Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the progress in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the next steps for the campaign.
Carter detailed the coalition's goals, including stabilizing Anbar province in Iraq, and collapsing the group’s control over Mosul in iraq and Raqqa in Syria. Carter said the U.S. will provide artillery support for the Iraqi ground offensive and boost U.S. ranks from 50 to 300 personnel in Syria.
“These additional 250 personnel, including special-operations forces, will help expand our ongoing efforts to identify, train and equip capable (and) motivated local anti-ISIL forces inside Syria, especially among the Sunni Arab community," Carter said.
Carter also outlined coalition efforts outside of Iraq and Syria, including degrading ISIL’s presence in Afghanistan and coalition strikes against the group in Libya. Carter emphasized the challenges of political struggles in Iraq and Syria and the importance of local forces in the campaign.
“I’ve articulated a clear strategy with the end-state being a lasting defeat of ISIL – and that means it must be achieved by local forces,” Carter said. "Enabling local forces – not substituting for them – is necessary to ensure a lasting defeat (of ISIL), and sometimes, that means our pace is predicated on the speed at which local forces can absorb our enabling.”
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