Pentagon Puts Boots On The Ground Against ISIS

The statistics do not include enemy fighters killed by Iraqi ground forces or U.S.-backed rebel groups fighting the militants in war-torn Syria, where the Islamic State is headquartered.

“We’re strongly in support of it. We stand with it in terms of defence of its own territory”, Carter said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Since the Paris attacks by Islamic State militants in November, President Francois Hollande has stepped up French aerial operations against Islamic State, including in Syria, contributing about 20 percent of coalition strikes.

“Turkey is a long-time friend of ours”, Carter said, but “the reality is” that it has a border that “has been porous to foreign fighters”.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the meeting would look at ways to “capitalise on the setbacks that Daesh (an alternative name for IS) has suffered in Iraq and tighten the noose around the head of the snake in Syria”.

Elements of the campaign were presented last week to the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division, which will soon deploy to Iraq, the American defense secretary said.

“We welcome all the support of weapons and air strikes that provided for us by the global coalition in the fight against those criminals (IS militants)”. And officials are now talking about a new campaign plan that maps out the fight in coming months to take back key IS power centers in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

“You should think of an arrow going to Mosul, capturing Mosul and an arrow going to Raqqa, Syria, and capturing Raqqa, the so-called capital”, Mr. Carter said.

Le Drian said the group’s finances were “beginning to dry up”.

The military plan expects coalition members to make contributions which span airstrikes, specialoperations forces, advice, assistance, equipment and training for local forces, cyber tools, intelligence, mobility and logistics.

A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was looking for additional contributions of special operations forces from allies.

In this Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 photo, Iraqi security forces respond to an Islamic State group attack on their position in Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq.

On Thursday, Carter flew to Tampa to shine attention on the Obama administration’s selection of Gen. Joseph Votel to take over U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, which oversees war operations in Syria, Iraq and across to Afghanistan. “Now the question is less one of legitimacy… now it’s just a question of how can we bring more of our capabilities into this effort”, he added.

A spokesman for Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan confirmed that he was not invited to Paris, but he told the Ottawa Star that he is preparing for a meeting with Carter that the Pentagon chief requested while they are both in Brussels for a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting next month.