Officials said that, with six months behind them in the revised training scheme, they are now looking at options to expand current training activities, potentially within or outside Syria.
Advertisement
McGurk said law enforcement had found no evidence of a direct link between the Orlando shooter and the Islamic State.
Syrian opposition activists say USA -backed rebels in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour are approaching a town held by the Islamic State group near the Iraqi border.
“‘We’re still going to be around, still join us, ‘” said McGurk, describing what he called the Islamic State’s propaganda.
“Whereas (the Islamic State) once promised lavish pay for recruits, and free services in its ‘caliphate, ‘ it is now slashing pay, can not provide services, and is facing internal resistance”, McGurk said.
“We must not allow this to happen”, McGurk said in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A Pentagon training program aimed at combating the Islamic State has trained fewer than 100 Syrian fighters, according to the Washington Post.
Iraq and Syria have been gripped by foreign-backed insurgency with Takfiri terrorists from various groups, including Daesh, now controlling parts of the two countries.
“As we speak, these fighters are now entering the city limits, under cover of coalition air support”, McGurk testified, adding that Manbij was home to the “logistics nodes” for recent suicide attacks in Paris, Brussels and Ankara.
The Syria Democratic Forces, comprised of Kurdish and Arab fighters and backed by the air power of a USA -led coalition to fight IS, have been involved in the Manbij operation. “Once that is done, that sets the conditions for Raqqa”.
Lawmakers said they felt the campaign was moving too slowly, and anxious that, without a political solution, defeating Islamic State would leave behind a power vacuum that could be filled by another militant group. Last week, Iraqi forces began an operation to cut off the routes into the city from smaller towns such as Hawija and Sharqat in Kirkuk and Salahuddin provinces.
McGurk said the campaign started in September 2014.
McGurk said the Islamic State’s days in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, are “numbered”. He noted that as the Islamic State has suffered battlefield losses, it has telegraphed its desire to attack the Jewish state, “clearly hoping to generate worldwide headlines to compensate for its defeats”.
Advertisement
“Evidence indicates that the U.S. is seriously seeking to undermine Muslim countries”, Brigadier General Jazayeri said in an interview with the Arabic-language Al Alam news channel.
