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BAGHDAD The Pentagon is deploying U.S. military advisers closer to the front lines in the campaign against the Islamic State as Iraqi security forces wrestle for control of the city of Mosul, the top U.S. commander here said Monday.

Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said that the advisers, numbering about 450, are operating closer and deeper into Iraqi formations as a new assault on western Mosul gets underway. U.S. commanders made the adjustment during the fight for the eastern side of the city, which began in October and ended last month, and the deployment has continued with the attempt, beginning Sunday, to capture western Mosul, Townsend said.

It marks the first time the U.S. military has acknowledged how close American service members are to the front lines as it assists what Townsend characterized as a force of more than 40,000 Iraqi police officers and soldiers fighting to retake Mosul. The battle for the western half of the northern Iraqi city is likely to stretch for months in urban neighborhoods where up to 1,000 militants are believed to be entrenched, U.S. military officials said.

[Iraq resumes offensive to retake to Mosul]

Iraqi units encountered determined resistance Monday as they fought for control of Albu Seif, an Islamic State-occupied village south of Mosul. Later Monday, federal police forces and an elite squad belonging to the Interior Ministry had drawn within two miles of Mosuls main airport, at the citys southern edge, according to Lt. Gen. Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police.

The fight for the western half of the city is expected to be more challenging even than the grueling and bloody battle in the east, which lasted for months, according to Iraqi and U.S. commanders. The terrain, including the narrow streets of Mosuls old city, is more daunting. And hundreds of thousands of civilians will be caught between the militants and the advancing army.

Iraqs U.S.-trained counterterrorism forces, the countrys most effective unit and the vanguard force during the fight in eastern Mosul, is expected to join the offensive in the coming days.

Townsends comments came during a visit by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general who led combat forces during the Iraq War. Mattis, the first senior member of the Trump administration to visit Iraq, said the U.S.-led military coalition will be able to simultaneously prosecute the war against the Islamic State in Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of the groups self-proclaimed caliphate, along with operations against militants in other cities.

Were going to continue to go after them until we destroy them and any kind of belief in the inevitability of their message, Mattis told reporters after a day of meetings with senior U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. They are going to be shown exactly what they are, which is a bunch of murderous relics, to put it bluntly.

Mattis rejected a suggestion by President Trump that the United States might take Iraqs oil.

I think all of us here in this room all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I am sure we will continue to do so in the future, Mattis said during a meeting with reporters Sunday night. Were not in Iraq to seize anybodys oil.

Trump had said repeatedly that the United States should have taken Iraqs oil during the Iraq War, most recently during a Jan.21 visit to CIA headquarters when he said, Maybe well get another chance.

The defense secretarys comments are among several he has made in efforts to reassure allies since leaving Washington last week. In Brussels and Munich, he promised audiences that the Trump administration will maintain its obligation to NATO, which calls for all members to help if one is attacked. But he also warned that the United States might moderate its support in other ways to nations that do not meet defense spending guidelines set by the alliance.

Mattis is in the middle of a 30-day review of the U.S. strategy to defeat the Islamic State that is expected to make recommendations to the White House on whether additional U.S. troops are needed or whether new authorities should be granted to American forces to help prosecute the campaign.

The defense secretary said the United States and its allies are still sorting out what the fight for Raqqa will look like and whether Turkish forces will be involved. The issue is considered particularly sensitive because the Turks view Kurds allied with the United States as terrorists, while U.S. officials view them as the most credible local fighters.

Reuters reported Sunday that Turkey has submitted two plans to Washington for the Raqqa battle that would rely on local Arab forces potentially backed by the Turkish military, rather than the Kurds.

The allies are still working it out, Mattis said. Theyre sharing planning, and thats all Im going [to say] right now. But the planning is still underway, so it has not all been decided upon who is going to do what and where. Were working together to sort it out.

Mustafa Salim in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

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US troops in Iraq move closer to the front lines in fight for Mosul - Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has chosen as his national security adviser a soldier-scholar who fought in both Iraq wars and published an influential book that called out the U.S. government for lies that led to the Vietnam War.

Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster would remain on active military duty while leading the National Security Council, White House officials said Monday. He joined two retired generals - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly - already in Trumps inner circle, adding to the impression that the president prefers military men in top roles.

President Trump named U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster (L) as his national security adviser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 20, 2017.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Trump called McMaster a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience when he introduced his new national security adviser at his private Florida club. McMaster, who returned to Washington with the president, said he looked forward to doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.

McMaster replaced retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was fired last week after Trump determined that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his discussion with Russias ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition. The White House said McMaster was one of four candidates Trump interviewed for the job over the weekend.

