are retaken will the world view the two-year-old Islamic State as being finally on the ropes.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group.
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“In fact, it demonstrates (Islamic State’s) strength and long-term survival skills”, terrorism expert Hassan Hassan wrote in a recent article.
