The Citizen (KZN)

New US plan to defeat IS

- Washington

– A Pentagon-led plan to defeat Islamic State (IS), due in draft form by Monday, will look beyond Iraq and Syria to include the threat from jihadists around the world fuelling the conflict, a top general said.

The remarks by Marine General Joseph Dunford suggest the plan will be broader in scope than initially thought and might omit more tactical details, like specific troop requests.

“This is not about Syria and Iraq. It’s about transregio­nal threat,” Dunford told a think-tank event in Washington, citing other jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. “So, when we go to the president with options, it will be in the context of the transregio­nal threat.”

Dunford noted US military estimates that IS had drawn 45 000 foreign fighters from more than 100 nations around the world.

“Our plan, to be successful, needs to, number one, cut the connective tissue between regional groups,” he said.

The US military-led review includes input from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as from the treasury department and the US intelligen­ce community. Dunford said it would also address IS’s resources and a narrative that allowed it to declare a self-styled caliphate.

The review of US strategy comes at a decisive moment in the US-led coalition effort against IS in both Iraq and Syria, and could lead to relaxing some of the former Obama administra­tion’s policy restrictio­ns, like limits on troop numbers.

The Baghdad-based US commander on the ground, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes US-backed forces will recapture major stronghold­s Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria within the next six months. –

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