US commander: More US, coalition forces likely to fight IS

The Commander of the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria is now weighing methods of “intensifying” the attacks against the Muslim extremist group through USA or coalition ground attacks, stepped up aerial bombardment or heavier training of the Iraqi Security Forces.

“And we’re looking at the right mix … in consultation with the government of Iraq and our other partners”, Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland told reporters Monday. MacFarland said the U.S.-led coalition has trained more than 17,500 Iraqi soldiers, and about 2,000 police, with another 3,000 soldiers and police in training now.

Since then, MacFarland said, “We have shifted form pure counter insurgency to combined arms” operations using coalition airpower to back up local forces on the ground in shrinking the areas controlled by ISIS. “Some would call them accelerants to the campaign that would allow us to increase the pressure on the enemy… We expect that the highly prioritised (UN) Humanitarian Response Plan will help cover part of the gap”, Minister of Migration and Displacement Jassim Mohammed al-Jaff said in a statement.

The assessment comes as US officials press key allies to contribute more to the fight, both on the battlefield and in the effort to rebuild the shattered Iraqi military.

At December’s GOP debate, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Cruz: “You have said you would, quote, ‘carpet bomb ISIS into oblivion, ‘ testing whether, quote, ‘sand can glow in the dark.’ Does that mean leveling the ISIS capital of Raqqa in Syria, where there are hundreds of thousands of civilians?”

“Right now we have the moral high ground, and I think that’s where we need to stay”, MacFarland added.

Trump said he would “knock the hell out of” ISIS, and criticized the USA for “fighting a very politically correct war”.

“We can’t inflict help on somebody, they have to ask for it, they have to want it, and we’re here to provide it as required”, MacFarland said.

Almost two dozen nations gather on Tuesday to plot their fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq and how to choke off its rise in Libya.

The Pentagon budget for the 2017 fiscal year is expected to call for more than $7 billion for the war against ISIS, unnamed USA officials told Reuters Monday.

“Will the enemy revert to some sort of insurgency?” Defeating Isis “as now configured” in Iraq – a conventional force that holds territory and fights along front lines – would not rule out its persistence as a “low-grade insurgency [or] terrorist organization”, even if Iraqi forces backed by the U.S. and Iran reclaim the areas Isis now occupies.