Ash Carter Visits Baghdad to Discuss ISIS Campaign

Carter, speaking at the end of a meeting with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad’s Green Zone, lauded the Iraqi leader’s efforts to foster inter-sectarian cooperation since becoming premier past year.

BAGHDAD Iraq has for the first time deployed soldiers trained by the U.S.-led coalition in their campaign to retake the city of Ramadi from Islamic State militants, the U.S. military said on Thursday. He watched a team of elite soldiers – in all-black uniforms and some with black masks – conduct shooting drills.

“When conditions are right, we will transition into an assault to seize Ramadi”, Col. Steve Warren, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters shortly before Carter arrived in Iraq.

Authorities were alerted to the activities in April when the suspects began posting threats on Twitter, publishing pictures of their planned targets with the warning “We are in your streets”, officials said.

“I just landed in Iraq to meet with troops and get an on the ground assessment of our counter-ISIL campaign”, he said, later telling troops, “We can beat ISIL – we know that – but lasting defeat means that Iraqis must own this fight”.

US President Barack Obama responded last month by ordering 450 more US troops to set up at Taqaddum base, which is closer to the fighting in Anbar province and only about 25 kilometres from Ramadi. They became part of the Islamic State’s arsenal and were then targeted in U.S. airstrikes.

The Islamic State takeover of much of northern Iraq last year, including the city of Mosul, triggered a Kurdish push south and west to take control of the disputed city of Kirkuk, which is key to Iraq’s northern oil fields.

Those Sunni fighters have undergone a one-week training course and are receiving small arms and basic equipment such as radios.

“He emphasized the importance of building an inclusive government and strengthening the Iraqi security forces”, he added. Warren, the Pentagon spokesman who is traveling with Carter, said there are between 1,000 and 2,000 Islamic State fighters in Ramadi. Although under Iraqi command, the battle plan has been shaped to some degree by American advisers.

The Islamic State procured Ramadi, the funding of this very Anbar area, in May.

Warren said the long-awaited assault would occur within two months as the Iraqis – whose competence Carter has publicly called into question – prepare for an attack in the baking summer heat. Those hopes had faded even before Ramadi fell.