Defense chief unveils plans to retake ISIS hubs
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid out broad plans Wednesday to defeat Islamic State militants and retake the group’s key power centers in Iraq and Syria. And he announced that a special commando force has now arrived in Iraq.
Speaking to troops from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division who will soon deploy to Iraq, Carter also said he would meet in Paris next week with his defense counterparts, mainly from Europe, and will challenge them to put more capabilities into the fight.
He said he will be meeting with defense leaders from France, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
“Each of these nations has a significant stake in completing the destruction of this evil organization, and we must include all of the capabilities they can bring to the field,” he said.
Carter’s broader message signaled the completion of a military plan to help Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces retake Mosul in northern Iraq and to help the Syrian moderate forces oust Islamic State militants from their headquarters in Raqqa.
He described operations that would send Iraqi forces from the south and peshmerga forces from the north to encircle and cut off Mosul. But he warned that taking it back will not be quick or easy.
Carter announced in December that the U.S. would deploy about 200 special operations forces to Iraq to better capitalize on intelligence and put more pressure on the enemy.
“The specialized expeditionary targeting force I announced in December is now in place and is preparing to work with the Iraqis to be-
gin going after ISIL’s fighters and commanders, killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Carter said. The Islamic State group is also known as ISIL or ISIS.
U.S. special operations forces in Syria, meanwhile, played an advisory role to help local fighters take back the strategically important Tishreen Dam late last month, a victory that is expected to put additional pressure on the Islamic State in Raqqa, the Syrian city that serves as its capital.
“While I cannot give you specifics, I can tell you these forces have already established contact with new forces that share our goals; new lines of communication to
local, motivated and capable partners; and new targets for airstrikes and strikes of all kinds,” Carter said. “These operators have helped focus the efforts of the local, capable forces against key ISIL vulnerabilities, including their lines of communication. They are generating new insights that we turn into new targets, new strikes and new opportunities.”
Carter’s comments follow a victory by Iraqi forces in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi that President Barack Obama’s administration has characterized as the prelude to other offensives. Carter said there are now “big arrows pointing at”
Raqqa and Mosul, an Iraqi city of more than 1 million people that fell to the Islamic State in June 2014.
His speech offered an upbeat assessment of the anti-Islamic State campaign, saying that coalition-backed forces, supported by the airstrikes, are taking back territory and going after the group’s finances. This week airstrikes hit an Islamic State cash center in Mosul.
His remarks came a day after Obama’s State of the Union speech, expanding on the message that the U.S. must build and work with forces in Iraq and Syria to have lasting success. He said the U.S. must not “Americanize” the conflicts because that would allow militants to accuse the West of occupying the country.
About 500 troops from the 101st Airborne headquarters
group will deploy at the end of February. About 1,300 members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team will deploy to Iraq in late spring.
The brigade will be training Iraqi and peshmerga forces. The training will prove critical, with the pershmerga approaching Mosul from the north and Iraqi troops coming from the south in a “pincer movement,” Carter predicted.
Soldiers from the 101st also played a major role in taking Mosul back from insurgents during the Iraq War, but Carter stressed Wednesday that
Iraqi forces must do it this time, with the U.S. in a supporting role.
“Frankly, I know the 101st has taken Mosul before, and you could do it again,” Carter told the troops. “We could deploy multiple brigades on the ground and arrive in force. But then it would likely become our fight, and very likely our fight alone. Moreover, we’d have to fight on the enemy’s terms, and give our greatest advantages — mobility, firepower and precision.”
Carter’s speech comes after recent attacks, including a suicide bombing at a shopping mall this week in Baghdad that killed 18 people.
Abadi described the attack as a “desperate attempt” by militants after they lost control of the key western city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. Iraqi forces drove the extremists out of Ramadi last month, but the Islamic State group still controls much of northern and western Iraq.
His speech offered an upbeat assessment of the anti-Islamic State campaign, saying that coalition-backed forces, supported by the airstrikes, are taking back territory and going after the group’s finances.