Next steps in anti-ISIL fight: More troops, equipment
 
  By Cheryl Pellerin, DoD News
  **WASHINGTON (April 19, 2016)  —** 
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the next phase of the fight
 against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during a troop talk Monday in Baghdad. The next steps in the anti-ISIL fight were authorized by 
President Barack Obama and coordinated with Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi prime
 minister, and Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region 
and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, as well as other leaders, 
Carter told the troops. “First we’re going to place additional advisers with the Iraqi 
security forces, now down to brigade and battalion headquarters levels. 
Second, we're going to make available attack helicopters in support of 
the [Iraqi forces] and ongoing efforts to envelop and then retake Mosul.
 It's an important capability,” he said. Carter is on an extended international trip that has included India, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. The secretary also will visit Saudi Arabia and participate in the U.S. Gulf Cooperation Council defense meeting. **Supporting the Mosul Fight** DoD also will send more high-mobility artillery rocket systems,
 or HIMARS, to support the Iraqi ground offensive to retake Mosul, and 
will provide a $415 million package of financial assistance to the 
Peshmerga in response to a request from the Kurdistan regional 
government for economic assistance. Carter said the Peshmerga have been one of the most effective fighting forces against ISIL. Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the 
timing of the distribution of Peshmerga funds is still to be determined,
 and that “it's part of ongoing U.S. support for all Iraqis in the 
fight, which has included $3.1 billion in assistance to the Iraqi 
government to support its counter-ISIL efforts.” In Baghdad yesterday, Carter said the new actions against ISIL 
are coming “on top of what we're already doing. We're providing air 
power, command and control, other fire, training, sustainment [and] 
logistics,” and he noted that as part of the next steps, coalition 
troops -- those already in Iraq and the 217 new troops coming in -- will
 be used in different ways. **Flexible Logistics** During a media briefing yesterday in Baghdad, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said the character of the operation in Iraq is evolving into a maneuver fight. “For us to enable that maneuver fight will require us to be 
able to have a little bit more flexibility, and one of those ways will 
be logistically,” he said. “The Iraqi security forces are going to be 
operating at extended distances from their bases, their depots ... so 
we're going to have to provide them with a different kind of logistics 
support to keep their vehicles rolling and operational as they close 
with the enemy.” He said the 217 new advisers would be doing “largely what we've
 been doing all along, which is providing the kind of military advice 
and access to enablers that help our partners on the ground against the 
enemy -- so access to coalition fires and logistics support, things of 
that nature.” On the upcoming fight to take Mosul back from ISIL, MacFarland 
said Mosul will differ from operations that took place around the 
retaking of Ramadi. **Linear Operation** “Ramadi was what we call a non-contiguous battlefield, and we 
were operating out of ... forward operating bases like Taqaddum and 
Al-Asad. The Iraqi security forces headquarters are all located in those
 facilities, which were largely surrounded by enemy-held territory and 
received occasional indirect fire as a result,” the general explained. Mosul, he said, will be “more of a linear type of an operation 
-- more contiguous -- and therefore those headquarters are pushed out of
 those bases, and in order to continue to provide the kind of assistance
 that we have been providing we have to be able to go to them.” Also, Mosul is four or five times the size of Ramadi and a lot 
farther away from Iraqi bases that provide logistics support, MacFarland
 added. “It’s an order of magnitude more challenging than Ramadi was, 
so obviously we were able to take Ramadi back without the additional 
enablers. Mosul is going to be more difficult,” the general said, “hence
 the additional support.”