Air Force Maj. Gen. Rowayne "Wayne" Schatz admitted, "from June to December, we've worked a lot on moving items into Kuwait," including 3,100 vehicles, most of them MRAPs. While the military stands by President Barack Obama's repeated pledge that he will not put U.S. combat forces on the ground, an increasing number of U.S. troops has slowly trickled back into Iraq, as the US and its allies are reportedly planning for a massive spring offensive to retake territory from ISIS.

As US News reports,

Since June, the U.S. military has been slowly stockpiling massive amounts of its gear coming out of Afghanistan at a depot in Kuwait adjacent to a bustling commercial port, in preparation for ultimately shipping it across the border into Iraq for an allied offensive against the Islamic State group.

The facility's warehouses and large asphalt yards now are home to roughly 3,100 vehicles, most of them MRAPs – the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles that have been ubiquitous in America's prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also some electronic equipment and other supplies at the depot, located at Kuwait's Shuaiba port, defense officials say.

The gear, primarily from the Army, will be fixed up and held as top U.S. planners in Iraq determine what they'll need to defeat the Islamic State group in the coming months, says Air Force Maj. Gen. Rowayne "Wayne" Schatz, the director of operations and plans for U.S. Transportation Command.

"From June to December, we've worked a lot on moving items into Kuwait," he says. "The Army is holding the gear there, and it has room to hold it, as the mission fleshes out."

The U.S. military and its allies are reportedly planning for a massive spring offensive to help Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga fighters retake territory from the Islamic State group, particularly traditional Sunni Muslim bastions such as Anbar province west of Baghdad and the key city of Mosul.