U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, February 2 said at a Rome-hosted meeting of the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State that the group must step up its efforts and prevent the militants from gaining a “stranglehold” in Libya, where it has become a growing threat, the New York Times reports.
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Mission creep much? The Iraqi military has shown itself unable to push back the Islamic State, so the Pentagon is considering requesting more USA troops to touch boots to Iraqi soil to more provide training and support services.
He says that while Iraqi leaders didn’t accept the offer of U.S. Apache helicopters during the ultimately successful fight for Ramadi, they may decide to use the aircraft in a later battle.
Speaking to reporters Monday from his headquarters in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland repudiated the idea that the US would engage in “indiscriminate bombing”, despite calls from some, such as presidential candidate Sen.
In particular, he said, “we have shifted from a pure counterinsurgency focus and are now preparing the ISF to conduct what we refer to as combined arms operations”.
MacFarland said Syria presented a more complex problem. He slammed the president for “degrading” the United States military and invoked the air campaign of the Persian Gulf War as a model for what the United States should do to fight ISIS in the Middle East.
While Washington has long said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost the legitimacy to lead, it has made clear that its first priority is to try to rein in Islamic State group, which is also known as ISIL and ISIS.
The assessment comes as USA officials press key allies to contribute more to the fight, both on the battlefield and in the effort to rebuild the shattered Iraqi military.
MacFarland downplayed the Iraqis’ decision and said the offer remains on the table.
A senior USA official attending the talks stressed that “when we see a threat to the United States or external plotting, we will not hesitate to act upon that threat”. “The prime minister didn’t actually turn it down flat”.
But MacFarland cautioned Monday that how the US defeats ISIS is important.
MacFarland noted that Russian Federation has been accused of indiscriminate bombing in northwest Syria and “right now, we have the moral high ground and I think that’s where we need to stay”.
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“Will the enemy revert to some sort of insurgency? That’s a possibility and we will ensure that the holding force that is in Iraq is sufficient … to deter or defeat those types of attacks or respond to them, should they occur”, MacFarland said.
