The United States is planning to send 400 military trainers to Iraq’s Anbar Province to help Iraqis, especially Sunni tribes, in their fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Reuters reported today.

The U.S. deployment would likely entail around 400 trainers, one U.S. official said, adding an announcement was expected on Wednesday. Two other officials also confirmed an expected troop increase of hundreds of troops.

U.S. forces have already conducted training at the al-Asad military base in western Anbar but U.S. officials said planning was underway for a new installation near the town of Habbaniya, the site of an Iraqi army base.

A new site would allow U.S. trainers to provide greater support for Sunni tribal fighters, who have yet to receive all of the backing and arms promised by the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

There are currently 3,100 American military trainers and advisers in Iraq. U.S. officials told Reuters that they hoped that “even a modestly strengthened U.S. presence could help Iraqi forces plan and carry out a counter-attack to retake Anbar’s capital Ramadi.” Analysts of the region described the failure of Iraq’s central government to provide arms to the Sunni tribes as enabling ISIS to capture Ramadi.

[Photo: CCTV+ / YouTube ]