US boosts troop numbers in Iraq to aid battle against Islamic State

The United States will send an additional 560 military personnel to Iraq to assist in its fight against the Islamic State group, visiting Defence Secretary Ashton Carter announced on Monday.

The increase will bring the total authorised number of US forces in Iraq, most of whom are in "advisory" or "training" roles, to more than 4,600.

Carter made the announcement during a visit to Baghdad, where he met the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, and his defence chief Khalid al-Obeidi.

Some of the new forces will go to the Qayara airbase which Iraqi forces recaptured on Saturday near the northern city of Mosul, he added.

Speaking before he arrived in Baghdad, Carter said the airbase would be one hub from which "Iraqi security forces, accompanied and advised by us as needed, will complete the southern-most envelopment of Mosul.

"That's its strategic role, and that's its strategic importance."

The visit comes a week after IS killed 292 people in a bombing in the Iraqi capital, the worst single attack since the US invasion of the country in 2003.

"Let me begin... by expressing the condolences of myself and the United States for the terrorist attacks against the people of Iraq in recent weeks," Carter told Abadi.

"You have our sympathy but also it further strengthens our resolve to help in the defeat of (IS), which all of our societies need because all of our societies are subject to attacks."

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