Hundreds of additional U.S. troops have flowed into Iraq during the past week as American and Iraqi forces there begin final preparations to launch an invasion of Mosul this fall.
Intelligence estimates suggest between 3,000 and 4,500 Islamic State militants are prepared to defend Mosul. The Iraqis are planning to gather between eight and 12 brigades for the invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. forces in Iraq are authorized to provide combat advice to brigade- and battalion-level Iraqi forces and possibly fly U.S. attack helicopters to provide close-air support for Iraqi troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commanding general in Iraq, told the Wall Street Journal this week that the invasion of Mosul will begin in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of additional troops have flowed into Iraq during the past week as U.S. and Iraqi forces there begin final preparations to launch an invasion of Mosul this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":34196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,70],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3153],"class_list":["post-70764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-army"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PKF5IDYKTZCT5JOXGXUK7DVVSQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2016\/09\/08\/400-additional-u-s-troops-deploy-to-iraq\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n