(Newswire.net — July 13, 2016) —During his visit to Baghdad on Monday, United States Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, said that an additional force of 560 more troops will be stationed at the Qayyarah Air Base, about 40 miles south of Mosul, which will be one of the strategic strongholds of the international coalition and Iraqi forces in the struggle for the liberation of Mosul.
Reclaiming the air base has been a key victory, and the first of 10 strategic goals in an effort to defeat the Islamic State, according to an unnamed senior US official, who added that Qayyarah Air Base was key due to its strategic importance.
The additional troops are the latest escalation of the American military’s role in Iraq by President Barack Obama, who withdrew the last of the American soldiers from Iraq at the end of 2011. Three years later, President Obama started sending troops back as Islamic State fighters swept into the country from Syria.
Defense Department officials have said there are approximately more than 5,000 Americans in Iraq.
The additional 560 troops will help retake Mosul, the largest city still controlled by the Islamic State. Obama hopes to hand over a liberated Mosul to his successor, The New York Times reports, and added that it also means that he will leave the next president with a significant military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he announced last week that the United States would keep 8,400 troops in Afghanistan.
In Iraq, some of the American troops stationed at the Qayyarah Airfield West will help with infrastructure projects, like building bridges, as the Islamic State has destroyed many around the city.
Mosul is currently the only major city in the country that the Iraqis do not control.
During his fourth visit to Iraq as Secretary of Defense, Carter in Baghdad will meet with Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al Abadi and Defence Minister Khaled al Obeidi. Carter will also talk over the phone with the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani.