Pentagon Mulls Sending US Troops to Iraq for Mosul Attack

U.S. commanders are considering whether to put American troops alongside Iraqi forces for a battle to retake Mosul from ISIS militants, the New York Times reports. 

The nation's top military officer, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said talks have begun between U.S. and Iraqi commanders and officials on how to "integrate," the Times reports.

"It’s fair to say that we will have positions up in the north [of Iraq] that will facilitate supporting Iraqi security forces," Dunford told reporters in Paris, the Times reports.

The outstanding question is "how can we be more integrated in Mosul," Dunford said, and whether U.S. advisers and trainers will embed with Iraqi forces at operational headquarters farther from the fight – or with the brigades closer to the fighting, the Times reports.

U.S. forces had a training center at Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar Province to help in the retaking of Ramadi last month, the Times noted.

The Mosul operation is probably months away, the Times reports.

American military planners also want to cut off Raqqa from the rest of the Islamic State’s territory in Syria, the Times reports – adding Dunford said the United States is considering a request from Turkey to train and equip "hundreds" of Syrian Arabs who've lost their homes to the Islamic State.

“They want to go back and take their homelands, and we want to support them in doing that," he said.

The report comes as Defense Secretary Ash Carter said "boots on the ground" could be part of the strategy of U.S.-led coalition's fight to take back both Mosul and Raqqa.

"We need to destroy them in those two places, and I'd like to get on with that as soon as possible," Carter, speaking from Davos, Switzerland, said in an interview on CNBC. 

He said the coalition is using raids and bombs to take control of the routes between the two cities and cut off communication between them.

"That'll essentially separate the Iraqi theater from the Syrian theater," he said.

Carter said more ground soldiers will probably be added to support those already there, but part of the strategy is also mobilizing local forces "rather than trying to substitute for them."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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