Iraq seeks more coalition trainers for local police

Defeating the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at its corein Syria and Iraq and globally is critical among his many global defense concerns, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Turkey is a long-time friend of ours”, he said during a Davos question-and-answer session.

Turkey is allowing the United States to use Incirlik, a geographically vital air base in the south, to strike IS targets in Iraq and Syria, but Carter said Ankara needs to do much more to secure its lengthy border with Syria.

USA commanders say the combination of airstrikes and Iraqi ground offensives has weakened the terror group in Iraq and Syria and hurt its morale. Separately in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 17 strikes coordinated with and in support of the Government of Iraq using attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft against ISIL targets.

He said the operational plan of the coalition against Islamic State is to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul and defeat it in its self-declared capital of Raqqa, Syria.

Carter said he went on board the French carrier flagship in December and said, “We are all one family in this fight”.

Daesh is the Arabic derogatory acronym to describe Islamic state.

“Every nation must come prepared to discuss further contributions to the fight”, he said in Paris on Wednesday after meeting his counterparts from France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands on how to accelerate the anti-ISIS campaign.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss publicly the private conversation.

An estimated 3,500 people, mainly women and children, are believed to be held as slaves in Iraq by Islamic State militants who impose a harsh rule marked by gruesome public executions, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Iraqi security forces, which waged a long battle to retake Ramadi, need more training on niche capabilities, including how to counter improvised explosive devices.

The current American-led support mission has trained about three Iraqi brigades during the past year, and US officials expect two brigades from the Kurdish peshmerga forces to join the fight.

USA has been forging a closer military and intelligence relationship with France, particularly in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris previous year.

But U.S. officials have declined to set a timeline for what could be a long-term campaign that will also require political reconciliation to succeed.

“The reason we need new trainers or additional trainers is because that’s really the next step in generating the amount of combat power needed to liberate Mosul”, Warren said Wednesday.

The Obama administration has acknowledged it is sending up to 50 Special Operations forces to secret locations in the war-ravaged Middle East nation.