USA to Bolster Special Ops in Iraq to Fight ISIS

“It puts everyone on notice in Syria: You don’t know at night who’s coming through the window”, Carter said.

The move builds on plans announced in October to send fewer than 50 special operations forces to assist opposition groups battling IS. “They’ll really help strengthen the border… between Iraq and Syria”.

“The Iraqi government stresses that any military operation or the deployment of any foreign forces – special or not – in any place in Iraq can not happen without its approval and coordination and full respect of Iraqi sovereignty”, Abadi said in a statement. “A huge number of US work force are working in the more extensive Middle East area, and more are en route”.

“We’re at war. We’re using the might of the finest fighting force the world has ever known”, Carter told the House Armed Services Committee.

This is just one of the many issues to be decided after Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified on initials details of the force. No timetable was given on when the special operations forces will begin to arrive in Iraq. Russia, which has publicly committed to defeating ISIL, has instead largely attacked opposition forces, not ISIL, he said, adding that it is time for Russia to focus on the right side of this fight.

Carter said the force might be American-only but more likely would be mixed with Kurds or others.

USA officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plan to deploy the special operations forces unit to Iraq was discussed and agreed with the government of Iraq before Carter’s announcement.

“A raid is a combat operation; there’s no way around that”, he said. “We fought them before, and we are ready to resume fighting”. The Iraqi government has since invited the U.S. and Iran to help in its fight against the Sunni Salafist group. The addition of this separate force marks a significant expansion of USA ground operations in the fight against ISIS. “We’re good at intelligence; we’re good at mobility; we’re good at surprise”.

Thomas Donnelly, defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while the Obama administration has been slowly “edging toward the direction” of increasing the number of ground troops in Syria and Iraq, the new operation represents “a quantitative increase but not a qualitative change”.

There are currently 3,500 USA service members in Iraq now.

When asked about the president’s comment, Warren said there’s a distinction between combat raids and ground combat like the invasion of Iraq.

The US-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq since August 2014, and has also provided arms and training to forces in the country, but deploying forces with a specific combat mission ups its involvement in the conflict.