Hundreds More US Military Trainers Head to Iraq

The Pentagon is confirming that hundreds of additional US ground troops are heading to Iraq, to be deployed at myriad locations in the role of military trainers.

The US has been sending ever-growing numbers of ground troops to Iraq, and positioning them deeper and deeper into ISIS territory, for months, and officials said today that the plan is for ground operations to begin sometime in the spring.

This is particularly noteworthy because to hear the Iraqi government talk, they’ve been engaged in ground operations against ISIS for years, and the US has insisted that American troops weren’t going to engage directly in combat at all, which leaves open the question of who is launching this spring offensive.

So far, however, ISIS has continued to hold off Iraqi troops with ease in Iraq, and continued to gain more territory in Syria, leaving them with an enormous de facto state spanning the two nations.