Ashton Carter: U.S. to Begin 'Direct Action on the Ground' in Iraq, Syria

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin "direct action on the ground" against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria.

"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, using an alternative name for the militant group.

Carter pointed to last week's rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIS.

Carter and Pentagon officials initially refused to characterize the rescue operation as U.S. boots on the ground. However, Carter said last week that the military expects "more raids of this kind" and that the rescue mission "represents a continuation of our advise and assist mission."

This may mean some American soldiers "will be in harm's way, no question about it," Carter said last week.

After months of denying that U.S. troops would be in any combat role in Iraq, Carter late last week in a response to a question posed by NBC News, also acknowledged that the situation U.S. soldiers found themselves in during the raid in Hawija was combat.

"This is combat and things are complicated," Carter said.

During Tuesday's Senate hearing, Carter said Wheeler "was killed in combat."

A feisty Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said on Tuesday that the U.S. effort in Syria is a "half-assed strategy at best," and said that the U.S. is not doing a "damn thing" to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Carter on Tuesday pushed back against that notion.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the "balance of forces" has tilted in Assad's favor.
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US Defense Official: Russia Launchs Airstrikes in Syria

A U.S. defense official tells The Associated Press that Russia has launched airstrikes in Syria.
The move follows a unanimous vote by Russian lawmakers to allow President Vladimir Putin to order airstrikes in Syria, where Russia has deployed fighter jets and other weapons in recent weeks. The Kremlin sought to play down the decision, saying it will only use its air force in the Mideast country, not ground troops.

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The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the airstrikes publicly, said they were launched Wednesday near Homs.
In a statement Wednesday, the office of Syrian President Bashar Assad said Russia's decision to send troops to Syria came at the request of Damascus.

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France launches airstrikes against ISIL in Syria

France on Sunday said it launched its first airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria.

French President Francois Hollande earlier this month said his country will have to carry out airstrikes against the militants, also known as ISIL and ISIS, in the war-torn country, days after France ordered surveillance flights over ISIL positions there.

Hollande said there was proof that attacks were planned from Syria against several countries including France, and blamed ISIL for Europe's refugee crisis, the largest the continent has faced since World War II.

Announcing the airstrikes, Hollande's office said in a statement Sunday: "Our country thus confirms its resolute commitment to fight against the terrorist threat represented by Daesh (the Arabic acronym for ISIL). We will strike each time that our national security is at stake."

Also Sunday, Iraq's military said it reached a deal to share intelligence with Russia, Iran and Syria in the fight against ISIL, CNN reported. The statement cited "the increasing concern from Russia about thousands of Russian terrorists committing criminal acts within ISIS," according to the broadcaster.

France did not previously carry out airstrikes against ISIL in Syria because it feared such action could maintain the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has however, carried out airstrikes in Iraq. A U.S.- led coalition is carrying out airstrikes against ISIL in both countries.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to drop his opposition to Assad playing a role in any Syrian transitional government when he meets leaders from around the world at the United Nations in New York City on Sunday, the BBC reported.

The broadcaster said Cameron will call for a new diplomatic drive to end the war, which started in 2011, but is expected to insist that Assad stand down.

Millions of refugees from countries including Syria and Iraq, where ISIL has seized vast swaths of territory, have fled to neighboring countries and to Europe. Sunday, an official said at least 17 Syrians drowned after their boat sank off the Turkish coast on the way to the Greek island of Kos, the Anadolu news agency reported.

French security forces had been on high alert since Islamic extremist gunmen, one of whom pledged allegiance to ISIL, carried out a series of attacks in Paris in January that left 20 people dead.

In an Islamist terror attack in June, a man was decapitated at a gas factory in the southeastern city of Lyon. In a separate incident, a gunman on a train heading from Amsterdam to Paris was tackled and subdued by passengers including three Americans in August as he apparently prepared to open fire on passengers.


USA TODAY reporter Kim Hjelmgaard traveled the land route taken by many migrants from Lesbos, Greece, to Berlin. Follow his journey on Twitter and here:

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Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Isis, report claims

The deployment of Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Islamic State as they have been sent to areas where they are most likely to fight other groups opposed to Isis, according to a new report.

The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) report comes ahead of a US-Russian summit meeting at the UN on Monday, when Barack Obama will question Vladimir Putin on the intention behind Russia’s deepening military involvement in Syria, according to US officials.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani – also in New York for the UN general assembly meeting – rejected suggestions that his country was operating in concert with Russia against Isis. “I do not see a coalition between Iran and Russia on fighting terrorism in Syria,” Rouhani said.

The Rusi report, titled Inherently Unresolved, assesses the global effort to counter the spread of Isis, and warns that Iraq and Syria may not survive as unitary states. It includes a section on Russian aims, particularly those underpinning Putin’s despatch this month of warplanes and troops to Tartus and Latakia in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian strategic analyst, said there was an air regiment at Latakia with 28 planes, a battalion of motorised infantry and military engineers as well as a marine battalion at the naval base in Tartus.

The deployment, Sutyagin said, “underlines the contradictions of the Kremlin’s policy”, because the troops were in areas where Isis is not present.

“In this way, Russian troops are backing Assad in the fight against groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, which are themselves opposed to Isis. If Russian troops do eventually join combat, therefore, they would also – technically – be assisting Isis,” Sutyagin argued.


The report says the Russian deployment should not therefore be seen as a change of policy towards fighting Isis directly, but a largely political move designed to save Assad and consolidate Russia’s hold over its naval base at Tartus and its newly built air base in Latakia, while currying favour with the west and the Gulf Arab states who are themselves reluctant to fight Isis on the ground.

