US forces embedding more to help Iraqis retake Mosul

MAKHMOUR: US forces assisting Iraqi troops to retake Mosul from IS are embedding more extensively, a senior commander said on Friday, a move that could accelerate a two month-old campaign which has slackened after quick initial advances.

More than 5,000 American service members are currently deployed in Iraq as part of an international coalition that is advising local forces in a bid to recapture the third of the country the militants seized in 2014 when Iraq’s army and police dropped their weapons and fled.

Coalition advisers were initially concentrated at a high-level headquarters in Baghdad but have fanned out over the past two years to multiple locations to stay near advancing troops.

Now, as Iraqi forces controlling around a quarter of Mosul — IS’s last major stronghold in Iraq — proceed deeper into the northern city and encounter fierce counter-attacks that render progress slow and punishing, US troops are stepping up their involvement.

“We are deepening our integration with them,” said US Army Colonel Brett G Sylvia. “We are now pushing that into more of the Iraqi formations pushing forward, some formations that we haven’t partnered with in the past where we are now partnering with them.”

During a rare interview at the US section of a base for Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces in Makhmour, 75 km southeast of Mosul, the combat brigade commander would not be drawn on whether his troops were operating inside Mosul proper.

But Sylvia, who commands the 1,700-strong Task Force Strike which he described as the “backbone” of the coalition’s ground forces, said the level of integration resembles that of small special operations teams embedding with larger indigenous forces to help build capacity.

“We have always had opportunities to work side-by-side, but we have never been embedded to this degree,” he said.” That was always a smaller niche mission.

Well, this is our mission now and it is big and we are embedded inside their formations.”

Sylvia called the changes “a natural progression” of the US mission, which is much narrower than the nine-year US occupation.