U.S. military leaders want to expand the advise-and-assist mission into Iraq's Anbar province and put combat advisers on the ground to help support the fight against Islamic State militants.

But that won't happen until they get support from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

"The precondition for that is the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Thursday in a Pentagon news briefing.

The current U.S. advise-and-assist mission that President Obama authorized in September is limited to several hundred troops working with high-level Iraqi army headquarters units in Baghdad and the Kurdish city of Irbil.

A broader mission is in the works. Yet like past military commitments by the White House, this one is contingent on Iraq's Shiite leaders following through on a promise to share power with the Sunnis.

"From the beginning of the campaign, we have said that we would expand this type of support to the Iraqi government should they act in a manner that was representative of the security interests of all Iraqis," said Air Force Col. Edward Thomas, a Joint Staff spokesman.

The expansion plan is a "concept under development to provide advice and assistance to [Iraqi] forces in other provinces, including Anbar," Thomas said. "To be clear, this is not a change in mission nor is it a combat role, as they will be operating in the same advisory role as the other locations."

About 1,400 U.S. troops are in Iraq.

It is unclear whether additional advisers sent to Anbar would be American. U.S. military officials are talking to coalition militaries about the possibility of non-American advisers working with Iraqi troops on the ground, according to one U.S. Central Command official who asked not to be identified.

Anbar is critical to the Islamic State because it connects with territory the militants control in Syria and would facilitate a direct assault on western Baghdad.

U.S. military leaders say the best way to defeat the militants in Anbar is to forge an alliance with the Sunni tribal leaders there, similar to the "Anbar Awakening" orchestrated by U.S. Marines in 2006-07.

"We are beginning to restore some offensive capability and mindset to the Iraqi security forces, and we need to do that with the tribes," Dempsey told reporters.

A pillar of the current U.S. strategy is "trying to find a way to engage and empower or enable [the tribes] them, and that is what we are now beginning to explore," he said.

The Baghdad government and its Shiite prime minister are reluctant to arm the Sunnis for fear their loyalty will shift. But the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., Lukman Faily, said Oct. 30 that "Sunnis are represented in our government. [The prime minister and Ministry of Defense] are working closely with local tribes to coordinate efforts."

He made those comments while conducting a question-and-answer session on Twitter in response to a Military Times question.

U.S. aircraft have dropped dozens of bombs on Islamic State targets in Anbar in recent weeks, but the militants are still gain ground.

Iraqi army units based at Al Asad Air Base in western Anbar are "isolated," Dempsey said.

The Iraqi army's limited mobility in Anbar was underscored Oct. 28 when U.S. aircraft airdropped humanitarian supplies into Al Asad Air Base. The supplies included 7,000 rations and were intended for the Iraqi forces to deliver to civilians from the town of Hit, which the militants seized in October, according to U.S. Central Command.

Meanwhile, the militants are mounting a massive intimidation campaign across Anbar to discourage tribal leaders from supporting the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

After taking control of Hit, the militants reportedly executed hundreds of local men who they believed were supporting the Iraqi army. Dozens of bodies were left in public, according to local reports.

"This is the reality of what we're dealing with," said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who spoke to reporters at the Pentagon news briefing Thursday with Dempsey. "The systematic execution of Sunni tribesmen by [the Islamic State] and the brutality, that's what we're dealing with."

About Andrew Tilghman

Andrew Tilghman is the executive editor for Military Times. He is a former Military Times Pentagon reporter and served as a Middle East correspondent for the Stars and Stripes. Before covering the military, he worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle in Texas, the Albany Times Union in New York and The Associated Press in Milwaukee.

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