THE United States is poised to step up the war in Iraq and Syria with the sending of more US ground forces. Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Tuesday that special operations troops are to be sent to battle Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
Carter also demanded that ‘international powers’ such as the UK beefed up their own efforts. Dumping the previous Obama position that there would be no US boots on the ground, Carter said he was deploying a ‘specialised expeditionary targeting force’ to Iraq to work alongside local Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces battling the IS group.
Officials in October announced the deployment of 50 special operations forces to work with anti-IS fighters in Syria, to help glean intelligence and identify targets for US and coalition bombers to strike. On Tuesday, citing security concerns, Carter was evasive when asked how many additional special forces troops would go to Iraq. The United States currently already has about 3,500 troops in Iraq to ‘train and advise’ local forces.
The new troops will be based in Iraq, but they will have the ability to conduct raids across the border in northern Syria. ‘These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence, and capture ISIL leaders,’ Carter said. He added: ‘This force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria.’ Carter said the move would put IS leaders ‘on notice. He added ‘We’re prepared to do more. I have every reason to believe the president will allow us to do more and authorise us to do more when we have more opportunities.’
The return of US forces to Iraq to intervene in both Iraq and Syria has evoked an immediate response from Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah group, the Badr Movement and Asaib Ahl al-Haq (The League of the Righteous). They have issued an answer to Carter. ‘We will chase and fight any American force deployed in Iraq.’
‘Any such American force will become a primary target for our group. We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting,’ said Jafaar Hussaini, spokesman for the Kata’ib Hezbollah group. Meanwhile, a prominent Iraqi official, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has said that Washington is very tolerant of IS, and has refused his request to target Daesh trucks carrying Iraqi and Syrian oil out of those countries, because they are considered ‘civilian targets’.
Amid Moscow’s recent objections to Turkey’s role in the purchasing of oil stolen by the Takfiri terrorists, al-Rubaie suggested that the US intentionally ignores the illegal oil sales and is tolerating IS. ‘I have personally contacted US representatives asking them to target ISIL trucks transporting Iraqi and Syrian oil to Turkey only to be told that those were civilian targets so they could not attack them,’ said Rubaie, a leader of the State of Law Coalition party in the Iraqi parliament and former national security adviser.
Rubaie said earlier that the terrorist group had made over $800m dollars in black market oil sales in Turkey over the last eight months, signifying this has been ignored by the so-called US-led coalition for a long time. This is not the first time Ankara has been implicated in support for Daesh, which has been committing crimes against the lives and heritage of people in Iraq and Syria. This is not the first time that the US has been found to be so tolerant of the Turkey-ISIS grouping, seeing it as a necessary evil.
The reality is that the Turkish ruling class’ enemy is not IS, but the Kurdish people. Turkey wants to eliminate secular Syria so as to annex northern Syria and then north western Iraq in order to strangle the Kurdish people. The reality is that the Saudi Arabian and Qatari autocracies also want to get rid of secular Syria and deal a blow at Iran by seizing western Iraq.
Israel meanwhile thirsts after the Golan Heights because of its water resources that it desires to be its share of the spoils. The US-Turkish-Saudi plan is that Syria is to be ripped up along with the Sykes Picot agreement,and that IS is a useful force if kept under control until this is done.
The future of the area and its peoples rests in driving imperialism out of the Middle East. Victory to Syria! No British forces for Iraq and Syria! Forward to Palestine and a Socialist Federation of Middle Eastern States!
