Iraqi forces are moving on ISIS forces in Ramadi

“These attacks make it clear that ISIL’s threat against our homeland is real, direct, and growing, that we are not winning this war and that time is not on our side”, said Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee, using an acronym for Islamic State. Citing distrust of the Shia-led Iraqi government, they urged the committee to consider a similar measure that would expedite the provision of USA equipment and training directly to Sunni forces willing to fight IS.

Iraqi army and counterterrorism units are “now beginning to enter Ramadi neighborhoods from multiple directions”, and have retaken an operations center across the Euphrates from the city center, he said.

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces drive a truck that belonged to Islamic State group fighters in Ramadi, Iraq, on December 9, 2015.

Iraqi security forces have made advances on two fronts in the city of Ramadi, clearing Islamic State militants from a key military command base and a sprawling neighborhood on its western edge, army officials said.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter still described the Iraqi offensive as “disappointingly slow” in separate comments today, saying he is certain the city will eventually fall, but once again talking up his offer of USA attack helicopters for the attack on the city.

More help from regional Sunni forces would help in the efforts to seize more ISIS strongholds, Carter noted, even if it was just to bolster the efforts of local forces on the ground.

Iraqi forces cut the hardline group’s last supply line into Ramadi in November, surrounding the city and making it nearly impossible for the militants to send in reinforcements.

US and local forces on the ground are building momentum against ISIS, Carter said, adding that Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces are now moving south in Syria toward ISIS’s so-called capital of Raqqa. “That’s what groups like ISIL want”, Obama said. “Because maybe the United States now is more interested to do the job”.

“This is an important step, but there is still tough fighting ahead”. “While we can enable them, we cannot substitute for them”.

“I mention all this because it represents how we’ve adapted in the way we support our Iraqi partners”. And as anti-ISIL airstrikes kill more key ISIL leaders, he said, the strikes “serve notice to ISIL that no target is beyond our reach”. Turkey, Carter said, “must do more” to control its long border with Syria that many ISIS fighters cross undetected, and criticized Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which had joined “only the air part” of the anti-ISIS campaign in its early days, for becoming “preoccupied” by the conflict in Yemen since.

Commending the committee’s budget deal passed last month, the secretary asked members to release the hold on the final tranche of $116 million in the Syria equipping program.