US to Deploy 615 More Troops to Iraq: Ash Carter said the Iraqis plan to push into the city of Mosul "in the coming weeks."

The U.S. and Iraq have agreed on a plan that will send about 600 additional American troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul from Islamic State, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters in New Mexico, Carter said the increase was part of the coalition's "accelerating campaign" to "isolate and collapse" Islamic State's control over Mosul and "expand gains by Iraqi Security Forces elsewhere in Iraq."

A senior U.S. defense official put the total number at 615, bringing the number of American troops authorized to fight IS in Iraq at 5,262. The official said the troops would arrive in Iraq in the next few weeks.

Carter said the additional U.S. military personnel will train, advise and assist Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish peshmerga. They will be deployed to several locations, including Al-Asad Air Base in Anbar province and Quayyarah West, an airfield about 60 km from Mosul that is being built into a "major logistics hub" for the fight to retake Iraq's second-largest city.

Carter said the Iraqis plan to push into the city of Mosul "in the coming weeks."

"We're on schedule," he told reporters.|..
 voanews.com
28/9/16
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