Defense Secretary Hagel said 130 more US military assessment team members were sent to northern Iraq today; there are currently 250 US military advisers already in Iraq, along with 450 security forces, and 100 troops guarding the US Embassy in Baghdad. A Pentagon official said the US is conducting 50-60 sorties a day in Iraq but that the US airstrikes so far have had minimal impact on the Islamic State. North Carolina resident Donald Ray Morgan, 44, who was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Aug. 2 on his return from Lebanon, was ordered to be held without bail last week; he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and is suspected of arms trafficking.
