Are U.S. Troops Already Fighting in Iraq?

From Ford Sypher, "Are American Troops Already Fighting on the Front Lines in Iraq?":

Over the past several days, Kurdish Peshmerga forces have massed in the thousands around the northern approaches to Zumar. Heavy equipment including rockets and mortars were positioned for the assault. Kurdish political and officials also told The Daily Beast that they would be utilizing weapons that had been flown in from countries including the United States and Germany, during the offensive.

At sunrise on September 1, trucks and vehicles packed the highway west of the Kurdish city of Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, heading toward Zumar. In one direction The Daily Beast observed large numbers of Kurdish Peshmerga. In the other direction drove countless numbers of Iraqi refugees, fleeing the fighting with their families and personal belongings. “The fighting is too heavy. We’re looking for safety,” said Hassar, a resident of a small village near Zumar, as he sped away in a small sedan loaded with his family.

The battle began in the early hours of the morning with American airstrikes hitting ISIS positions in and around Zumar. Shortly after the bombs stopped falling Peshmerga infantry units began their advance. Initial reports indicated that the Kurdish fighters were advancing with light resistance, but that quickly changed as ISIS mortar and rocket fire began to rain down.

At the last checkpoint before the battle raging ahead, a little more than a five-minute drive from our position, my Kurdish security team got news from the front line that the fighting would be heavier than expected. Not only had the mutual shelling intensified, but word came that ISIS had reinforced its positions overnight with fighters from Syria.

As the fighting raged we sat and baked in the sun waiting to be brought closer. Then, the news came that our escort, a Peshmerga intelligence official, had been ambushed in route to pick us up. He had escaped, but two of his deputies were killed in the assault. By this time, Kurdish forces had opened up their second line of offense, moving in from both the northeast and northwest, attempting to envelop ISIS fighters in a pincer movement.

My Kurdish contact and I decided to approach the battle from western side of the Mosul Dam reservoir, the strategic dam that had been captured by ISIS before U.S. airstrikes allowed Kurdish and Iraqi military forces to retake it.

At around 10 a.m., the Peshmerga halted our movement. Fearing that the situation was changing rapidly, we asked the Kurdish security element accompanying us what was happening. “We don’t know,” they said, “we just got information that you cannot move forward.” Repeated calls were met with the same firm statement that we could not move forward.

Stuck out in the open with no clear sense of what was occurring in the battle that required us to be stopped, we made contact with high-level Peshmerga ministries, both in Erbil and on the ground in Zumar. “Yes, we want to let you in, but we can’t,” said one high-level Kurdish government official. “We have visitors, you’ll see them,” he stated. As we tried to decipher his cryptic response our answer came: multiple armored Toyotas swept down the mountain, passing within feet of us. The Toyotas were packed with what appeared to be bearded Western Special Operations Forces. I watched the trucks pass and saw for myself the crews inside them. They didn’t wear any identifying insignia but they were visibly Western and appeared to match all the visual characteristics of American special operations soldiers.

RTWT.