Ramadi fell to Daesh last spring, soon after the Iraqi government took Tikrit, a large Sunni city north of Baghdad with a population before 2014 of some 500,000, away from the radicals.
Advertisement
For Obama, who is deeply averse to being dragged into another Middle East ground war, deployment of advisers and use of attack helicopters would both be examples of an increased willingness to expose USA troops to risk.
He said he also asked other nations to contribute to the fight and urged Iraq to “recruit train, arm, mobilise and pay” fighters in local communities. It wasn’t immediately clear if there were any Iraqi casualties.
U.S. Central Command said it had launched six strikes on Monday around Ramadi, hitting two ISIS tactical units and destroying weaponry, ammunition and supply caches, buildings and a vehicle.
The advance was hailed as a significant step in efforts to retake Ramadi, a key ISIS hub 100km west of Baghdad, and fragment the jihadists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, before the Senate Armed Service Committee.
“Any decision like this would only come at the request of Prime Minister Abadi, and after explicit sign-off from the president of the United States”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. In Syria, IS will not be destroyed until Raqqa, the capital of their so-called caliphate, is recaptured, he said.
The location is Ramadi, a city under the crushing grip of Islamic State since it was taken over in May.
London, Dec. eleven (ANI): The current airstrikes by the US in the western Iraqi metropolis of Ramadi have killed round 350 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) ensuing in the lack of virtually half of their defending pressure.
“Daesh are mainly using motorcycles in their movements to avoid airstrikes and have deployed suicide attackers in various parts of Ramadi”.
But leaving isn’t necessarily easy.
“We’ve seen this before; they tend to blow up not just bridges, but a lot of infrastructure inside the city”, Muhannad Haimour, the spokesman for the Anbar governor’s office, said.
Another told CNN that most people were unable to leave due to the threat of being caught fleeing by ISIS.
“Someone’s going to have to convince me that air power alone, (with) special operations forces are going to succeed in the short-term, in order to prevent further things such as San Bernardino”, McCain said, referring to the December 2 shooting by an apparently self-radicalized Muslim couple who killed 14 people. That didn’t yield immediate results. At that point, Iraqi forces had established positions in the city’s suburbs, he said. “It’s a testament to the airpower, the close air support we’ve been able to provide and to the quality of the equipment we’ve provid-ed”, Warren said. Reversing that victory would be a huge win for forces fighting against them and that’s part of the reason the USA is so willing to offer help.
Advertisement
McCain’s push for more ground troops was backed up earlier Wednesday by retired Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the former Army chief of staff and commander of the US military in Iraq. He described ISIL-held territory in Mosul (Iraq) and Raqqah (Syria) as the “parent tumor”.
