Defense Secretary Carter: Special Ops Force to Iraq to Fight ISIS

He did not say how many troops would be involved.

On Monday, an anonymous official inside the Defense Department also told Defense News that the deployment of these initial Special Forces amounts to “breaking the seal.” If successful, the Pentagon could send even more troops into Syria, a country in which the United States is not officially fighting a war.

Carter said this new “expeditionary targeting force” will work alongside Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga through approval of the Iraqi central government, and may operate unilaterally in Syria.

Teams of USA special operators could be in place within weeks, aiming to strike at the brain trust and nervous system of the Islamic State terror group, in an intensified effort to destroy what many see as a growing global threat. We have the long reach that no-one else has.

“American special operators bring a unique suite of capabilities that make them force multipliers”. A US soldier was killed during the operation.

Mr Carter told lawmakers the U.S. military is “eager” to do more in Syria to fight IS.

Carter said the special operations task force had been established with the cooperation of the Iraqi government. “But I hope we don’t fall into the trap of thinking that USA military might is what’s going to solve this problem”. He called it a “new way of achieving our objective” of defeating the Islamic State. But the force also will be in position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria, he said.

“Our effectiveness is … obviously, inextricably linked to the quality of intelligence we have”, he said.

Referring to Islamic State attacks outside Syria and Iraq, McCain said: “They are metastasizing, and time is not on our side”.

“We’re using the might of the finest fighting force the world has ever known”.

“The global community – including our allies and partners – has to step up before another attack like Paris”, Carter said, with Britain’s House of Commons and Germany’s Bundestag set to vote this week on assisting France in striking suspected “Islamic State” targets in the region.

We seek to identify and then enable motivated local forces on the ground to expel ISIL from its territory, hold and govern it, and ensure that victory sticks.

“We will only approve special and limited ops”, Naseer Nouri, an official in Iraq’s Defense Ministry, said in a phone interview.

Australia has some 6 F/18 – A Hornet fighter bombers operating from bases in Iraq, and several hundred troops on the ground helping to train Iraqi forces.

“We’re not satisfied or complacent where we are” in the struggle with ISIL, Dunford asserted.

The Pentagon wants Turkey to focus primarily on “its own territories”, i.e. go after “tentacles of ISIS” in Turkish territory and better control its borders with Syria, “which it has not done effectively since ISIS arose”, according to Carter’s testimony. Republicans have been calling for more US boots on the ground, while war-weary Americans stand divided about the prospect of greater military involvement. Over the past year, US special operations forces have already conducted two targeted raids into Syria.