“And, in the case of Master Sergeant Wheeler, it cost him his life”, he said of the Delta Force commando killed in the early Thursday raid on an ISIS prison near Hawija, Iraq.
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The air strikes in Iraq, including five near Ramadi, hit Islamic State fighters, weapons and vehicles, the statement said.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria carried out 22 air strikes on Saturday, a lot of them against targets near the Iraqi towns of Kisik, Ramadi and Sinjar, the us military said on Sunday. One is Raqqa, the Islamic State-declared capital in Syria.
He said the United States was now supporting Syrian Arab forces already inside the country fighting Islamic State rather than trying to train completely new moderate Syrian fighters outside the country, an effort that cost millions of dollars and produced few trained troops. The debate has come at a time when Pentagon chief Ash Carter is putting pressure on the military to develop new options for greater involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Lawmakers asked why America hasn’t established no-fly zones or protective buffer regions in Syria.
Carter, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited last week’s joint operation with Kurdish forces in N. Iraq to free hostages held by the terror group.
While he said ISIS must be militarily defeated, Carter said that the administration is still interested in seeing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad replaced. Graham noted that Russian, Iranian and the Hezbollah militant group all are supporting Assad.
“If what the White House wants is creative thinking, they need more of a magician than a secretary of defense, ” said Stephen Biddle, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of global Affairs and a frequent adviser to the military. “Our interests align with none of our allies in this conflict”.
The mounting toll has followed Russia’s launch of an air campaign in support of Assad that has coincided with an escalation in the ground war.
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“We expect to intensify our air campaign, including with additional USA and coalition aircraft, to target ISIL with a higher and heavier rate of strikes”, Carter said in his opening remarks, adding that the strikes would focus on high-value targets and IS oil facilities. “History looks less kindly on secretaries who have just treaded water”.