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A look at President Donald Trump's cabinet and inner circle

McMaster has been heavily involved in the Armys efforts to shape its future force and its way of preparing for war. He is the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, a sort of military think tank, at Fort Eustis, Virginia.

McMaster commanded troops in both American wars in Iraq - in 1991, when he fought in a storied tank battle known as the Battle of 73 Easting, and again in 2005-2006 in one of the most violent periods of the insurgency that developed after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He is credited with using innovative approaches to countering the insurgency in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar when he commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He later served as a special adviser to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

McMaster, born in 1962, earned a doctoral degree in history from the University of North Carolina. Outside the Army, he may be best known for his 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam, a searing indictment of the U.S. governments mishandling of the Vietnam War. The book earned him a reputation for being willing to speak truth to power.

How closely McMasters and Trumps views align were not clear. On Russia, McMaster appears to hold a much dimmer view than Trump of Moscows military and political objectives in Europe.

In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in May 2016, McMaster said Russia managed to annex Crimea and intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine at zero cost from the international community.

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President Trump's new national security adviser, Gen. H. R. McMaster, is a soldier and a scholar. He is the director of a military think tank, th...

McMaster said Moscows broader goal is to collapse the post-Cold War security, economic and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests.

In his current role, McMaster has studied the way Russia developed and executed its campaigns in Crimea and Ukraine, where it used what some call hybrid warfare - part political, part disinformation, part military.

The National Security Council has not adjusted smoothly to Trumps leadership. The president has suggested he does not trust holdovers from the Obama administration and complained about leaks to reporters. His decision to put his top political adviser on the councils senior committee drew sharp criticism. On Friday, the head of the councils Western Hemisphere division was fired after he criticized Trumps policies and his inner circle of advisers.

Trump said retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been his acting adviser, would serve as the National Security Council chief of staff. He also said he would be asking John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to work with them in a somewhat different capacity.

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Trump's new national security adviser is a soldier-scholar who fought in Iraq - CBS News

CAIRO Scores of bodies of African migrants washed ashore in Libyas western city of Zawiya on the Mediterranean, a spokesman for the Libyan Red Crescent said Tuesday the latest tragedy at sea after migrant deaths rose to record levels along the key smuggling route over the past months.

At least 74 bodies were found in Zawiya, according to Rec Crescents spokesman Mohammed al-Misrati, who feared an even higher death toll. He said that a torn rubber boat was found nearby and that he expected more bodies to surface as such boats usually carry up to 120 people.

Al-Misrati told The Associated Press that the bodies were found on Monday morning and that the Red Crescent workers retrieved them between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The aid agency posted on its Twitter account photographs of dozens of bodies in white and black body bags, lined up along the shore. Al-Misrati said the local authorities would take the bodies to a cemetery in the capital of Tripoli that is allocated for unidentified persons.

Libyan coast guard spokesman Ayoub Gassim said over 500 migrants were rescued at sea on Friday and Saturday off the shore of the city of Sebratha, which is to the west of Zawiya. The migrants boats were 5-7 miles from the coast of Libya.

Gassims aid the coast guard is seeing the smugglers use larger rubber boats in order to pile more migrants into the weak vessels some taking on 180 people and dramatically increasing the risk to the migrants.

We are seeing the new boats, which are not equipped with anything, but they carry more people, he said. This is going to be even more disastrous to the migrants.

Last week, Fabrice Leggeri, director of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, said the Libya-Italy smuggling route across the Mediterranean has seen record numbers of migrant drownings in 2016.

According to Leggeri, migrant deaths along the central Mediterranean route stood at 4,579 for last year, which still might be much less than the true loss of life. Thats compared to 2,869 deaths in 2015 and 3,161 in 2014.

There is little sign of the surge is abating, even during wintertime. There were 228 recorded deaths in January, by far the biggest monthly toll in recent years. Leggeri blamed the very small dinghies and poor vessels used by the smugglers for the high death rate.

Overall, central Mediterranean migrant crossings increased by 17 percent last year to 181,459 people, according to statistics.

In Libya, the turmoil engulfing this North African country has become a death trap for thousands of migrants, most of them from sub-Saharan African countries, seeking to escape poverty and find a better life in Europe.

Libya is split by competing governments and many militias rule on the ground, many of them profiting from smuggling and human trafficking. Rights groups have documented migrants horror journeys involving torture, rape, and forced labor inside Libya.

The country sank into lawlessness following the 2011 uprising that turned into a full-blown civil war that led to the toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Since then, human trafficking has thrived amid Libyas chaos.

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Bodies of 74 migrants wash ashore in Libya - New York Post

An oil refinery in Zawia, Libya. The country is keen to boost oil production with the help of foreign companies. Photograph: Ismail Zetouni/Reuters

Russia has significantly boosted its involvement in Libya by signing a potentially major contract to help redevelop Libyan oilfields.

