About 1000 paratroopers from the Army’s famed 82nd Airborne Division will deploy to Iraq early next year to aid the Iraqi security forces in taking on the Islamic State, the Pentagon said.

Troops from the 82nd’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will start to deploy in late January to train, advise, and help the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby reported.

They will be deployed for nine months.

Their purpose is part of the combined effort to strengthen the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga in order for them to reclaim territory from the Islamic State.

About 300 men from another Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force will also deploy to provide “enabler” support in areas such as counterintelligence, signals, and logistics.

President Obama last month requested an another 1,500 troops to leave for Iraq to participate in the train, aid, and assist mission.

Other countries in the coalition will be contributing another 1,500 troops for the effort.

“The key to success out there will be increasing the capabilities of Iraqi security forces,” Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve told reporters.

Iraqi officials, it is reported, are eager to go on the offense and retake territories like Mosul. The U.S. military, however, thinks the ISF aren’t yet ready.

Terry said the training “takes some patience,” and will take “a minimum of three years” to fully build the capabilities of Iraqi forces.

U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq are laying groundwork for the ISF training program. Kirby said it will be “several months,” however, before the actual training effort begins.

Nine Iraqi army brigades and three peshmerga brigades will be trained at four training sites throughout Iraq, although Kirby declined to disclose the location of the sites, saying that protection measures are still being put into place.

Additional advisers will be located in the Anbar province and in areas north of Baghdad, Kirby said. Training and advising, he explained, will occur at bases and higher headquarters rather than on the front lines of the conflict.

The U.S. military spent years and billions of dollars training and equipping the ISF to take on insurgents during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Many of those units collapsed at the sight of the the Islamic State. Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said that approximately half of the ISF that were in place before the Islamic State launched its attacks earlier this year, are not up to par.

(Source: Breaking911)