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US to deploy additional troops to Iraq

August 21, 2014 at 4:21 pm

A senior US official said yesterday that the US Department of Defence plans to send an additional 300 US soldiers to Iraq at the request of the State Department.

The additional forces will help protect the US diplomatic headquarters. This raises the number of US soldiers and military advisors in Iraq to 1,150 persons at a time when the country faces the danger of the radical Islamic State (ISIS).

There are currently nearly 850 US soldier and advisors in Iraq to protect US staff and diplomatic headquarters and support the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces against Islamist extremists who have carried out a sweeping offensive in Iraq since the beginning of June.

Since August 8, the US Air Force launched air strikes against 84 sites controlled by ISIS in northern Iraq, mostly to protect the strategic Mosul Dam; the biggest dam in Iraq.