U.S. Defense Chief Confers With Iraqi Officers on ISIS Marketing campaign

Defense Secretary Ash Carter offered Iraq expanded military assistance during a visit to Baghdad on Wednesday as the Obama administration seeks new ways to boost the country’s efforts against the Islamic State.

“He’s in a tough spot”, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Defense Department spokesman traveling with Carter in Baghdad.

Iraq’s government has been incensed over Turkey’s move to send reinforcements to the camp in the Bashiqa region, near the IS-held city of Mosul.

Carter said last week that the USA was prepared to provide U.S.-piloted Apache attack helicopters and American advisers closer to the fight to assist Iraqi forces pushing towards Ramadi, but only if Iraq made such request.

The first suicide attack was followed by three more suicide vehicle bomb attacks on the security positions, but the troops backed by Iraqi aircraft managed to blew them up and killed their suicide bombers before they reach their targets, the source said.

KRG officials said on Wednesday that peshmerga forces had repelled a multi-pronged IS offensive in Nawaran, Bashiqa, Tal Aswad, Khazr and Zardik. The statement said the four wounded soldiers were evacuated to a hospital in Turkey near the border with Iraq. Speaking to troops on Tuesday at Incirlik air base in Turkey, which the United States and its allies are using for the air campaign against Islamic State, Carter acknowledged that the threat posed by Islamic State had grown beyond the Middle East. “This has metastasized to other parts of the world including our own homeland”, he said. “Not replace them”, he said.

The Turkish soldiers were slightly injured in the attack before they responded with howitzer fire, Turkey’s general staff said in a statement, highlighting the importance of the security at the base.

Baghdad says the Turkish military presence is a violation of its sovereignty.

In Washington, Colin Kahl, national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, condemned the IS attack on the training camp.

Iraqi forces have cleared militants from areas of the city but the city center remains under Islamic State control seven months after it was seized. But Abadi has resisted, arguing foreign forces aren’t needed to fight ISIL in Iraq.

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

Now, the political forces limiting the US mission appear to be coming from Baghdad as Iran and hardline Shiites in Iraq have grown more powerful over time and the Iraqi prime minister risks losing his job if he appears to be too closely aligned with the U.S.