On Monday, the president said he’s ramping up the American military’s involvement in Syria and sending 250 US Special Operations Forces to aid local forces against ISIS, ABC News reports.
Advertisement
“We remain deeply concerned about the upsurge in fighting in Syria over the last several days”, Obama said.
In Iraq, the added USA forces are also expected to be moved closer to the fighting to give tactical guidance to Iraq’s 15th Army Division as it clears villages south of Mosul, the terrorist group’s headquarters in Iraq.
President Obama’s decision to send 250 more military advisers to Syria to assist in the fight against ISIS may prove beneficial. He is crediting German Chancellor Angela Merkel for setting that tone and he is calling for every nation to step up and share responsibility for helping those fleeing violence in the Middle East, including the United States. Though, there are a lot of Kurdish forces in Syria which are playing a pivotal role in the civil war strife torn country.
Last week, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, N.Y., published an article in its journal, the CTC Sentinel, that highlighted the Islamic State’s financial plight.
A local commander told D’Agata he had met with US forces on the ground in Syria who are helping to coordinate local militias, and providing equipment, intelligence and training.
Despite repeated promises to the contrary, United States troops are in Syria, and the Pentagon has sent 250 more.
It is no secret, however, that some USA special forces have conducted raids against ISIL and that the Pentagon is considering whether to build fire bases around Mosul as Iraqi forces move to recapture the city from the extremist group.
The additional troops being sent to support the effort will advise and assist Iraqi and Syrian counter-ISIL ground forces “to continue to fracture and degrade the enemy”, Gersten said.
As part of the USA -led coalition fighting ISIL, Turkey has killed 492 “terrorists” since January 9 in air raids, while another 370 were killed in artillery strikes which also destroyed arms depots, the news agency said. The additional USA forces will work with Kurdish militiamen and others as they seek to isolate Raqqa, the terror group’s de facto capital in Syria.
Finding Sunni Arab groups to fight the Islamic State in Syria has been hard. American personnel on the ground would determine whether those missions were successful or not, and which Arab commanders and battalion leaders to provide additional supplies to for other missions. Special forces operating in Syria will have support from MV-22 Ospreys based in Erbil, Iraq, the defense official told Stripes on Monday.
As we have mentioned many times before, the rise of the Islamic State would not have happened if Obama had not acted so foolishly by withdrawing troops from Iraq in 2011.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the deployment of a similar number of troops and eight Apache attack helicopters to Iraq.
Advertisement
The deployment brought the total authorized troop total to just over 4,000.
