It lauds the Iraqi security forces’ efforts in the ongoing battle against the Islamic State group.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday Washington would deploy a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to fight Islamic State militants who have captured swathes of Iraq and nearby Syria.
“There is no need for foreign ground combat forces in Iraqi territory”, Abadi said in a statement released late on Tuesday in which he praised the performance of Iraqi special forces.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the U.S.is deploying special forces to help local forces combat ISIS in Iraq.
On Wednesday, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren said the new force would likely amount to 100, an increase over the 50 announced previously.
Pressed to say if they were winning, Carter said, “We’re going to win”. Despite US insistence that their soldiers are only in the region training and advising local militias, Kurdish fighters were reported this week as saying they have been fighting alongside US soldiers against IS units in northern Iraq for some time. In May, U.S. Delta Force commandos captured a woman named Umm Sayyaf, wife of senior ISIS operative Abu Sayyaf.
Iraq said it does not need foreign troops to fight Islamic State militants.
Carter said the force would “also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria”.
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.
He noted that about 3,500 USA troops are operating at six locations in Iraq in support of the ISF.
Some Republican and Democratic members of Congress have been debating for years over whether President Barack Obama’s administration should obtain congressional backing for military campaigns in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
At the time, Carter openly acknowledged that the ground forces had been involved in combat operations and there would be more such raids.
Still, U.S. officials caution the move to insert more special operators is not an indication that Islamic State is at any sort of tipping point, ready to fall.
Joseph Dunford Jr. arrive on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, to testify before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on the U.S. Strate…
The majority the new Expeditionary Targeting Force will consist of enablers and other personnel who will support the “very small number” of “trigger-pullers”, Warren said, noting that the targeting force will conduct raids, focusing on high-value targets, flowing between both sides of the border between Iraq and Syria.
Carter said the new unit would be mobilized “in full coordination with the government of Iraq”, but Baghdad quickly pushed back against that idea.
The missions will be “exceptionally well-planned” and “very well-targeted”, Warren said.
The announcement of additional troops, made during a House Armed Services Committee on the war effort, surprised many at the Pentagon.
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“[The] pace of air strikes is not constrained by the amount of planes and missiles that we have; the pace has been constrained by how many effective targets we have”, Obama told reporters at the climate change conference in Paris.
