Responsibility to protect

Iraqi forces have launched a campaign to retake Mosul, the self-declared capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the prime minister said on Oct. 17 in what the US hailed as a "decisive moment" in the battle to crush the jihadist group.

Turkey has contingency plans in place if an international coalition does not wish to include it in an upcoming operation to take Iraq's Mosul from jihadists, the Turkish president has said. 

Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar is visiting the U.S. on Oct. 14 in order to participate at a meeting of the anti-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) coalition, according to military sources. 

The top commanders of the anti-ISIL coalition forces last convened six months ago.

The United States is acting as a mediator to ease the tension between Turkey and Iraq, which erupted due to the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq ahead of a possible operation to take Mosul back from jihadists, a high-ranking U.S. State Department official has said. 

Washington has reiterated its support for Iraq's territorial sovereignty amid a spat between Turkey and Iraq before an operation on Mosul to liberate it from jihadists. "As we have repeatedly made clear, the United States supports Iraqi unity and sovereignty," the U.S. State Department said Oct. 11.

As if we were short of tension in this region, a brand new crisis has erupted between Turkey and Iraq. 

Last week Baghdad bridled at Turkey's military presence in Bashiqa, a base north of Mosul where Turkey has been training Sunni fighters and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga. The U.S. has sided with the central government of Iraq on this longstanding issue between Ankara and Baghdad.

The United States will send about 600 extra troops to Iraq to train local forces for an offensive on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stronghold of Mosul, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Sept. 28.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sept. 28 that Washington would send more U.S. troops to help local forces in the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) expected later this year. 

NATO is planning to deploy surveillance aircrafts to support the international coalition's ongoing fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) before the end of October, a senior official has said.

BELGRADE - The Pentagon has said that the US-led coalition's airstrike on the Syrian Arab Army's base in Deir el-Zor was unintentional, but Russian officials and lawmakers have been concerned that the attack, the first ever by the US-led forces on the Syrian troops, could have been a "deliberate" move that risks undermining the Russia-US brokered ceasefire.