U.S. approves 200 more troops to fight Islamic State in Iraq

WASHINGTON - The United States will send approximately 200 additional troops to Iraq and allow U.S. advisers to move closer to the front lines,the Pentagon said Monday, as the Obama administration embraces new measures to intensify the campaign against the Islamic State.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter had announced the expanded American role with Iraqi leaders during a visit to Baghdad.

'Defeat must be lasting. Only local, motivated forces can deliver such a defeat,” Davis told reporters at the Pentagon. 'Everything we are doing now, and everything we do to accelerate the fight, is consistent with this approach.”

The new troops, who will include advisers and troops needed for helicopter and artillery operations, will bring the official force level for Iraq to 4,087, from 3,870 currently. Hundreds of troops are already in Iraq above that level on what are deemed temporary assignments.

The package of new measures also includes a decision to use U.S. Apache helicopter gunships to provide close air support and mobile artillery systems for an upcoming offensive to reclaim Mosul, the important city that was captured by militants almost two years ago.

Raising the Iraqi flag in Mosul would be a symbolic victory for the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, facing a political crisis, and for the White House, which is seeking to deal a decisive blow to the Islamic State before President Barack Obama leaves office.

The decisions are the latest indication of officials' increasingly urgent desire to make the U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes and training efforts, which began in 2014, more effective. While the Islamic State has lost terrain in both Iraq and Syria, it remains a powerful force capable of launching offensive attacks. U.S. officials say that a recent series of strikes on oil or financial targets and on Islamic State leaders has already weakened the group. It's not clear though whether partner forces in Iraq and Syria are capable of taking on the group in its strongholds of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Officials hope that authorizing U.S. advisers to accompany Iraqi forces closer to the front lines will help ground forces when they launch their assaults on those well-defended cities. Davis said that U.S. advisers, most of whom are now placed at at the division-headquarters level, to go down to the battalion or brigade level. That will expose American troops to greater risk but also permit them, officials hope, to more effectively coach Iraqi troops during what is expected to be a punishing battle.

Davis said the United States would also provide up to $415 million in aid to the peshmerga, the Kurdish forces who have been battling the Islamic State in and around Iraq's northern Kurdish region. 'These forces have been among the most effective in the fight against ISIL and will be critical in the retaking of Mosul,” Davis said. ISIL is another name for the Islamic State.

Sending Kurdish forces into a city that not formed part of Iraqi Kurdistan is likely to stoke tensions between Arab leaders in Baghdad and those in the Iraqi Kurdish capital, Arbil.