Obama expects progress in battle against ISIS in Mosul by end of year
President Obama on Monday suggested the administration will achieve significant progress in the battle to take back Mosul from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by the end of the year.
"My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall," Mr. Obama said in a wide-ranging interview from The White House with CBS News' Charlie Rose. "As we see the Iraqis willing to fight and gaining ground we must make sure that we are providing them more support."
The president said the U.S. is seeing the benefits of its military operations in the region.
"We're not doing the fighting ourselves, but when we provide training, when we provide special forces who are backing them up, when we are gaining intelligence -- working with the coalitions that we have -- what we've seen is that we can continually tighten the noose, the president said.
Mr. Obama's comments come the same day as Defense Secretary Ash Carter's announcement that the U.S. will send 217 more troops to Iraq and a number of Apache helicopters to the country to assist in the fight. The additional forces will advise Iraqi forces closer to the front lines. The decision increases the U.S. troops level in Iraq from 3,870 to 4,087.