National Security

US forces flow into Baghdad to assess Iraq troops

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Published June 24, 2014 11:09pm ET
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US forces flow into Baghdad to assess Iraq troops
A member of an Iraqi volunteer force holds a weapon during training in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, June 24, 2014. Iraq's top Kurdish leader warned visiting Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday that a rapid Sunni insurgent advance has already created "a new reality and a new Iraq," signaling that the U.S. faces major difficulties in its efforts to promote unity among the country's divided factions. The U.N., meanwhile, said more than 1,000 people, most civilians, have been killed in Iraq so far this month, the highest death toll since the U.S. military withdrew from the country in December 2011. (AP Photo/Ahmed al-Husseini) | Ahmed al-Husseini

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half of the roughly 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces expected to go to Iraq are now in Baghdad and have begun to assess Iraqi forces in the fight against Sunni militants, the Defense Department said Tuesday as the U.S. ramped up aid to the besieged country.

On Capitol Hill, senators who left a closed briefing with senior Obama administration officials expressed hope Iraq could soon form a new government, perhaps in the next week, facilitating greater U.S. military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who attended that meeting, backed what he described as an advancing American strategy.

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Iraq Middle East Nation