IS militants killed in Iraqi operation
- by Leah Brady
- in Worldwide
- — Oct 2, 2016
The newspaper, moreover, said "most of the new troops would be assigned to an area the USA military has established south of Mosul at a logistics hub known as "Q-West" near the city of Qayara".
The drive will involve Iraqi soldiers and police, pro-government paramilitaries and Kurdish peshmerga fighters - forces that in some cases have not operated together before and do not have unified command structures.
In addition to a rocket attack suspected of containing a "mustard agent" earlier this week, almost 500 USA troops at a base 25 miles south of Mosul have been attacked four times in the past week in conventional rocket attacks, Fox News is told.
"It wasn't particularly effective but it was a concerning development", Dunford said.
USA officials said President Obama has not yet received the military's plan.
The U.S. official described ISIL's technical skills as crude when it came to mounting a chemical weapon attack and appeared to play down any growing concerns about a threat to U.S. forces.
The rocket exploded midday Tuesday at Qayyarah West Air Base.
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The U.S. envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition said on Wednesday the coalition was already taking steps to ensure there would be no repeat in the Mosul offensive of the abuses seen in the wake of the recapture of Falluja in June, when Shi'ite militias detained, abused and tortured scores of Sunni civilians.
The official told reporters at the Pentagon that the attack happened on Tuesday at Qayara West air base, a staging area for Iraqi forces preparing for an assault on Mosul, the city that has been the Islamic State's main stronghold in Iraq since 2014. Instead they would help the Iraqi military coordinate and prepare a mission.
The general went on to say that the US-led counter-ISIS coalition has conducted "over 30" airstrikes against suspected ISIS chemical weapons facilities during the past year.
"We look forward to the day when Iraq and the whole region is free of Da'esh [also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]", Mr. Abadi said. USA troops often deploy with protection against chemical weapons, including gas masks.
While the Pentagon presents the American troops in Iraq as serving exclusively in an advisory capacity, the potential exposure to possible combat situations as well as the recent chemical agent attack has raised concerns on whether deploying more troops to Iraq would be a good move.
The Pentagon is considering a proposal that could send an additional 500 troops to Iraq to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces take Mosul from ISIS in the coming weeks, a USA defense official told CNN.
"What is very clear is that the Obama administration wants to increase its offensive in both Mosul, Iraq as well as in Syria to at least showcase an effort to combat the Islamic State [Daesh in Arabic] in both areas before the end of the term", Mansour said.