200 More Troops

From the BBC: 
"US extra troops to boost fight against IS in Iraq"

 

The US is to send 200 extra troops to Iraq to help fight so-called Islamic State (IS), officials say. The deployment will increase the number of US personnel in Iraq to about 4,100. Alongside the additional troops, Apache attack helicopters will be deployed for the first time against IS in Iraq. US Defence Secretary Ash Carter made the announcement during an unannounced visit to Baghdad, where he met with US military officials and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. The US also plans to give Kurdish Peshmerga forces, which are fighting IS on the ground, more than $400m (£280m; €350m) in assistance.  Co-operation between the two forces was evident on Monday when Kurdish officials said they had killed a senior IS commander in the south of Mosul in a joint raid with US special forces. According to the officials, the operation in Hamam Alil resulted in the death of Salman Abu Shabib al-Jebouri, a leading member of the IS military council, and two of his aides. Most of the additional 200 US troops will be special forces, according to the Associated Press. The remainder will include trainers, security forces for the advisers, and maintenance crews for the Apaches.  The Apaches would help Iraqi forces to recapture the country's second city of Mosul from IS, Mr Carter said. The US is leading an international coalition that has been bombing IS targets since August 2014. IS seized large areas of Iraq, north and west of Baghdad, in 2014, but Iraqi forces have recaptured significant ground from the jihadists in recent months.

^ This isn't a shock. We have been hearing about plans to make the fight against ISIS better for a while now. While I don't see this move as a way to directly defeat ISIS it is something new to try. I believe that the Kurds will be the ones to defeat ISIS (with supplies and training from the US and other countries.) The Kurds were discriminated against and treated poorly in Saddam's Iraq and are again by ISIS. They seem to be the only real fighting force that is willing to fight and die to win against the terrorists. They are even moving outside traditional Kurdish areas of Iraq to liberate areas from ISIS because the Iraqi Military seems to be still under-trained, under-manned and under-enthusiastic to fight against ISIS and liberate their own country themselves. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36075452