The U.S. is training and organizing a force of up to 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi fighters to launch a major offensive against the Islamic State in the key northern city of Mosul in the spring.
However, the training for the Iraqi attack brigades has only just begun, with the first brigade now in training, a senior U.S. Central Command official told reporters Thursday afternoon. Some of that training is being conducted at al-Asad, a large Iraqi air base northwest of Baghdad that came under attack by Islamic State fighters last week.
An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Islamic State fighters are ensconced in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. The extremist group has been strengthening its defenses in Mosul, which it took over in a June siege.
U.S. planners said when the full force is assembled, it would include five Iraqi attack brigades, three reserve brigades, three Peshmerga brigades, elements of the Mosul fighting force, which is made up of mostly Mosul police, and elements of Iraq’s Counter Terrorist Forces.
The U.S. is a member of a 60-nation coalition that has conducted airstrikes against the Islamic State since August.
The Central Command official said the Islamic State’s ability conduct offensive operations is in decline, despite recent reports of the extremist group’s affiliates surfacing in Pakistan, Lebanon and Egypt, and the recent takeover of al-Baghdadi, a town near al-Asad base.
He said the group has lost the equivalent of three-fourth’s of a U.S. Army division’s worth of people and equipment and about 700 to 800 square kilometers of the land it once held since U.S. and coalition operations began in August, a U.S. Army division typically has up to 20,000 people and the supporting tanks, trucks and armament with them.
“ISIL is in decline,” the official said, using another common identifier for the Islamic State.
