WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States established a firebase in northern Iraq to support Iraqi forces in liberating the city of Mosul from the Daesh, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Monday.
"Several weeks ago, thousands of Iraqi troops began occupying a tactical assembly in Makhmour, this is part of the force generation associated with the liberation of Mosul," Warren stated. "These Iraqi forces, along with their coalition advisors, require forced protection, so we constructed a small firebase to do just that."
On March 19, US Marine Sergeant Louis Cardin was killed in Iraq during an Daesh rocket strike, the Department of Defense announced on Sunday.
US commanders, Warren noted, decided to withhold information about the presence of the base until it was fully operational in order to protect US and coalition forces.
The Islamic State, also known as Daesh, is a designated terrorist group that has taken large areas of land in Iraq and Syria, where it proclaimed a caliphate. The terror group is outlawed in the United States, Russia and in several other countries.
