Carter outlines changes in campaign against Islamic State

The comments came after Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed last week in a raid to free hostages held by ISIS.

On the military front, the Pentagon said it may launch more air strikes and even direct ground attacks by special forces against extremists seeking to carve out an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter said the changed policy against the Islamic State would focus on what he called the three Rs: Raqaa, Ramadi, and raids. “We’ve already begun to ramp up these deliberate strikes”.

Hadithi’s response to the prospect of U.S. direct involvement comes amid mounting pressure from Iraq’s ruling coalition on the prime minister to request Russian airstrikes against ISIL.

So now the Defense Department has made a decision to engage in “direct action on the ground” in Iraq and Syria – which is another way of saying the U.S.is putting “boots on the ground” – which is a term the administration wants to avoid because the president has repeatedly said that he will not put boots on the ground.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has not committed ground forces to back opposition and Kurdish rebels fighting ISIL in Syria, but has 3,500 troops in Iraq.

“We have to step it [ground forces] up…but we are not going to cross the line and do anything like we did in 2003 [in Iraq]”, Korb said on Wednesday.

The U.S.is now preparing to boost its Special Forces presence in Syria to help warplanes identify high value jihadist targets. This lack of progress led Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to describe the fight against ISIS “tactically stalemated” with no “dramatic gains on either side” last month. Iran’s supreme leader said this month that future negotiation with the United States is “forbidden”, despite the nuclear agreement, and it is not clear whether Tehran will attend.

Although Carter did not elaborate on circumstances under which the USA might carry out operations on the ground on its own, he said, “Once we locate them, no target is beyond our reach”.

“McCain, who was defeated by Obama in the 2008 presidential election, said, “We’ve tried to leave the Middle East. Now into this vacuum has stepped [Russian President] Vladimir Putin”, with Russian Federation conducting an aerial campaign against rebel groups fighting Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad”.

He also expects the air campaign to intensify, with more aircraft and at a higher pace.

If done simultaneously, all the actions in the new USA strategy on the ground and in the air “should help shrink IS territory into a smaller and smaller area and create new opportunities for targeting IS – ultimately denying this evil movement any safe haven”, Carter said.

Carter confirmed that the possibility of a no-fly zone over Syria is still on the table, which would be used to prevent the Syrian air force from barrel bombing or using air power against the civilian population.