ERBIL, Iraq — Planning for the future battle of Mosul got a boost Thursday when Defense Secretary Ash Carter agreed to give the Kurdish Ppeshmerga two brigade-size equipment sets to help them lead that fight.
The agreement came while Carter was visiting northern Iraq and met with Kurdish leaders. It was the latest stop on the secretary's trip across the Middle East talking to top U.S. generals and allied leaders about ways to increase military pressure on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
"What I discussed with [Kurdish] President [Masoud] Barzani is the future of the campaign, particularly the role his forces can play in the encirclement and recapture of Mosul," Carter told reporters in Iraq on Thursday.
He agreed to immediately provide the Kurds with "two brigades' worth of equipment to be used to arm the two brigades that they will contribute to the encirclement of Mosul."
The gear will be shipped from U.S. storage facilities in Kuwait and likely will arrive within weeks, a senior defense official said.
The package will equip more than 4,000 Kurdish militiamen and include weapons, small- and medium-sized tactical vehicles, fuel tankers, radio equipment and an array of gear to counter improvised explosive devices, the senior official said.
Islamic State militants seized Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in June 2014 and U.S. military officials believe the push to retake it may be the decisive battle for ultimately dismantling the fledgling extremist state.
"Mosul is sort of the next logical place," said Army Brig. Gen. Mark Odom, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.
Odom declined to offer a timeline for when Kurdish and Iraqi forces might begin an attack on Mosul, but he said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is growing anxious about an invasion.
Earlier this year, some top defense officials said an invasion of Mosul was imminent in the spring or summer, but those projections proved too optimistic as the Islamic State group held most of its ground this year.
On Wednesday, Carter visited top Iraqi officials in Baghdad and offered to provide Iraqi security forces with more American combat advisers on the ground and also provide close air support with U.S. attack helicopters.
The Iraqis declined the offer for now, but U.S. defense officials say he option will remain on the table for future operations such as the effort to retake Mosul.
On Wednesday, Islamic State militants launched their biggest attack in months outside Mosul, but were soon repelled by Peshmerga Kurdish fighters with support from U.S. air support and ground-level combat advisoers.
The attack was ISIS's "offensive approach to protecting Mosul" and targeted Kurdish fighting positions less than 20 miles from the city, Odom said.
The extremist group mounted the surprise attack with several hundred fighters on three separate locations along the border area dividing Kurdish and Islamic State territories, defense officials said.
The militants attacked in squad and platoon-size units in tactical vehicles and armored bulldozers. They were armed with rockets, mounted machine guns and vehicle-born improvised explosive devices, officials said.
U.S. and coalition aircraft — including B-1 bombers, F-15 and F-16 jets and unmanned drones — hit 79 individual targets during the 12-hour fight, while teams of U.S. special operations troops advised Kurdish soldiers from safe positions near the fighting, military officials here said.
Odom estimated that at least 180 Islamic State fighters were killed in action.
The timing of the assault suggests that the militants are on their heels and trying to prove they are still capable of large-scale attacks despite setbacks and losses elsewhere in the region, he said.
"I think their principal objective was probably to conduct a spoiling attack based on all of the things that are going on both in and outside of Iraq."
Odom said the Iraqi army's recent advances in both Ramadi and Bayji are making the Islamic State militants nervous about an eventual attack on Mosul, the largest city under their control.
"So as those operations kind of move off the never-ending horizon to the horizon. … [the Islamic State militants were] looking to sort of counter that and inflict pain on the peshmerga," Odom said.
One of the sites attacked Wednesday night was home to several hundred Turkish troops who are conducting their own training missions for the Kurdish peshmerga forces, officials said.
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.
