Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has been training Iraqi special operations forces to quell the Sunni revolt.

Officials said U.S. advisers were training and mentoring Iraqi SOF units in the war in Anbar.

The officials said the advisers were training the Iraqis in urban warfare, counter-insurgency techniques, bomb detection and coordinated helicopter assaults.

“Without significant improvement in combat capabilities, this war could go on indefinitely,” an official said.

On April 1, the Iraq Army conducted an attack helicopter operation that killed three suspected fighters of Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant south of Falluja. Iraqi sources said several U.S. helicopters participated in the assault.

Officials said the United States has been supplying combat platforms for the Iraq SOF missions. They cited the Bell-407 and AH-64 helicopters, Humvee ground vehicles and M1A1 main battle tanks.

The SOF units, which face some 1,000 ISIL fighters around Falluja, have
been reinforced by pro-government tribal militias, called the Military
Council For Tribal Revolutionaries. Officials said the units were assigned
the lead in the Anbar war, which began in January 2014.

The U.S. effort was meant to quell the Sunni revolt in most of Anbar by
the time Iraq holds national elections on April 30. The administration of
President Barack Obama has deemed the elections an opportunity for Sunnis to
resolve their grievances against the Shi’ite-dominated central government in
Baghdad.

“Right now, the most realistic scenario was that a portion of the
[Anbar] province would participate in elections,” the official said.

  Anbar province, Falluja, helicopter assaults, ISIL, U.S. advisers train Iraqi special forces to counter spreading Sunni offensive