Kerry lauds Iran’s strikes in Iraq fight
BRUSSELS — Secretary of State John Kerry called Iranian airstrikes on Islamic State forces in Iraq a positive step, as the Pentagon confirmed the first such attacks.
“It’s self-evident that if Iran is taking on ISIL in some particular place, and it’s confined to taking on ISIL and has an impact, it’s going to be — the net effect is positive,” Kerry said in Brussels on Wednesday, using an acronym for the Islamic State group’s former
name. “But that’s not something we’re coordinating” with Iran.
Kerry and representatives from 60 nations backing the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State were meeting Wednesday at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. The United States hasn’t invited the Iranians to join the coalition against the Islamic State, and Iran has said it wouldn’t join.
While Kerry declined to “confirm or deny” the reported airstrikes, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department spokesman, said in an emailed statement Wednesday that “we believe that Iranian military aircraft conducted airstrikes into eastern Iraq in the last several days.”
He said the Iranian airstrikes so far appear limited, and he cautioned Iran against taking actions that might deepen sectarian divisions in the region.
“Our message to Iran is the same today as it was when it started. And as it is to any neighbor in the region that is involved in the anti-ISIL activities, and that’s that we want nothing to be done that further inflames sectarian tensions in the country,” Kirby said.
The airstrikes occurred at the end of November in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, where Iran’s territory is closest to Iraq’s battlefields, Hamid Reza Taraghi, an Iranian politician, confirmed. He said the strikes were in defense of a buffer zone along the border, which he said was accepted by Iraqi authorities.
“We do not tolerate any threats within the buffer zone, and these targets were in the vicinity of the buffer zone,” Taraghi said, adding that dozens of extremist fighters were killed in the operation.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said earlier this week that Iran has sent military advisers to his country to help in the fight. But al-Abadi, also in Brussels, said he was unaware whether Iran conducted airstrikes against Islamic State forces in his country.
“Did they have a role in that? That’s news for me,” al-Abadi said. “I am not aware there were Iranian airstrikes.”
Footage aired Sunday by broadcaster Al Jazeera showed at least one F-4 Phantom II jet striking Islamic State fighters in Diyala province, according to an analysis by Gareth Jennings, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.
The jet appeared to be offering air support to Iraqi forces retaking the town of Sa’adiya, Jennings said, calling the footage “the first visual evidence of direct” Iranian air force involvement.
Kerry said in Brussels that U.S.-led airstrikes are starting to roll back the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq.
The militants’ “earlier momentum has dissipated” after about 1,000 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, which have hurt the group’s leadership and “inflicted damage on its logistical and operational” capabilities, Kerry said. While most of the attacks were carried out by U.S. planes, NATO allies and Arab Gulf states have joined the campaign.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government isn’t part of the U.S. coalition but is also fighting the Islamic State, denied that much progress has been made.
“After two months of the alliance’s airstrikes, there are no tangible results on the ground,” Assad said in an interview to be published today in Paris Match, according to the Syrian state news service. “We are the ones fighting the battles against ISIS on the ground,” he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State’s former name.
A State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, estimated the Islamic State’s strength at about 30,000 fighters, roughly a third of them in Iraq.
Kerry said at Wednesday’s meeting that the fight against the group will likely take years to fully succeed, but nations are prepared to engage “for as long as it takes” to defeat the bloody insurgency.
Kerry also met privately with al-Abadi, who asked for “a lot of support to be able to crush Daesh” — the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
“I think we’re the only country in the Middle East who is really fighting Daesh on the ground,” al-Abadi said.
France’s president said his country is ready to step up airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq. After a meeting with al-Abadi, Francois Hollande told journalists that France was ready to “carry out quick and efficient actions” to back up Iraqi forces.
While at NATO, the Iraqi leader announced his country was submitting a formal request to the alliance to help improve its military capacities, NATO spokesman Oana Lungescu said. The request will have to be reviewed by representatives of NATO’s 28 member nations, she said.
“Anything that NATO might do in support of Iraq’s defense-capacity building would need to be complementary to the considerable efforts already undertaken by the U.S.-led coalition and individual NATO allies,” Lungescu said.
Al-Abadi also appealed for help Wednesday in training his military and reconstructing towns and cities that Iraq hopes to wrest from the Islamic State’s control.
U.S. officials said the cost of the reconstruction had yet to be determined. Kerry said al-Abadi had “put the topic of reconstruction on the table.” But Kerry expressed hope that Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Arab states might bear most of the cost.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., proposed a “declaration of war” against the Islamic State.
Other lawmakers have proposed authorizing military force against the extremists, but Paul is the first to seek a formal declaration of war.
His bill would authorize the president to use the military against the group and its affiliates for one year to protect U.S. citizens and facilities in Iraq and Syria. Ground combat forces could only be used to shield Americans from imminent danger and to gather intelligence or pursue high-level targets.
Although Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II, presidents have deployed troops without a declaration. President Barack Obama has sent about 3,000 U.S. troops to train and assist Iraqi security forces. The U.S.-led coalition has launched hundreds of airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria since September.
DETAINEE CONFUSION
In Iraq, an official denied Wednesday that a woman detained in Lebanon is a wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, adding that she is the sister of a terror suspect being held in Iraq.
The statement by Iraq’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Saad Maan, adds to the confusion surrounding the identity of the woman and child who were detained about 10 days ago in northern Lebanon.
Lebanese officials said the woman, Saja al-Dulaimi, is believed to be a wife of al-Baghdadi. Al-Dulaimi was held by Syrian authorities and freed in a prisoner exchange with the Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida branch, earlier this year.
On Wednesday, a senior Lebanese military official insisted that the woman said she was al-Baghdadi’s wife during her interrogation. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements to the media.
The official declined to provide more details about the investigation. He said authorities also detained, separately, the wife of senior Nusra Front leader Anas Sharkas, who is also known as Abu Ali al-Shishani.
The official refused to give further details about the Syrian woman, beyond saying her first name is Alaa.
On Wednesday, Maan said al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi who traveled to Syria before arriving in Lebanon, is not al-Baghdadi’s wife. He identified her as the sister of Omar Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, who is being held in Iraq as a terror suspect.
He added that al-Baghdadi has two wives but neither is named Saja al-Dulaimi.