United States to send 560 more troops to Iraq

One likely job is helping Iraq troops build bridges to get across the Tigris River into Mosul.

Carter laid out the US vision for Qayara for the first time, describing its recapture as a key strategic victory.

They will help Iraqi security forces planning to encircle and eventually retake the key city.

Carter compared the role of Qayara to how forces used the eastern city of Makhmour. A US artillery unit is also providing cover for operations south of Mosul.

“As the campaign shifts toward Mosul, more than 250 miles from the Iraqi capital, the airfield will become a vital springboard for the [Iraqi security forces] offensive into Mosul”.

A USA -led global coalition has been conducting air raids against IS targets in both Iraq and Syria. Mosul was captured by ISIS in 2014, and is the largest city to fall under the group’s control. “As we liberated Beiji, Falluja and Qayyarah we will liberate Mosul”, Ameri said in a statement. With this latest round of deployments, the total official USA military presence in Iraq now stands at 4,647, although including temporary deployments the number is slightly higher. Officials weren’t authorized to talk about the airfield publicly and demanded anonymity.

The new troops were “ready to come” and it would be a matter of “days and weeks, not months”, he said. They previously were limited to advising at headquarters and division levels, further away.

Carter is scheduled to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi and Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the head of the US -led coalition combating the Islamic State, Reuters reported.

“Despite the summer heat, our Iraqi partners – with your intrepid support – pressed ahead with the fight and cleared one town after another, dealing ISIL a series of blows”, Carter told US troops at Baghdad’s airport, using an acronym for the militant group.

Mosul is considered crucial. Overall, coalition-backed forces have recaptured about 40% of the territory that the extremist group once controlled.

Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, the defense secretary said, “It’s necessary but not sufficient to destroy ISIL in Iraq and Syria because this is where it began and is what I have called the parent tumor of the cancer … but, like cancer, ISIL has spread to … other places and it also threatens our homelands”.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces have been training and preparing for the final battle.

Moreover, Baghdad and Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, do not seem to have agreed on a plan for Mosul, and any significant participation by Kurdish or Shiite forces in a Mosul campaign, one U.S. official said, “would create a whole new set of problems that the Abadi government is incapable of managing, or even mitigating”.

One of the defense officials said the Pentagon identified 10 initial goals for the Iraq fight earlier this year, and with the recapture of Qayara, all 10 have now been achieved.

Baghdad is on high alert for attacks after a blast in the central Karada district on July 3 killed more than 300 people. And last Thursday, an attack at a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad killed 37 people.