The operators would carry out raids, free hostages and capture IS leaders.
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The force, of undisclosed size, also will “be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria”, Carter told a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing.
There are now about 3,300 American troops in Iraq, the Associated Press reports, and President Obama has previously set the maximum number of USA troops at 3,350.
With the attacks in Paris putting new pressure on Obama to show progress in the stalemated war against terrorists, defence analysts are calling for an intensified campaign of raids to disrupt the group’s leadership, gather intelligence and build momentum. We have the long reach that no one else has. “We will chase and fight any American force deployed in Iraq”, said Jafaar Hussaini, a spokesman for one of the Shi’ite armed groups, Kata’ib Hezbollah.
In October, U.S. special operations troops and Iraqi forces raided a compound in northern Iraq freeing about 70 Iraqi prisoners who were facing execution. On Sunday, two senior U.S. Republican senators called for Washington to almost triple military force levels in Iraq to 10,000.
But Mr Carter said the Pentagon was ready to further expand the role of special forces in Syria. The Defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because officials were not authorized to comment publicly on details of the new force.
“Next, in the south of Syria, we’re also taking advantage of opportunities to open a southern front on ISIL by enabling fighters trained and equipped by us and other coalition partners to conduct strikes inside Syria”.
“Our effectiveness is inextricably linked to the quality of the intelligence that we have”, Dunford said.
The jihadists captured vast areas of territory and several key cities across Iraq and Syria past year, and the United States and its allies have been struggling to defeat them ever since.
It is unclear how many USA special operations troops forces will be deployed.
“We’re at war. We are using the might of the finest fighting force the world has ever known”, Carter said in Washington. In May, a Delta Force raid in Syria killed IS financier Abu Sayyaf, yielded intelligence about the group’s structure and finances, and his wife, held in Iraq, has been co-operating with interrogators.
Russia, which has publicly committed to defeating the Islamic State, has largely limited its military operations in Syria to attacking rebel forces there, not Islamic State, Carter told the congressional panel. “…We’re not satisfied or complacent about where we are and we won’t be until ISIL is defeated”. But he drew the line at U.S. troops operating inside the country without specific authorization from Baghdad.
“We’re fighting a campaign across Iraq and Syria so we’re going to go where the enemy is, and we’re going to conduct operations where they most effectively degrade the capabilities of the enemy”, Dunford testified.
“We do not need foreign ground combat forces on Iraqi land”, Haider al-Abbadi said in a statement on Tuesday.
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Then, when asked by Congressman Michael Turner of OH if the United States was winning “now”, Carter would say only that “we will win”.
