Iraqis eye next steps in Ramadi as IS claims Baghdad bombing

Carter countered Wednesday that the Pentagon would offer more support in Ramadi, including attack helicopters and US advisers to accompany ground troops, if required and requested by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Iraq’s military seized a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city center and raised the Iraqi flag over a facility that once housed an Iraqi military operations center before it fell to the Islamic State in May.

Image: Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifies on the strategy to counter ISIS before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington.

He also said that the U.S. is prepared to deploy advisers and attack helicopters if requested by Iraq to help it “finish the job” of retaking the city of Ramadi from ISIL.

In another terse stand-off with the senior senator, Carter acknowledged that the extremist group has not yet been contained after more than a year of unrelenting airstrikes, but said the U.S.-led coalition is “building momentum against ISIL”. “It’s time for Russian Federation to focus on the right side of this fight”, he told the Senate panel.

Obama alluded to the new commando force when he said in an Oval Office address Sunday that thousands of Iraqi and Syrian ground forces are trying to retake territory from the Islamic State and that USA special operations forces are being deployed to “accelerate that offensive”.

The specialized expeditionary targeting force recently assigned to assist the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga forces will pressure ISIL with more raids and more intelligence gathering, he said, noting that the force also can conduct unilateral operations in Syria.

Speaking in Baghdad, Brett McGurk, US President Barack Obama’s envoy to the worldwide anti-IS coalition, said the presence of civilians in Ramadi will require a cautious approach as the operation moves forward.

One tenet of the administration’s strategy is to develop capable, motivated, local ground forces, with USA and coalition forces enabling them.

Meanwhile, Carter on Wednesday reaffirmed that the Obama administration would not send “significant” ground force to Syria or Iraq. “There’s still tough fighting ahead”. As long as they control Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital in Syria, the Islamic State will continue to be able to mount attacks.

Selva declined to provide a full answer outside of a classified setting, but said, “Today they share the goal of wanting to take their homes back and beat ISIL”. Carter called on the committee to release a hold on $116 million for the Syrian train-and-equip program that he said is needed to provide and transport ammunition, weapons and other equipment.

The defence secretary said a large-scale deployment of U.S. troops would “Americanise” the conflict and create more militants. McCain, himself a veteran and war hero, said that a U.S.-lead global force is necessary to defeat the Islamic State.