US Boots on the ground in Iraq again.

http://www.alternet.org/world/us-military-back-battlefield-iraq?akid=14116.294211.8B2vXu&rd=1&src=newsletter1053473&t=16

The U.S. Military Is Back on the Battlefield in Iraq

The U.S. public may not have known that their soldiers were back in Iraq defending a fire base, but ISIS certainly had observed the arrival.

was suddenly announced last week that the Iraqi army was taking territory from Islamic State forces in what was presented as the first steps in an offensive to recapture the city of Mosul. It sounded as if the self-declared Caliphate was crumbling and was particularly welcome news since it coincided with the Isis suicide bombings in Brussels. The message was that Isis might be able to slaughter civilians in Europe, but was being defeated on its home turf in Iraq and Syria.

I was particularly interested in the attack because two months ago I had been with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga in Makhmour, the town in the front line between Mosul and the Kurdish capital Erbil, where the offensive by the 15th Division of the Iraqi Army was said to have taken place. At that time, local Kurdish commanders said that there was little fighting and they did not expect an offensive to recapture Mosul, which Isis had captured in June 2014, to happen any time soon.