Iraqis repel most significant Islamic State attack in 7 months -US military

Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the first mission by a new team of special operations forces into Syria was successful in identifying Syrian Arab fighters the coalition can work with to oust Islamic State militants from their self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa.

UNITED NATIONS Turkey accused Iraq on Friday of undermining the global fight against Islamic State militants by taking its complaint about the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq to the United Nations Security Council.

U.S. officials estimated that 180 Islamic State group fighters were killed in the airstrikes, which were carried out by U.S., British and French aircraft.

Col. Steve Warren, a senior spokesman for the USA military in Iraq, said that the multiple Islamic State attacks Wednesday had “achieved a tactical surprise”, but praised the effectiveness of the Peshmerga fighters against the militant group. More than 20 others were killed in fighting with Peshmerga forces on the ground, a USA military official said.

Hemin Hawrami, a Kurdish official, said at least seven Kurdish fighters were killed, including two senior commanders.

Turkey withdrew some troops this week, moving them to another base inside Iraq’s Kurdistan region, but Baghdad said they should pull out completely. But, he said, that doesn’t mean they won’t make a difference “sometime in the future”.

A press release issued by War media, the media arm of the Iraqi armed forces on Tuesday (December 15) said that troops of counter-terrorism forces have managed to liberate al-Hukm al-Mahali neighbourhood in the district of al-Taamim and a large glass factory on the western outskirts of Ramadi, raising an Iraqi flag over its tower.

There, he met Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and the two discussed “improving cooperation between the two countries in the fields of arming and training”, a statement from the premier’s office said.

Iraqi forces have begun to push Islamic State out of Ramadi in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, according to USA defense officials. This fall, the Pentagon backed away from an earlier plan to stand up a new force of Syrian fighters, in part because of the difficulty of recruiting fighters focused on fighting the Islamic State rather than Syrian President Bashar Assad. It was the latest stop on the secretary’s trip across the Middle East talking to top USA generals and allied leaders about ways to increase military pressure on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.