ERBIL Kurdistan Region – US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has confirmed that the US deployment of hundreds of US troops to the Qayyara West airbase south of Mosul is to support Iraqi troops attacking Mosul.
He also stressed that US troops will be put in harm’s way when the operation against ISIS begins in Mosul.
Shortly after it was announced that approximately 600 more US troops will be deployed to the Qayyara base, Carter said at a press conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Wednesday, that their role will be advising and assisting the Iraqis and “also building out the infrastructure there.”
He said that US troops were “preparing it to be a hub so that Iraqi forces that are in the southern part of the country have an easy way of deploying up to the Mosul area, so it’d be a major logistics hub.”
Asked if US troops operating near the front in Mosul in advisory and support roles would find themselves in an active combat situation Carter said “they certainly will.”
“The Iraqi security forces, as I think the prime minister has indicated, have the combat role and we’re in a support role,” he elaborated. “But I need to make clear once again, American forces combating ISIL (ISIS) in Iraq are in harm’s way. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously. No one should be any – in any doubt about that.”
In a follow-up question, Carter was asked if this would be the final increase in US troops in Iraq.
“This is what we now foresee as required for the envelopment and seizure of Mosul,” he Carter answered.
“We’ll continue to assess with (Iraqi) Prime Minister (Haider al-) Abadi. It’ll continue to be his decision for the US and other coalition forces as the head of the sovereign nation of Iraq.”
Asked if the offensive on Mosul would kick off in the next few weeks, Carter expressed confidence that it would.
“I’m confident it’s going to happen,” Carter said, “because we have – we’re on schedule in terms of marshaling the forces there.
So the force generation, which begins with training and arming and is a process that has moved along now consistently for many months; the movement, then, of those forces both Iraqi army and CTS (Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service) forces, and also Peshmerga forces.”
The US has an estimated 4,565 troops in Iraq, most of there as advisors for Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
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