ISIL attacks Iraq base, four Turkish soldiers wounded

Carter’s visit to Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, followed a trip to Baghdad the day before.

Turkey has stationed trainers since a year ago at the camp in Bashiqa, where Kurdish and Sunni forces are being trained to fight IS.

Initially the United States was going to wait to provide the equipment until the Kurds had trained two new brigades.

Carter and his delegation also met US partners in the worldwide anti-ISIL coalition.

“Mosul is sort of the next logical place”, said Army Brig.

Details of the plan have not been disclosed, and US officials haven’t said when they may deploy to Iraq. But the peshmerga’s effectiveness was again proved when its forces repelled the attack while US troops enabled, Carter said.

He said Ankara believed it had taken sufficient measures to de-escalate the situation, so efforts could be re-focused in combating Islamic State militants, who have seized swaths of Iraq and Syria. None of them were in life-threatening condition, the military said.

Mr. Carter and his staff were briefed on what officials described as a significant fight that began here late Wednesday, after Islamic State fighters mounted three separate attacks north and east of Mosul, which is controlled by the extremist group. But they “certainly might be taken up” for future battles, he said.

The 12 US Air Force F-15 Eagles and Strike Eagles will return to the RAF Lakenheath base in England.

Odom estimated that at least 180 Islamic State fighters were killed in action.

“I think their principal objective was probably to conduct a spoiling attack based on all of the things that are going on both in and outside of Iraq”.

The center of the city remains under Islamic State control, which Iraqi intelligence estimates number between 250 and 300 fighters, with Iraqi military officials saying that militants are losing the initiative and suffering food and ammunition shortages after government forces cut their last supply line into the city last month.

“So as those operations kind of move off the never-ending horizon to the horizon”.

Col. Steve Warren, a senior spokesman for the USA military in Iraq, said that the multiple Islamic State attacks Wednesday had “achieved a tactical surprise”, but praised the effectiveness of the Peshmerga fighters against the militant group.