Iraq’s new prime minister says foreign ground troops are neither necessary nor wanted in his country’s fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also urged the international community to expand the campaign against the extremists to Syria.
He said the fight against the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, will be endless unless the militants who control a large swath of land spanning both countries are hit in Syria as well.
Photo: Reuters
His comments came as elite Iraqi troops backed by US jets battled jihadists near Baghdad yesterday and US President Barack Obama prepared to meet with his commanders to decide how to turn the tide on Islamic State while keeping a promise not to drag the US into another military quagmire.
Obama was to sit down with US Central Command leader General Lloyd Austin at the command’s Florida headquarters yesterday.
The president was to “discuss the plan for building an international coalition to degrade and destroy [IS],” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The White House scrambled to play down a suggestion that deploying ground forces was an option, but expanded air strikes were already turning up the heat on IS fighters.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said on Tuesday that US military advisers could “provide close-combat advising.”
However, the White House said the idea of US troops in battle was a “purely hypothetical scenario.”
According to Iraqi military and tribal leaders, US jets struck three IS targets in an area just south of Baghdad that has been dubbed the “triangle of death,” killing at least four militants.
A leader of the Janabi tribe in the flashpoint region of Jurf al-Sakhr, less than 50km south of Baghdad, said Iraqi soldiers had fought IS militants overnight until early yesterday.
“The main focus was an area of Jurf al-Sakhr called Fadhiliya. They fought deep into the night but the Iraqi army was not able to enter the place,” he said.
The US military late on Tuesday issued a statement that spoke of three air strikes southwest of Baghdad, but did not specify where.
The more-than 160 air strikes launched by the US since Aug. 8 have achieved some results, apparently forcing top IS leaders to cross the border back into Syria.
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