“To more efficiently enable our partners, we consolidated rotary wing ops between Erbil & Al Asad Air Bases,” the coalition tweeted.
It is moving CH-47s, heavy lifting Chinooks, to Erbil air base and UH-60 Black Hawk combat helicopters to Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province, the coalition press desk told Rudaw English in an email.
“There is no change in the number of troops or aircraft in Iraq or Syria, we are simply rearranging a current mission set,” the press desk stated. “This reconsolidation streamlines our process of moving personnel and cargo as our mission set evolves to advise, assist, and enable partner forces in Iraq and Syria.”
Security analyst Michael Knights said the move appears to be bolstering efforts in areas where the Islamic State group (ISIS) is a bigger threat. “It basically points at larger tactical lift required along the Kurdistan control line,” he told Rudaw English, referring to the disputed areas where ISIS takes advantage of a security gap between Kurdish and Iraqi forces.
The Chinooks could also be used to supply allied forces in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Knights added.
The 82-member US-led coalition was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. Many nations that are members of the coalition have had troops on the ground in Iraq, fighting ISIS and training and assisting Iraqi and Kurdish forces. They are in the country on the invitation of the Iraqi government. ISIS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but remnants of the group remain a threat on both sides of the border.
In Iraq, the coalition is formally shifting its mission to solely an advisory and training role. The United States says it will move all its combat troops out of the country by the end of the year.
The US is under pressure to withdraw from Iraq. The Iraqi parliament last year passed a non-binding resolution demanding foreign forces depart the country after the US assassinated Iraqi deputy militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020. Iranian-backed militias opposed to the US are blamed for frequent rocket and drone attacks on American interests in the country.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist Shiite cleric whose bloc gained the most votes in preliminary results of Iraq’s October 10 parliamentary election, welcomed a July announcement from the White House about the US withdrawal. “Thanks to the Iraqi national resistance, here is the occupation announcing the start of the withdrawal of its combat forces as a whole,” he said at the time.
