Pentagon Chief in Baghdad for Talks to Boost War on ISIS

A Turkish official says the attack “originated” from Islamic State-held territory.

Carter also met with Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al Obeidi, who told him that after Iraqi troops retake Ramadi from ISIS, they would prepare for “a big battle” to reclaim Mosul and Nineveh province.

Obama’s outreach marked the latest effort in an ongoing US diplomatic campaign to resolve the spat between Iraq and Turkey, and followed phone calls earlier in the week between Vice President Joe Biden and the prime ministers of both Iraq and Turkey.

On Wednesday, Carter visited top Iraqi officials in Baghdad and offered to provide Iraqi security forces with more American combat advisers on the ground and also provide close air support with USA attack helicopters.

Among the sites targeted by IS was Bashiqa, where Turkish forces have recently been training Iraqi Kurds, sparking a row with the Iraqi government.

Islamic State militants fired rockets on Wednesday at a base in northern Iraq where Turkish troops are stationed, Kurdish military sources told Reuters.

Even while urging North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey to tread lightly in Iraq, the US has been pressing Turkey to step up its involvement in the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS.

But Iraqi troops were able to regroup, stop the attack and destroy Islamic State’s truck bombs before they could damage the operations center, Warren said. “But the defeat here in Syria and Iraq is necessary and we need to hasten that”.

Iraqi forces have recaptured Tikrit and pushed militants back from large parts of northern Iraq in recent months.

Ten thousand members of the Iraqi security forces now surround Ramadi.

“The point is [the USA mission] bore the fruit we had hoped to”, Carter said.

Any U.S. military support must be consistent with Iraqi requests and their style of fighting, MacFarland said. While the attacks demonstrated that Islamic State maintains that ability, they also showed how determined Peshmerga forces are in responding, officials said. The US official, who is responsible for cutting off ISIL’s financial resources, said last week that ISIL has made more than $500 million dealing in oil, with significant volumes sold to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some of that coming across the border into Turkey.

The United States ramped up pressure Wednesday on Turkey to pull unauthorized troops from Iraq, aiming to defuse a dispute that has rankled relations between two countries central to the fight against the Islamic State group.