The head of the Libyan national oil corporation (NOC) signed a cooperation agreement with Rosneft, the Russian oil giant, which NOC said on Tuesday lays the groundwork for investment by Rosneft in Libyas oil sector.

The agreement envisages the establishment of a joint working committee of the two partners to evaluate opportunities in a variety of sectors, including exploration and production, an NOC statement said.

Russia had extensive investments in Libya before the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and is eager to recover as many of them as possible in a country still plagued by violent conflict but keen to boost oil production with the help of foreign companies.

In recent months Vladimir Putin has become increasingly embroiled in the country as western-backed efforts to end the long-running political impasse have failed to soothe disagreements between factions in the east and the UN-recognised government of national accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Russia is increasingly seen as a key player in persuading Khalifa Haftar, the head of the self-styled Libyan National Army based in the east of the country, to compromise over a future role in a new consensus government. Haftars forces control most of Libyas oil resources.

Efforts to secure a new political future for Libya have stalled after the failure of an Egyptian-led process, which saw Haftar travel to Cairo but refuse to meet the leader of the GNA, Fayez al-Sarraj.

Despite the snub, Sarraj has agreed to changes in the composition of his government but, in a sign of the countrys fragility, he survived an assassination attempt on Monday in Tripoli along with two of his senior aides.

Haftar has sought Moscows help to battle Islamic State, but European diplomats fear he could join what has been described as Putins axis of secular authoritarians in the Middle East alongside the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

Libya is one of a handful of Opec members who have been spared the need to reduce crude oil production in the first half of this year. Opec and 11 independent oil producers have agreed to cut output by a total of 1.2m barrels per day. However, Iran, Nigeria and Libya were permitted not to cap and even to increase oil production due to their complicated political environments.

Italys Eni and Frances Total are working in Libya and Schlumberger , the worlds largest oilfield services company, resumed operations in the country about three months ago.

Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of NOC, one of the few functioning, bipartisan technocratic bodies in Libya, signed the agreement with the Rosneft chairman, Igor Sechin.

We need the assistance and investment of major international oil companies to reach our production goals and stabilise our economy, said Sanalla. This agreement with Russias largest oil company lays the foundations for us jointly to identify areas of cooperation. Working with NOC, Rosneft and Russia can play an important and constructive role in Libya.

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Russia increases involvement in Libya by signing oil deal - The Guardian

AIDAN LEWIS

Last updated04:13, February 22 2017

David Ramos

Migrant deaths have risen to record levels along the Libya-Italy smuggling route across the Mediterranean Sea.

The bodies of at least 74 migrants have been found washed up on the shore in western Libya after the engine of their inflatable boat was stolen, coastguard and aid officials said on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ Time).

Red Crescent spokesman Mohamed al-Misrati said the corpses had been recovered on Monday (Tuesday NZT) near the city of Zawiya and the migrants appeared to have died during the past two days. They were all adults, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries, and all but three were men.

The Zawiya coastguard posted a video that showed the migrants' boat, with no engine, as the first bodies were recovered.

Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said a local staff member had reported that "traffickers came and removed the engine from the boat and left the craft adrift".

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"This is not a only horrible number of deaths in one incident but it strikes us as something that we haven't really seen much of, which is either deliberate punishment or murder of migrants," Millman said.

Libya is the main departure point for migrants hoping to reach Europe by sea. They generally attempt the crossing in flimsy inflatable craft loaded with small amounts of fuel which are intended to get them only as far as European rescue vessels stationed in international waters.

Most leave from the stretch of Libyan coast between Tripoli and the Tunisian border to the west. The bodies of those who drown are frequently found washed up on Libyan shores.

The Red Crescent published pictures of the bodies laid out in white and black body bags along the beach. Some of the images showed a semi-deflated grey rubber boat of the kind typically provided by migrant smugglers, with wooden boards inserted to reinforce the floor, pulled up half-way onto the beach close by.

Some bodies were still inside the boat. A local volunteer said the toll could rise, as some bodies had been spotted in the sea but aid workers had not yet been able to recover them.

Last year a record 181,000 migrants crossed between Libya and Italy. More than 4500 are known to have died. The IOM said the latest incident raised the total number of deaths this year to more than 365.

Having largely closed off sea crossings between Turkey and Greece last year, the European Union is searching for ways to stem the flow of migrants from Libya.

This month European leaders offered Libya money and other assistance to try to reduce the numbers departing across the Mediterranean. Aid groups criticised the move, saying such plans exposed migrants to further risks and abuses within Libya.

-Reuters

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Migrant bodies wash ashore in Libya - Stuff.co.nz