United States will send an additional 560 troops in the coming weeks to Iraq 11407162

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Defence & Security News - United States
 
United States will send an additional 560 troops in the coming weeks to Iraq.
The United States will send an additional 560 troops in the coming weeks to Iraq to help that nation’s forces continue to build momentum as they push toward Mosul, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said. In the coming weeks, hundreds of the newly deploying American forces will be sent to that base, Qayara West Airfield, which housed American troops through much of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
     
The United States will send an additional 560 troops in the coming weeks to Iraq to help that nation’s forces continue to build momentum as they push toward Mosul, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said. In the coming weeks, hundreds of the newly deploying American forces will be sent to that base, Qayara West Airfield, which housed American troops through much of Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Army Soldiers with Battery C, 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Task Force Al Taqaddum, conduct routine maintenance on an M109A6 Paladin howitzer at Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq, June 26, 2016.
     
The new forces will include an airfield operations team, logistics and communications specialists, command and control elements and a security detachment, said the top American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland. They will not include direct advisers for Iraqi security forces.
 
Carter met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi to discuss the “next plays in the campaign” and how Inherent Resolve can continue to accelerate the Iraqi security forces’ progress. Al-Abadi agreed to the deployment of the additional American servicemembers. Carter also discussed plans for the campaign in a phone call with Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
 

The American-trained Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga fighters will play key roles in the slow-moving Iraqi campaign to regain Mosul.

Iraqi troops are moving toward Mosul from the south, while the Kurdish troops prepare to assault from the north. Carter and other military officials in Baghdad declined to provide details about the plans for the operation.

On June 15, 2014, President Obama told Congress he was ordering “up to approximately 275 U.S. Armed Forces personnel” to Iraq to fight ISIS. Currently, the total of U.S. troop in Iraq is around 5,000 soldiers, that’s less than 3% of 170,000 U.S. peak in 2007.