Carter offered few details on the new group, whose mission promises a more regular operational role for USA special forces than seen since the return of American troops to Iraq past year.
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Citing the recent terror attack on Paris as an “assault on the civilization we defend”, Carter vowed that ISIS would be destroyed.
“We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting”, he said.
Carter, who testified alongside Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, updated lawmakers about US actions in Iraq and Syria and the goal of helping local forces take the fight to IS. One U.S. service member was killed in the raid, the first American combat death in Iraq since the U.S. began its campaign against IS in August 2014.
Defense officials told NBC that the number of special ops and their exact location has yet to be determined, but would not include “large numbers of forces”.
The US has announced the launch of a new “expeditionary force” to target the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militants in Iraq and Syria where local troops will operate independently in both countries.
“The Iraqi government underlines that any military operation or deployment of any foreign special or non-special forces in any part of Iraq can’t be done without its approval, full coordination and with full respect to Iraqi sovereignty”, he said.
President Barack Obama authorized “less than 50” Special Operations forces in October to fight ISIS, and one of the missions they went on freed 70 prisoners.
During the congressional testimony in which he disclosed the creation of the force, Carter declined to say how many USA troops would be deployed.
“It puts everyone on notice”, Carter told Congress. “You don’t know at night who is going to be coming into the window”.
Polling after the attacks in Paris and Beirut found Americans divided over sending USA ground troops to fight IS. “Turkey must do more to control its often porous border”, the Defense Secretary said. He said the new force would conduct operations similar to two conducted earlier this year.
“American leadership is essential but the more contributions we receive from other nations, the greater combat power we can achieve using our own force”, he said. A Gallup survey said 47 percent of Americans favored sending more ground troops to Iraq and Syria and 46 percent were opposed.
Carter said the USA also is expanding attacks on the militants’ infrastructure and their sources of revenue, particularly from oil.
Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from the United States capital, said that the number of additional troops to be sent is still unknown.
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The force’s operations in Syria would be separate from the scheduled deployment of up to 50 special operations forces that will soon be deployed to northeastern Syria.
