Free Republic

In a significant development last month, US military convoys rolled into Iraq via the Arar crossing with Saudi Arabia. This visible display of foreign force movements saw a portion of the convoy making its way to the Ain al-Assad base in western Iraq, while the rest headed toward the US occupation base of Al-Tanf in Syria. In July, the US Department of Defense unveiled its plan to deploy approximately 2,500 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, stationed at the Fort Drum military base. Their mission: Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the codename for the US-led military campaign against ISIS in Syria...

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says. Ain al-Asad air base, where about 320 US Marines are training members of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, is only 8km (5 miles) away.

Reuters reports that the Islamic State has taken over most of the Western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, putting them dangerously close to the Ain al-Asad air base, where 320 U.S. Marines are engaged in training soldiers from the Iraqi 7th Division. Al-Baghdadi, about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, had been besieged for months by the radical Sunni Islamist militants who captured vast swathes of northern and western Iraq last year.