The US is to send a further 560 troops to Iraq to help retake the city of Mosul, the latest escalation by the Obama administration of the military campaign against Isis.
In a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday, Ashton Carter, US defence secretary, announced that most of the additional US forces would be based at an airfield 60 miles south of Mosul, which was captured by Iraqi forces at the weekend.
Bringing the total number of US troops in Iraq to 4,647, the latest deployment comes days after President Barack Obama, who was elected on a pledge to wind down the wars in the Islamic world, announced that a US force of 8,400 would remain in Afghanistan when he left office.