U.S. advisers advance on Mosul with Iraqi units

About 200 U.S. military advisers are embedded with the Iraqi forces advancing toward Mosul, the Pentagon said Monday.

The advisers are paired with the Iraqi units that they trained with in preparation for the assault on Mosul, a city of an estimated 1 million Iraqis that the Islamic State group has controlled since summer 2014.

On Monday, columns of the Iraqi army, Iraqi Peshmerga and counter-terrorism forces launched “the biggest military operation” yet to rid Iraq of the Islamic State group, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters.

The advisers — who up until now had been assisting Iraqi military divisions, which have about 10,000 troops — will extend that assistance to units of about 2,000 soldiers who are more directly involved in day-to-day combat.