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US forces deployed to assist Iraqi troops
Insurgents have overrun much of north and west Iraq and have claimed over 1,000, mostly civilian, lives.
25 June 2014, 9:24am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
1 min read
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, on a street in city of Mosul
The first US troops deployed to assist the Iraqi army in combating a growing Sunni militant insurgency have arrived and begun work, the Pentagon has said.
Nearly half the 300 special operations soldiers promised by US President Barack Obama are in Baghdad or on the front lines of the fight.
The insurgents, spearheaded by Islamists fighting under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), have overrun much of north and west Iraq, including the second-biggest city, Mosul.
The violence has claimed at least 1,075 lives in Iraq in June alone, most of them civilians, a United Nations human rights team has reported.
US secretary of state John Kerry has urged Kurdish leaders to stand with Baghdad and insisted that the deployment of American military forces is "not intervention" in Iraq's affairs.
Kerry characterized the so-called "advisory" mission – "planning, advising, some training and assisting" – as something short of intervention, since "we are not here in a combat role. We are not here to fight. And the president has no intention – none whatsoever – of returning American combat troops in Iraq to go back to where we were."
