US to Send More Troops to Iraq in Effort to Take Mosul

On Monday, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that the United States was sending 560 additional troops to Iraq to help the Iraqi Army fight the Islamic State. Secretary Carter made the announcement in Baghdad after meeting with US commanders and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss the war against the insurgency.

The troops included engineers and logistics personnel along with other forces deployed to help the Iraqi Army planning to take Mosul. The troops would all operate out of Qayara Air Base, an outpost 40 miles south of the city; Iraqi forces recaptured Qayara Air Base from the Islamic State last week and seek to use it as an outpost from which to retake Mosul.

Strategically, the seizure of Qayara Base could leave Mosul “pinched” between Iraqi forces attacking from the south and Kurdish Peshmerga forces attacking from the north. Moreover, Qayara base is large enough to fly in heavy cargo planes along with numerous helicopters; important for re-supply, and making the seizure of Qayara base necessary in the effort to retake Mosul.

Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has been under control of the Islamic State since June 2014, when a small cadre of fighters seized the city in six days. Following the fall of Mosul, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for a state of emergency and shifted even greater resources toward combatting the Islamic State.

The US has maintained a presence in Iraq since 2003, when US President George W. Bush launched an invasion of the country with the intent to topple the regime of then President Saddam Hussein. In the coming years, the U.S-backed Iraqi government struggled to secure the country against jihadists, notably Al Qaeda in Iraq, which would eventually split from Al Qaeda and declare itself the Islamic State Caliphate in 2013.

In August 2014, US President Barack Obama authorized targeted airstrikes against the Islamic State. Since then, US involvement in Iraq has steadily increased. In September of that year, Obama announced his plan to send 500 US troops to help train Iraqi forces; three months later, the US sent 1,300 more troops for the same purpose.

The US-trained Shia Iraqi Army has since been successful in taking back cities in the central part of the country. Most notably, Iraqi forces entered Fallujah in June and took Ramadi, IS’ military headquarters, in December of last year. In addition, various Iran-backed Shia militias operating as part of a front known as Hash’d al-Sha’bi are participating against Islamic State. This has proven a challenge for coordinating U.S. assistance, since the Popular Mobilization forces contain elements closely tied to Iranian terrorist activities, including Hezbollah which are also responsible for attacks on U.S. Troops.

The announcement to send more troops to Iraq came days after Obama detailed his plan to leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan to “train and equip Afghan forces” to combat the Taliban.

The Iraqi Army by itself is likely no match for the self-funded and ideologically driven Islamic State. It is thus crucial that the US continues to supply and train relatively secular opposition groups including the Iraqi Army. Specifically, Mosul remains a crucial stronghold for the Islamic State and retaking it would be a major victory for Iraqi forces; but this seizure is liable to prove easier with U.S. assistance.

Dealing with the aftermath of a liberated Mosul may prove almost as difficult as retaking it from Islamic State. Mosul and the surrounding area remains a fault line for sectarian differences in Iraq, particularly between Iraqi Sunni Arabs and Kurds. As a result the U.S. has attempted to balance its support for the Kurds, arguably the most effective and Pro-American of the forces in Iraq, with its stated position of supporting a unified Iraq under the Shia-dominated national government. The fall of Islamic State-held Mosul will certainly bring these issues to the fore.