Hundreds of American troops are heading to Iraq in the coming weeks in a bid to accelerate Baghdad’s push to retake Islamic State’s Iraqi capital of Mosul by the end of the year — a goal set by President Obama that is quickly falling out of reach despite a series of battlefield victories against the terror group.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, on a surprise visit to the Iraqi capital, announced Monday that 560 American troops would be deployed as government forces prepare to drive onto Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and the de facto capital for the Islamic State in the country.
Mr. Carter unveiled details of the new deployment, which bumps up the total number of American troops in Iraq up to roughly 6,000, according to unofficial estimates of U.S. troop strength in the region, during a recent trip to the region. Mr. Obama at one point had declared the U.S. combat mission in Iraq over, but has repeatedly been drawn back into the conflict as Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, grew in strength.
“With these additional U.S. forces, we’ll bring unique capabilities to the campaign and provide critical support to Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight,” Mr. Carter said Monday.
Over 200 U.S. 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.
However, that offensive has bogged down over the last several months, sidetracked by the successful operation to retake the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah in June amid heavy violence in Baghdad. With Iraqi forces now in control of Fallujah, Iraqi forces and their American advisers have trained their sights back onto Mosul.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khalid al-Obaidi told Mr. Carter they remain determined to take Mosul by the end of this year. The announcement of the new influx of U.S. troops into Iraq comes as Iraqi government troops and militias secured a key territory outside the Islamic State-held city.
Iraqi forces captured the military airfield in the western part of al Qayyara, roughly 40 miles south of Mosul, over the weekend largely uncontested, according to local reports.
Most of the new U.S. troops will be based at the airfield, which will be used as a “logistical springboard” to launch airstrikes and back Iraqi troops and militiamen in and around Mosul, according to Mr. Carter.
Local reports claim Islamic State fighters fell back from al Qayyara in the face of the Iraqi offensive and have reconsolidated around Hammam al-Alil, just 20 miles south of Mosul’s southernmost border.
The loss of Mosul would be a serious blow to Islamic State in Iraq, which has ceded territory to American-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, giving back territory it seized in a lightning blitz just two years ago.
Islamic State-held territory in both countries dropped from just over 48,000 square miles down to 42,000 square miles — roughly the size of West Virginia — over the last six months, according to a new report by counterterrorism analysts at IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Successful campaigns to retake Anbar province, capped by the recapture of Fallujah, along with growing pressure on Islamic State’s Syrian capital of Raqqa and in Manbij, the group’s main supply route in northern Syria, resulted in the group losing control at a faster rate over the last six months than in all of 2015, according to the report.
With battlefield losses mounting, Islamic State fighters have unleashed a barrage of bloodshed and carnage in a series of devastating terrorist attacks from Bangladesh to Baghdad that culminated in a massive suicide bombing in the Iraqi capital that left over 300 dead.
The wave of terrorist attacks has left the White House and the Pentagon in the uneasy position of explaining why body counts continue to rise even as the Islamic State is said to be on the ropes against the U.S.-backed coalition.
“As we’ve said from the start, we will not eliminate ISIL’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks. It is a reality that they retain a lethal capability, but that’s not going to deter us from trying to do everything we can to try and reduce that capability,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said shortly after the Baghdad bombing.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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