“For the coalition support, it’s only by the air support. And they continue supporting us with the airstrikes and we have good coordination with them,” said Sabah al-Numan.
“During the last three days, they had about more than 50 airstrikes, destroyed enemy bases and they killed about more than 100 fighters from ISIS. This is the only support that we achieved from the coalition. It’s according to what the prime minister said that the only support from the coalition is by the air support.”
“On the ground there is only Iraqi fighters,” he clarified.
A US army colonel told Reuters last weekend that their forces are more deeply embedded with the Iraqi forces. “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,” said Col. Brett G. Sylvia.
He declined to confirm whether or not US forces were operating inside Mosul but said “we have never been embedded to this degree.”
On Saturday, an Iraqi army commander, speaking to Rudaw on condition of anonymity, said the US had stationed some 5,000 soldiers around Mosul, escalating their involvement in the fight against ISIS.
The commander said the deployment of nearly all US army personnel in Iraq to the Nineveh Plains "could ruin Mosul, but it may also have a positive side as it will prevent clashes among Iraqi armed groups" after eliminating ISIS in the city.
The White House raised its cap on US forces in Iraq from 4,647, to 5,262 troops ahead of the Mosul operation in October, many of whom are described as military advisors who assist Iraqi and Kurdish troops fighting their common jihadist foes.
At the end of the fourth day of the re-launched Mosul offensive, the CTS have liberated three more neighbourhoods in the eastern half of the city.
