Defense secretary: US ready to do more to help retake Ramadi

/ Defense Secretary Ashton Carter raised the prospect Wednesday that USA military advisers could accompany Iraqi forces on the ground to try to take back the Iraqi town of Ramadi from ISIS.

Iraqi forces cemented their hold on newly gained territory in Ramadi on Wednesday, after scoring a breakthrough in their fight against the Islamic State group by retaking a large part of the city.

“Daesh forces trying to stop our progress bombed the last bridge which connects the city center”, said Major General Ismail al-Mahlawi, the head of military operations in the Anbar Province, adding that the destruction of the lock leaves some 300 Daesh militants trapped in the center of the provincial capital Ramadi.

Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee that tough fighting remains ahead and if requested by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (HY’-dahr ahl ah-BAH’-dee), the US will provide helicopters and advisers to help “finish the job”. In June, President Obama authorized the deployment of 450 USA troops to Iraq to advise government forces.

The Islamic State captured Ramadi in May, and though the government immediately announced a counteroffensive, progress in retaking the Sunni heartland of Anbar has been slow. “He is prepared for us to bring him more”.

American Defence Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing the United States was stepping up its military role in Syria and Iraq and in the past week he had asked other members of the coalition to do more.

But U.S. troops are not assisting the Iraqis on the front lines, Warren said.

That’s the right approach, he said, for three reasons: It takes the fight to the enemy; it seeks to develop capable, motivated, local ground forces to can assure a lasting victory, and it sets conditions for a political solution to the civil war in Syria and inclusive governance in Iraq.

The capture of the Tameem neighborhood will help Iraq’s military direct its forces as they begin the hard job of clearing the city, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a coalition spokesman in Baghdad. That is, of course, except ground forces.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that Turkey has a duty to protect its soldiers around Mosul, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT.

This means the Islamic State’s bureaucracy has plenty of energy to power its various broadcast and social media dispatches to recruit more fighters and inspire attacks aboard, such as in Europe and the United States.

“Now we can say that the Iraqi security forces have regained more than 70 percent of Ramadi city and hope to gain the rest soon”, Karhout said.

“They didn’t feel like they had enough support from the coalition and the central government, but all of that changed a few months ago”, Haimour said.

The 3,500 US troops deployed to Iraq over the last 16 months have been largely limited to headquarters buildings at six training sites.

Carter’s remark on Wednesday was the latest sign of USA willingness to intensify its involvement in the fight against the IS, also known as ISIL.

‘The notion that the U.S is anti-Muslim is part of ISIS’s narrative, al-Qaeda’s narrative and other terrorist groups, ‘ he said.

The U.S. commando force being dispatched to Iraq to conduct clandestine raids against the Islamic State does not fit neatly into a word picture of what the U.S. military is doing to defeat the extremist army.