From Deep In The Iraqi Desert, A New U.S. Fire Base Targets ISIS In Syria
NPR recently visited the base, where 150 U.S. soldiers and Marines provide support for Iraqi and U.S.-backed Syrian forces.
As U.S. military bases go, Um Jurius isn't much to look at: a collection of armored vehicles, makeshift wooden benches covered with camouflage netting and groups of tents pitched in the sand.
The fire base has sprung up in the past month in the northern Iraqi desert, just over a mile from the Syrian border. At the request of the Iraqi government, U.S. artillery here targets ISIS fighters who have fled from Iraq to Syria.
"They're pursuing any ISIS elements so they can't regroup and present a threat," Maj. Gen. Walter Piatt says of the Iraqi and Syrian forces the U.S. is backing.
Piatt, the deputy commander for U.S. forces in Iraq, has brought NPR for a look at the remote base in Nineveh province, an example of the shifting role of the U.S.
