Iraqis set up Ramadi offensive
U. S.- trained forces hem in city; Carter drops by Baghdad
BAGHDAD — U. S.- trained Iraqi forces are preparing to open an assault on Islamic State extremists in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, defense officials said Thursday, in a key test of the White House’s strategy for defeating the militant group.
About 3,000 Iraqi soldiers have taken positions around Ramadi in the past few days, the first time troops trained by U. S. advisers over the past year have been deployed for an offensive against the Islamic State.
Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the deployment of the two Iraqi brigades around Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was significant because they were well- trained and better equipped than many other Iraqi army units.
“We’ve already seen progress,” he said.
News of the troop debut came as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who has openly questioned Iraqi forces’ will to fight, made his first trip to Baghdad since assuming his post in February.
Carter’s brief, unannounced visit aimed to assess how the Iraqi government is doing in improving the state security forces and recruiting Iraq’s minority Sunnis, whose support is seen as key to defeating the Islamic State.
The Pentagon has said Iraqi forces, under U. S. guidance, have trained about 1,800 Sunni tribal fighters at the Taqqadum air base, about 40 miles west of Baghdad. Those fighters have undergone a week’s worth of training and are receiving small arms and basic equipment such as radios.
At least 500 of those Sunni tribal fighters are expected to take part in the Ramadi operation, Warren said in Baghdad.
In coming months, senior U. S. officials will have to decide whether they will send additional U. S. troops to Iraq or deploy Americans closer to the front lines to ensure Iraqi forces can accelerate their fitful progress against the militants.
“To defeat Daesh, we need capable ground forces that we can enable and support, and we will. And getting those forces, in turn, requires inclusive governance,” Carter said at the close of a meeting with Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Daesh is an acronym for the Islamic State’s Arabic name.
Carter also held talks with other officials from Iraq’s Shiiteled government, including Defense Minister Khaled al- Obeidi, and leaders from the Sunni minority group.
U. S. military officials said more than 5,000 Iraqi soldiers, federal police officers and counterterrorism troops are working to isolate Ramadi, whose fall to the Islamic State in May dealt a major blow to the U. S.- backed campaign against the group.
Warren said this week that those forces aimed to “place a noose around the city and isolate it” from militants elsewhere. He said the offensive to
retake Ramadi could begin as soon as “several weeks” from now. The Islamic State is estimated to have 1,000 to 2,000 fighters in the city.
In a visit to the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service Academy, Carter was briefed on U. S. efforts to train and advise Iraqi special forces. He watched a team of elite soldiers — in allblack uniforms and some with black masks — conduct shooting drills.
The unit is regarded as the most skilled of Iraq’s security forces, and the government has relied on it heavily in operations against the Islamic State over the past 18 months.
The academy’s commander, Maj. Gen. Falah al- Mohamedawi, thanked Carter for U. S. support in developing Iraqi counterterrorism capabilities.
“God willing, together we will defeat Daesh,” al- Mohamedawi told Carter.
“Yes, we will,” the U. S. defense chief replied.
The preparatory operations around Ramadi are complemented by similar operations by Shiite militias and volunteer forces around the nearby city of Fallujah, which is also under Islamic State control. But Warren said those paramilitary forces would not take part in the Ramadi operation, which would be supported by U. S. air power.
It has been more than a year since the Islamic State — a group with Iraqi roots that has been strengthened by the civil war in Syria — rolled across northern Iraq, capturing the country’s largest northern city, Mosul, and, for a time, threatening the capital.
The group’s advance and the collapse of Iraqi forces have gradually drawn President Barack Obama’s administration back into military operations in Iraq. The United States has about 3,500 troops in Iraq, mostly advising and training Iraq army and Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Since last summer, U. S. and allied aircraft have conducted thousands of airstrikes on Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria. U. S. officials described the fight against the militant group as one that will stretch well beyond the end of Obama’s second term.
On Thursday, Obama administration officials said the United States and Turkey had reached an agreement to allow manned and unmanned U. S. warplanes to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State from Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border.
The deal was announced as Turkish forces were reported to have engaged in the first direct combat with Islamic State forces on the Syrian side of the border.
It was a step Turkish authorities had been reluctant to take until now in their effort to protect Turkey’s 500- mile border with Syria, where the Islamic State is firmly ensconced.
Officials at both the State Department and the Pentagon said they were hesitant to talk about the pact until the Turkish government acknowledged it publicly.
The announcement came before Turkey’s state- run television reported early today that Turkish warplanes struck Islamic State targets across the border in Syria.
TRT television said four jets took off from Diyarbakir air base in southeastern Turkey and used missiles to hit the targets in the Syrian village of Havar. Havar is across from the Turkish border province of Kilis. TRT said the planes did not violate Syrian airspace.
Turkey's government later confirmed the strikes, saying in a statement that three F- 16 jets took off from Diyarbakir airbase in southeast Turkey and used smart bombs to hit three targets across the Turkish border.
The strikes took place after gunmen identified by Turkish news media as Islamic State fighters opened fire on a Turkish border outpost in the Kilis region, killing one Turkish soldier and wounding five.
Turkey’s semiofficial Anadolu news agency and other agencies said the military scrambled fighter jets and hit targets on the Syrian side of the border with tanks and artillery. At least one Islamic State militant was killed and several vehicles were destroyed, the accounts said.
Information for this article was contributed by Missy Ryan of The Washington Post and by Helene Cooper, Ceylan Yeginsu and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times.