WASHINGTON DC—Outgoing US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel authorized the deployment of up to1, 300 American troops to Iraq early next year to assist and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), the Pentagon said on Friday.
“Their mission will be to train, advise and assist Iraqi security forces. This deployment is part of the additional 1,500 troops that the president authorized in November,” Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
The announcement of the additional deployment will put the number of US troops at around 4,000 who will serve in Iraq and Kurdistan Region on non-combat mission.
According to Pentagon officials, the new deployment will mainly be in the troubled province of Anbar where ISIS controls over 70 percent of the territory.
“What makes this (deployment) different is simply the geography,” Rear Adm. Kirby said. “The advising teams will operate in the Anbar area and north of Baghdad.”
As ISIS faces major defeat in Iraq’s northwest territories near Mosul under the Peshmerga forces, they have gained more territory in the rest of the country in the past few weeks.
According to reports, the group recaptured the town of Baiji earlier this week where Iraqi government forces and Shiite militias withdrew to the refinery area to prevent the fall of the important facility to ISIS.
