Responsibility to protect

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other top officials in unannounced visits to Baghdad and Arbil on April 28 to show support for a government battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) amid political and economic crises. 

Germany is planning on building a fixed location inside Turkey's ?ncirlik Airbase, where it is already deploying Tornado jets and an aerial refueling jet along with hundreds of soldiers, for around 65 million euros, Germany's Der Spiegel reported on April 25. 

President Barack Obama announced on April 25 the biggest expansion of U.S. ground troops in Syria since the civil war there began, saying he would dispatch an extra 250 special forces soldiers to build on successes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

The United States will deploy additional forces to Iraq and make Apache attack helicopters available to support the country's troops, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said April 18 in Baghdad.

In his brief presentation, Türk highlighted his long experience with the UN, where he worked as Slovenia's ambassador in the 1990s and as assistant secretary general to Kofi Annan for political affairs in the 2000s.

Turkish artillery and warplanes struck Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions in northern Iraq after a Turkish soldier was killed on March 26 during a gun battle between ISIL militants and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

One Turkish soldier was killed on March 26 when a rocket projectile fired from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) region hit the Bashiqa camp near Mosul in northern Iraq, marking the first such Turkish casualty in the camp.

A fledgling U.S. base in northern Iraq came under attack again on March 21 from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and even drew a threat from an Iran-backed Shi'ite militia, two days after a U.S. Marine there was killed in a rocket attack. 

The Pentagon has assigned a detachment of U.S. marines on the ground in Iraq to support international coalition efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), it announced on March 20, one day after one U.S. marine was killed in an ISIL attack in northern Iraq. 

Preparations to retake Iraq's Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is continuing, according to a top U.S. official assigned to the coalition.