Carter did not say how many new troops would be sent to Iraq, but a USA defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the mission, said the force would consist of about 200 special operators, search and rescue personnel and other related forces.
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As lawmakers and former Pentagon officials push US President Barack Obama to deploy special-operations forces more aggressively against Islamic State, Defence Secretary Ash Carter said the US is taking a step in that direction.
Carter told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that “we’re deploying a specialized expeditionary targeting force to assist Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and to put even more pressure on ISIL”.
Several U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that are not yet finalized, said the new force was expected to be stationed near Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. More are on the way. “And I’m anxious that as we send more and more troops into this fight, we are going to postpone, not expedite, the date at which we actually defeat ISIL, because we aren’t getting the buy-in that we need from the people that have to live next to them every single day”. That creates a virtuous cycle of better intelligence, which generates more targets, more raids, and more momentum’.
Jafaar Hussaini, a spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the main Shi’ite militant groups, said that any such USA force would become a “primary target for our group”.
“Our effectiveness is inextricably linked to the quality of intelligence we have”, Dunford said.
“The goal is to start a chain reaction of intelligence- driven raids that increase in frequency and expand in scope over time”, said Robert Martinage, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence for special operations under Obama.
“We’re going to conduct operations where they most effectively degrade the capabilities of the enemy”. “And that’s the sensation that we want all of ISIL’s leadership and followers to have”, he said.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who testified alongside Carter on Tuesday, said the targeting force will chiefly focus on improving US intelligence for the region and for the Islamic State group’s activities.
There are now about 3,300 American troops in Iraq, the Associated Press reports, and President Obama has previously set the maximum number of us troops at 3,350.
There are currently 3,500 USA service members in Iraq now.
“You have to fight them in the air, you have to fight them on the ground and you have to fight them in cyberspace”, said Clinton, who served as secretary of state under Obama.
On Oct. 23, US special operations forces and Kurdish fighters conducted an operation to free 70 prisoners held by Islamic State militants.
Those armed groups, long mistrustful of American forces since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and the subsequent occupation, denounced the planned deployment.
“Until there are some military reverses on the battlefield to take the luster off of ISIS’s shine, then they will continue to grow, continue to recruit and their ideology will spread”, Thornberry said.
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Carter and Dunford outlined some limited recent gains made by the anti-Islamic State group coalition, such as the retaking of areas around Sinjar and Beiji in Iraq, and around Al-Hawl in Syria.
