An American military commander has said that certain Iraqi forces want more US training than what they can receive because of the need to send the Iraqis into battle fields to fight against the Daesh (ISIL) militants in Iraq and Syria.

“We’ve gotten to the point now where there’s actually more units wanting to come to the training than there is time on the calendar,” said Army Col. Curtis Buzzard on Thursday.

“So there’s a prioritization going on, on units that are going to go back into a fight soon, to come to these sites,” added Buzzard, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Iraq has been gripped by a deadly militancy since Daesh captured areas in north and west of the country in the summer of 2014. However, the Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Forces as well as other volunteers have managed to retake some positions from the militants in the north and operations continue for the liberation of other areas.

Late in October, the Pentagon said it was contemplating a number of options to boost the military campaign against the Daesh terrorists in Iraq.

One option was to make it possible for the Iraqi forces to call in airstrikes, a step that would bring American forces to the front line. The other option suggested was for US troops to be embedded with Iraqis closer to the battlefield at the level of a brigade or a battalion.

Buzzard, who just returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq, said US officials at first were concerned that Iraqis would not appreciate the value in training and that they had “largely stopped training” after the Americans troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

“I can tell you, there was a huge appetite to get back and do this type of training,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi army troops have recently made significant gains in their anti-Daesh military operations, liberating more than 80 percent of the western province of Anbar from the Takfiri group.

Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul, a senior Iraqi military official, has confirmed that the Iraqi forces gained control of several areas in the western and northern parts of the volatile province.

Dozens of Daesh terrorists have reportedly been killed during the ongoing mop-up operations across the region.