more boots on the ground

[robert99]

PressTV-US deploys 100 troops to south Afghanistan
CNS - US Says 100 Troops Deployed to Afghan City
Around 100 US troops have been deployed to a southern city in Afghanistan which risks falling to the Taliban militants.

The spokesman for the US forces in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, said Monday the soldiers have arrived in Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah to train and support Afghan troops. The general said the troops would serve as a "new presence to assist the police zone," adding that Afghan security forces have conducted airstrikes in the area.

The Taliban have seized a number of districts in Helmand, Baghlan and Takhar provinces in the past weeks.

In October last year, Obama announced plans to keep 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan through 2016 and 5,500 in 2017, reneging on his promise to end the war there and bring home most American forces from the Asian country before he leaves office.

 

[robert99]

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/080920162
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insists that Washington will never send ground troops to Iraq and Syria ever again, insisting that allies on the ground will have to fight Islamic State (ISIS) while the US provides air support.

“They are not going to get ground troops,” she said. “We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria. We’re going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops,” she said in a US television interview.

US Marines have given fire support to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting ISIS on the Makhmour front. One Marine there was killed in an ISIS rocket attack on US firebase in March.

Following that incident, US officials admitted that the US had deployed approximately 5,000 service personnel to Iraq, far more than they had previously disclosed to the public.

 

[robert99]

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2016/09/09/More-US-troops-in-Iraq-ahead-of-Mosul-push.html
More than 400 additional US troops have deployed to Iraq in recent days, a defense official said Thursday, as local forces prepare for an assault on Mosul, the ISIS’s last major Iraqi stronghold.

Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US-led coalition that has been attacking ISIS in Iraq and Syria for the last two years, said the number of US troops in country had grown from about 4,000 a week ago to 4,460 today. The deployments had been previously authorized earlier this year.

Dorrian did not say what the troops would be doing, but their arrival comes as Iraqi security forces continue “shaping operations” around Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Much of the work is focused on an airfield near the town of Qayyarah, which will provide a staging area for Iraqi forces pushing toward the northern city Mosul.

 

[robert99]

US military seeks to send 500 U.S. troops to Iraq - Iraqi News
The US military is seeking to send additional 500 new troops to Iraq ahead of a much-anticipated campaign to retake Mosul from the ISIS, according to US officials, adding to an expanding American presence in the country.

The new deployment, if approved by the White House, would assist Iraqi and coalition forces in preparing for the battle to capture the northern city, the extremist group’s last major stronghold in Iraq. That fight is expected to begin as early as mid-October, US officials have said.
(So much for Hillary's promise Obama wants a victory in Mosul before Election Day)