The goal, a US official said, is to cut off the group’s fighters in northern Iraq. 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 cooperating with interrogators. Islamic State forces, estimated at about 1,000, have barricaded themselves behind civilians, the official said, and Iraqi counterterrorism forces are proceeding “deliberately…it’s going to be street by street”.
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This is just one of the many issues to be decided after Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified on initials details of the force. He said the new force would conduct operations similar to two conducted earlier this year. JSOC for months has been already collecting intelligence on ISIS operatives and targeting them with drone attacks.
“We’re going to continue to push hard and the good news is, coming out of Paris, we’re seeing countries like Germany and Great Britain that had been hesitant about getting too actively involved in Syria, realizing that they have to be part of the solution here”, Mr. Obama said.
It’s become especially vital because of ISIS’s growing ability to operate in encrypted portions of cyberspace for US troops to react as quickly as they can after getting intelligence tips. It would likely be based in Irbil.
He said the United States had asked other members of the 28-nation Western security alliance to provide special operations forces to provide such things as police training, ammunition and other items to Syria’s neighbours.
President Obama on Thursday defended his decision to send USA special operations troops into Syria to fight the Islamic State, saying that when he pledged on 16 separate occasions to not put boots on the ground in Syria, what he actually meant was that there would not be a massive desert invasion.
In October, U.S. and Kurdish commanders also participated in a successful raid on an Islamic State prison in Iraq, which resulted in the first U.S. combat death since Obama pulled out all U.S. ground troops in 2011.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the chairman of the committee, said the USA military effort must be bolstered and directed by the military and not “White House aides micromanaging” military operations. “We are developing partnerships, although they are not strong as we want yet, with local tribes and Sunnis who are willing to fight ISIL”, he said.
Kerry said that the move to deploy Special Forces was not new but an extension of previous agreements with Iraq.
That is why, Bennett said, the USA is “desperate” to make its way into Syria to hurdle that process and remove Assad from power.
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In Syria, Carter said that U.S-backed local forces are engaging IS fighters in the last remaining pocket of access between Syria and Turkey to the north. The U.S. also is helping a coalition of Syrian Arabs in northeastern Syria, fighting alongside Kurdish forces, that has pushed IS out of the town of al-Hawl and at least 347 square miles of surrounding territory.
