Elite force to target Islamic State leaders
Washington sending group, larger than 50, to put ‘everybody on notice in Syria’
WASHINGTON — The U.S. will send a special operations force to Iraq to intensify U.S. and Iraqi operations against Islamic State, defence secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday.
“These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture (their) leaders,” Carter said, providing the House Armed Services Committee an update on U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan for countering the extremist group.
“That creates a virtuous cycle of better intelligence, which generates more targets, more raids and more momentum.”
Carter said the “specialized expeditionary targeting force” would also be positioned to conduct “unilateral operations” within Syria.
Several weeks ago, the Obama administration approved a plan to expand its military effort against the group — which is dug in across Iraq and Syria despite more than a year of coalition airstrikes — as well as sending special operations forces to Syria and increasing the number of raids against militants.
For the time being, the U.S. doesn’t anticipate any help in Syria from Vladimir Putin. Obama on Tuesday held out the prospect that mounting Russian casualties and the stalemate between Bashar Assad’s forces and opposition groups will push the Russian president into fighting along with the coalition in Syria.
But, he conceded, that won’t happen soon.
“I’m confident that we are on the winning side of this and that ultimately Russia’s going to recognize the threat” posed by Islamic State, Obama said in Paris. “I don’t expect that you’re going to see a 180 turn on their strategy over the next several weeks.”
In Berlin, the German cabinet approved plans Tuesday to commit up to 1,200 soldiers to support the coalition in Syria.
Following the Paris attacks, Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to honour a request from France to provide support for its operations against the terror group.
Carter, who testified alongside Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced skeptical lawmakers who argued the U.S. needs to be more forceful in countering the threat from the group, credited with attacks in Paris and Beirut and the downing of a Russian airliner.
There are about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, and Obama had previously announced he was sending fewer than 50 special operations forces to Syria. There has been a growing call from some Republicans for more U.S. boots on the ground amid a divide among war-weary Americans about the prospect of greater military involvement.
Carter said the number in the new expeditionary force will be “larger” than 50. He said it will be a “standing” force, meaning it will be stationed in Iraq. He said it would focus on helping Iraq defend its borders and build the Iraqi security forces, but also would be in position to conduct operations into Syria.
“This is an important capability because it takes advantage of what we’re good at,” Carter said. “We’re good at intelligence. We’re good at mobility. We’re good at surprise. We have the long reach that no one else has. And it puts everybody on notice in Syria.”
Carter said the force might be American-only, but more likely would be a mixed force with perhaps Kurdish troops or others who are fighting the militants. Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the committee, said the U.S. military effort must be bolstered and directed by the military and not “White House aides micromanaging” military operations.
“If we’re going to be serious about (Islamic State), the president needs to assign the military a clear mission and then allow the military to carry it out,” Thornberry said.
Carter said in recent weeks, airstrikes have destroyed Islamic State oil wells, processing facilities and nearly 400 oil tanker trucks. Dunford said that about 43 per cent of the revenue that the group derives from oil has been affected by the strikes.