“The new U.S. military hub being set up in Iraq’s western desert could be a model for more such train-and-advise operations [similar to those set up in Cambodia during the 'Nam conflict, [except now with volunteers and  mercenaries-td] — and with them, likely more U.S. troops — designed to help Iraq’s struggling forces defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the top-ranking U.S. general said Thursday,” according to Aljazeera America

“Sure, we’re looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites necessary,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him to Naples, Italy, where he is meeting with U.S. commanders. He likened these potential bases to “lily pads” in a pond, which would function as hopping-off points for Iraqi forces as they work their way deeper into ISIL-held territory.

“It’s another one of the options” short of committing U.S. ground combat forces, Dempsey said. President Barack Obama has ruled out that step.

Dempsey’s remarks came the day after the Obama administration announced that as many as 450 U.S. troops will be sent in the next two months to the al-Taqqadum military base, situated between the ISIL-occupied cities of Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar province, to advise Iraqi forces and help integrate a larger number of Sunni tribal fighters into the Iraqi campaign to retake Ramadi.

The general said the mission for U.S. forces there “first and foremost” will be to assist the Iraqi military in organizing and executing its counteroffensive, while encouraging greater involvement by Iraq’s Sunni minority. Integrating into the fight the Sunni tribes — who have either been sidelined by the Shia-led central government in Baghdad, or are unwilling to join it — is seen as crucial to driving ISIL out of the Sunni-dominated areas of western Iraq.

Meanwhile on the Arab-Israeli front, A fired Al Jazeera America executive filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the channel on Thursday, levying damning allegations about the the integrity of its news coverage and the treatment of its employees., 

Shannon High-Bassalik, AJAM’s former senior vice president of programming and documentaries, says in the complaint that she witnessed the channel abandon “journalistic objectivity” in order to “advance a pro-Arabic/Middle Eastern agenda, often at the expense of Jewish people.”