Defense Secretary Carter Confirms: More ISIS Airstrikes Coming

He said he was disappointed that the USA effort to form new moderate Syrian rebel forces to fight ISIS had failed. And the U.S.-led coalition is also supporting Iraq’s security forces in Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province in western Iraq.

After repeatedly ruling out United States ground troops carrying out any combat operations in Iraq, or ground troops even going to Syria, last week’s raid, which led to the death of a USA soldier in Iraq, appeared to end this talk, but actually led to several days of officials parsing the word “combat”.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter vowed on Tuesday to continue support for “capable partners” on the ground in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. “We’ve already begun to ramp up these deliberate strikes”. The debate has come at a time when Pentagon chief Ash Carter is putting pressure on the military to develop new options for greater involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

More than 250,000 people have been killed since Syria’s brutal conflict broke out in March 2011, sparked by a bloody crackdown on protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The mounting toll has followed Russia’s launch of an air campaign in support of Assad that has coincided with an escalation in the ground war. Iraqi and Syrian Sunni Muslims will never forgive the USA if that scenario plays out, and will have a strong motive to attack the United States and its troops.

A similar dynamic could play out in Afghanistan, where Carter and his commanders advocated forcefully for a larger American presence than Obama initially planned and were able to win the president’s backing.

But the current American force of about 9,800 troops has not been enough to prevent the Taliban from making gains against Afghan army and police forces.

Their comments about Syria elicited howls of disapproval from Republican lawmakers, who say America should do more to protect civilians and support Assad’s overthrow.

In his opening statement, Carter said, “this approach builds on successes that local Syrian Arab and Syrian Kurdish forces have made along Syria’s northern border to retake and hold ground from ISIL with the help of US airstrikes and equipment resupplies”.