The top U.S. commander overseeing the military mission in Iraq said a "minimum of three years" will be required until the Iraqis are capable of taking back and securing their country from Islamic extremists.

Army Lt. Gen. James Terry said hundreds of additional U.S. troops will flow into Iraq over the next several weeks to begin training Iraqi soldiers in basic combat skills. Long-term U.S. support will be needed before the Iraqis' can begin to mount decisive attacks and retake lost ground, he said.

"I see the conditions right now being set for a pretty stable environment, but I still think we're — in terms of building some of the capabilities that are required there — probably about three years down the road, minimum," Terry, commanding general of Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.

The U.S.-led training mission is not likely to begin for several months, a military official said.

President Obama in November authorized an expanded mission that will raise the total U.S. force level in Iraq to as many as 3,100 troops and set up four training sites where Americans and several other partner nations will provide military training.

But no additional U.S. troops have received deployment orders yet, in part because Congress only recently approved funding for the mission in a massive annual defense bill on Dec. 12. In late December, troop levels remained at about 1,700.

Terry said four months of U.S. airstrikes on the militants, often referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, are starting to turn the tide in favor of the Iraqi government by degrading ISIL's ability to communicate and resupply on the battlefield.

"I see [ISIL] as transitioning to the defensive piece of this. You will see some local counterattacks, and again, some of these areas will be contested. Again, I would just say it takes some patience as we continue to build the Iraqi security forces out there," Terry said.

Terry spoke to reporters several days after a spike in airstrikes. U.S. and coalition aircraft dropped 61 bombs on ISIL targets, mostly in northern Iraq around Mount Sinjar, a fiercely contested area that was the site of major combat operations this summer.

The latest strikes helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces regain about 100 square kilometers of ground, Terry said.

Yet he acknowledged that important sites remain contested. For example, ISIL militants threaten areas near the Bayji oil refinery, which the Iraqi army has been defending for more than six months.

The militants retain control of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and any decisive battle to retake it probably will not happen until after the new U.S. training mission is up and running, he said.

In Anbar province, he said ISIL militants hold many cities and towns along the Euphrates River, including large parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi.

Ramping up the training mission will be difficult because it some Iraqi army units will have to be rotated out of the fight for training. Now, the Iraqis are struggling with the manpower and planning that requires, Terry said.

"How do you get into a place where you can generate some capability, pull some units back so that you can make them better, and then now start to put those against operations down the road in a more campaign plan-like fashion?" Terry said.

The Iraqis have urged the Americans to provide more weaponry. But that will not help unless the Iraqi military develops better logistics and maintenance capabilities, Terry said.

"A large part, I think, of their challenge there right now is repairing what they actually have on hand."

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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