US deploys Marines to Iraq

After ISIL rocket attack killed US soldier, Pentagon announces more Marines will be deployed on the ground in Iraq.

ISIL declared a 'caliphate' spanning from northwestern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad in 2014 [Reuters]

The US announced on Sunday it will put more troops on the ground in Iraq after a Marine was killed in an ISIL rocket barrage.

Troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit will add to American forces already in Iraq battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), the Pentagon said.

It was unclear exactly how many Marines would be deployed, but the move was made to bolster security at a coalition base near Makhmur on the frontlines with ISIL in northern Iraq.

A US Marine was killed in an ISIL rocket attack at the base on Saturday, the Pentagon said, the second American combat death in the fight against the group.

The rocket barrage occurred in the autonomous Kurdish region, where Baghdad has recently been deploying forces to prepare for an offensive against ISIL-controlled Mosul.

"Several other Marines were wounded and they are being treated for their varying injuries," the Pentagon said in a statement.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey said the troop deployment was a direct response to the Marine's death.

"We're told now by sources in the Pentagon that this deployment was sped up to respond to that attack, that this is a unit that is providing security for forces in this area," Saloomey reported.

"This base is also considered to be very important in the coming months, as it is expected to become the base of operations for a possible ground offensive to retake Mosul."

Michael Pregent, a Middle East analyst and former US intelligence officer, said "force protection" is paramount for Washington after Saturday's death and the killing of a US special forces soldier in 2015 who was involved in an anti-ISIL operaton.

"The deployment also talks to the need to have more US advisers and special operators on the ground with the Iraqi security forces to fight ISIS," Pregent told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, at least two dozen Iraqi security forces were killed in suicide attacks launched by ISIL on Sunday in restive Anbar province, the scene of near-daily violence.

An Iraqi military source told Al Jazeera at least 24 Iraqi forces were killed, while 12 others were wounded in the blasts in the municipality of Haqlaniyah, southwest of Hadeetha city.

ISIL fighters with explosive vests snuck into Haqlaniyah and at least three entered a municipal building and detonated their explosives.

Fighters clashed with Iraqi soldiers backed by popular mobilisation forces, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Last week, at least 47 Iraqi soldiers were killed in a series of attacks by ISIL fighters near Anbar's strategic city of Ramadi.

Residents of Anbar account for more than a third of the 3.2 million people displaced by fighting in Iraq since the start of 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Under a stepped-up campaign of US-led and Russian air strikes, as well as ground assaults by multiple forces in each country, ISIL is estimated to have lost about 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and more than 20 percent in Syria.

At its highest point in the summer of 2014, the group had overrun nearly a third of each country, declaring a "caliphate" spanning from northwestern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad.

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