NATO Expanding Training Mission to Aid U.S.-led Coalition in Iraq by Scott Wyland - Stars & Stripes
NATO will provide 200 personnel to train Iraq’s security forces to prevent the Islamic State from regaining a foothold in the region, a top U.S. commander said.
Joint Force Command Naples will lead the training mission, approved at NATO’s July summit, and will deploy sometime after this summer to set up the expanded training program, JFC officials said.
“We have people who understand how to maintain the infantry branch, maintain the armor corps, how to teach strategy and tactics, how to disarm bombs,” Adm. James Foggo, head of JFC Naples, said Tuesday in a Defense Department news report. “We’re going to find things where there may be gaps or seams where the Iraqi armed forces might need help with.”
The coalition’s four-year campaign, pounding ISIS from the ground and air, has driven militants from their strongholds and left them scattered in two areas in Syria next to the Iraqi border…