U.S., allies plan ISIS’ demise
Freeing cities in Iraq, Syria a top priority
PARIS — U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter won agreement Wednesday from defense ministers from France and five other nations to intensify the campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
Carter said at a news conference with French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian that there was broad agreement on a coordinated plan to battle the Islamic State over the next year and retake key cities under the militants’ control.
“We agreed that we all must do more,” Carter said shortly after a session with Le Drian and defense ministers from France, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Carter also said the main 26 nations in the anti-Islamic State coalition, as well as Iraq, will assem-
ble in Brussels next month, after a NATO defense ministers’ meeting, to continue the talks. Those 26 countries have provided specific military troops, equipment or weapons in the campaign against the extremists. Other nations have provided various types of nonmilitary support, such as humanitarian aid.
Carter urged the coalition to seize the opportunity now to hasten the terrorist group’s defeat.
The U.S. has mapped out a coordinated campaign against the Islamic State over the next year, and Carter laid out the plans to the ministers during a meeting hosted with France.
Asked at a news conference with Carter if the French would agree to U.S. requests to send special forces to the region, Le Drian repeated that France has a long-standing policy of never discussing the deployment of its elite troops. He then said U.S. and French special forces work well together.
“Because Daesh is retreating and we have managed to affect its resources in the ground, it is the moment to increase our collective forces with a coherent military strategy,” Le Drian said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
Le Drian said repeated airstrikes have put Islamic Staten militants on the defensive, but local partners and a Syrian political process are necessary to free Islamic State strongholds such as Raqqa, Syria.
Carter has said he would not hesitate to challenge the core nations to do more in the fight in the coming year.
According to a senior defense official, there were no specific offers from the ministers. Instead, a consensus emerged that they were open to doing more. The official said that U.S. Vice Adm. Mark Fox, deputy commander at U.S. Central Command, outlined the specific military needs to the defense ministers.
The defense ministers also discussed plans to retake two major cities in Iraq and Syria that serve as Islamic State power centers. The coalition wants to help Iraqi army and Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces regain control of Mosul in northern Iraq and to assist Syria’s moderate rebels in ousting Islamic State militants from Raqqa, the group’s self-proclaimed capital.
“Raqqa and Mosul must be won back,” Le Drian said, adding that it can only succeed if the coalition supports the local forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. military leaders say the coalition is gaining ground on the Islamic State, and they hope the six core nations can encourage others to contribute.
While European nations have been heavily involved, the U.S. would like to see more direct military contributions — both equipment and training — from Arab and Asian countries. Arab nations joined the coalition’s air campaign early on, but the defense official said there has been very little Arab participation in the air campaign in recent months. Saudi Arabia has been focused on its fight with Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. The official was not authorized to discuss the meeting publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Le Drian and Carter both said military cooperation with Russia was impossible as long as Russian planes were attacking Syrian rebel groups that are opposed to the Islamic State.
“Fighting Daesh means fighting Daesh,” Le Drian said, using the name the French prefer for the group. “It’s hard to understand why the Russians attack groups that have agreed to take part in political talks.”
Before the meeting, British Defense Minister Michael Fallon said the Islamic State was under pressure and that the goal of the gathering was to “identify how we can tighten the noose around the head of the snake.”
“We are now seeing Daesh being hit in its own heartland. We are seeing the attacks on its oil wells and we are beginning to see attacks” in Mosul, Fallon told reporters. He said the U.K. carries out airstrikes six days per week, plus reconnaissance flights to pinpoint targets.
The U.S. has asked allies to increase their contributions, including special operations forces, fighter jet and reconnaissance aircraft, weapons and munitions, training and other combat support. But the key needs are trainers and surveillance assets, such as drones.
Iraqi security forces, which waged a long battle to retake Ramadi, need more training on niche capabilities, including how to counter improvised explosive devices.
The U.S. has forged a closer military and intelligence relationship with France, particularly after the attacks in Paris last year.
Meanwhile, a Defense Department official said that President Barack Obama’s administration has granted the military new authority to strike Islamic State in Afghanistan.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions, said new rules of engagement approved last week permit U.S. commanders in Afghanistan to launch airstrikes against militants affiliated with the Islamic State, in the same way that the military targets militants linked to al-Qaida.
The new arrangement “enables the United States to more actively target ISIL in Afghanistan,” the official said, using an acronym for the group that controls parts of Iraq and Syria and has established outposts from North Africa to Central Asia.
Under previous rules, the U.S. military was able to conduct airstrikes in Afghanistan in three circumstances: to protect foreign forces; to help Afghan troops ward off an enemy onslaught; and to target al-Qaida and affiliated militants.
According to a second official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, the U.S. military has struck militants identified with the Islamic State in Afghanistan in the past, but those strikes were launched on the basis of the fighters’ “hostile intentions” rather than their affiliation with the group’s Afghan organization. The new rules were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
CANADA NOT INVITED
The talks in France were attended by some of the top international players involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. But one long-term partner was left out of the talks: Canada.
Carter was asked Tuesday about the exclusion of regional Arab nations, whose participation in the war is considered crucial to emphasize that the Western nations are not interested in taking over Iraq or Syria. He did not address the omission of Canada.
“I talk to our partners all the time. All of us do,” Carter said. “The reason for this particular grouping is that these are the countries that have been the most active in both Iraq and Syria. There are many other members of the coalition, many of whom who have made contributions, and many of whom can make greater contributions. … This is not to exclude anyone. It’s simply to get more ideas for how we can do more, by including others more strongly in the military campaign.”
A spokesman for Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan confirmed that he was not invited to Paris, but he told the Ottawa Star that he is preparing for a meeting with Carter that the Pentagon chief requested while they are both in Brussels for a NATO meeting next month.
Canada’s omission from the Paris meeting comes after Justin Trudeau, a member of Canada’s Liberal Party, became prime minister in November. He has promised to pull Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets from the air war against Islamic State, saying that he felt Canada could make a bigger difference by providing trainers.
Canada continues to carry out airstrikes in Iraq, however. Most recently, two-jet teams of CF-18s struck near the militant-held city of Mosul on Jan. 15, and near Tikrit a day earlier, according to a breakdown of Canadian airstrikes published online by the defense ministry.
According to the Canadian military, it has deployed about 600 servicemen at a time for the military campaign, including about 69 special operations soldiers who advise Kurdish troops in northern Iraq.