“Indeed, the Kremlin may well be hoping that the west will show its appreciation by lifting the sanctions imposed in response to the situation in Ukraine,” Sutyagin said.

The tensions hanging over the Obama-Putin meeting on Monday were highlighted by discord between Washington and Moscow in describing the summit. US officials said it had been requested by Putin. A Russian spokesman insisted it was Obama who asked to meet. The White House said the meeting would address both the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. The Kremlin said Ukraine would only be raised “if there was time”.

Celeste Wallander, the White House National Security Council’s senior director for Russia, said that Obama would press Putin on his objectives in Syria.


“There’s a lot of talk, and now it’s time for clarity and for Russia to come clear – come clean and come clear on just exactly how it proposes to be a constructive contributor to what is already an ongoing multi-nation coalition,” Wallander told journalists.

Putin meanwhile told CBS News: “There is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism. But at the same time, urging them to engage in positive dialogue with the rational opposition and conduct reform.”

The White House argues that the Russian strategy of entrenching Assad will only serve to deepen the roots of extremism in Syria. Ben Rhodes, a White House spokesman, said that at the UN meeting “the president will have the opportunity to make clear to President Putin that we share the determination to counter Isil [Isis], that we welcome constructive contributions to counter Isil. But at the same time, we believe that one of the principal motivating factors for people who are fighting with Isil is the Assad regime.”

The Rusi report said that it would be “perfectly feasible” to defeat Isis if Turkey and Iran were also engaged in the search for a regional solution. It advised US policymakers to “not give up on the possibility of maintaining the unity of Iraq and Syria, but not be beholden or obsessed with this idea either”.


“If the US could ‘father’ two brand-new states in the Balkans during the 1990s, there is no reason why Washington should not tolerate at least the informal emergence of new states in the Middle East,” the report argued.

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Syria's Piano Man Flees After Years of Giving Hope to Others

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syria's piano man once offered hope — now he is asking for help.

When many died, starved or picked up weapons to fight in Syria's civil war, Aeham Ahmad stuck with his music. The owner of Al-Ayham for Music played his piano in the ruble of Yarmouk, an unofficial Palestinian refugee camp outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, that once housed 160,000 but where only around 18,000 remain.

The 27-year-old played to convince those who had fled to return home. He and his neighbors sang to tell the world of their plight.

"Come back to Yarmouk," they sang. "Do not abandon your mother, Yarmouk. She is waiting for you."

The music brought a little hope, even joy, to an otherwise miserable existence. Eventually, the video and pictures were noticed around the world and Ahmad came to be known as a single point of light in the darkness of Syria's war.

Now, after years of bringing hope to others, even Ahmad has been forced to flee

In April, ISIS stormed Yarmouk and Ahmad decided it was finally time for him, his wife and two children to leave. So he packed his instruments — including the piano — and tried to exit the camp.

Militants soon stopped him at a checkpoint.

"They asked me what those were. I told them they were musical instruments. They asked me if I didn't know that music was a sin," he said from the border with Turkey. "They then poured gasoline over all the instruments and burned them."

"April 17 is a historic day for me because it was my birthday and they burnt my best friend," Ahmad said. "I've had this piano for about 16 years. It is a Russian piano. It was a special relationship."

"It was kind of like a living person with me and my family under siege," he added.

The family was then forced to go to the town of Yalda, where he played an electronic keyboard but out of sight because ISIS and their supporters were never far. Still, the family was forced to live in intolerable conditions.

"We were in a siege. My family and I ate cats for dinner at the end," he said. "Imagine what you can't imagine. Eventually there was no food."

Ahmad decided it was time to leave again — this time for good. He paid a smuggler to take his family out and the four soon left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It soon became clear that his wife and kids would be safest in Damascus while he joined the exodus in Europe.

"There is no clear plan but to escape ... and that I provide and deliver more music, in a better way," he told NBC News from Turkish border with Syria. He has since made it to Greece, from where he hopes to travel across land to Germany.

Now, the Syrian piano man who sang for a return to a Yarmouk of the past seeks a future in Germany.

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Obama’s Effort to Train Syrian Rebels to Fight ISIS Won’t Work: CIA

President Obama on Tuesday told coalition military officials from around the world that they’ve had some “important successes” against ISIS, though they face a long-term campaign with many ups and downs.

There are 60 countries in all taking part in in the U.S.-led efforts to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the ISIS terrorists who have overrun large sections of northern Iraq and Syria since last summer. So far, the campaign has been very much a mixed bag, “with the Islamic State losing control of territory in some places while making gains in other,” reported The Washington Post.

Related: The Merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda Could Cripple the Civilized World

The campaign will have “periods of progress and setbacks,” Obama said during Tuesday’s meeting of top military officials from the U.S. and 21 other countries during a strategy session at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Yet a couple of new reports from The New York Times suggests that Obama’s overall strategy for ultimately toppling the Islamic jihadist organization may be highly flawed – and that the U.S. may face even more formidable challenges from ISIS than it thought:

First, an internal CIA study strongly suggests the president’s plan to train moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS likely will not work and is just the latest of many failed efforts by the U.S. to arm and train foreign forces to combat American enemies. The report, which is still classified, was commissioned in 2012 and 2013, when the Obama administration was deliberating about whether to intervene in the Syrian civil war against President Bashar al-Assad.

The CIA study, presented in the White House Situation Room, documented a sorry rate of success in these tactics throughout the CIA’s “67-year history – from Angola to Nicaragua to Cuba,” said The Times. Arguably the biggest fiasco was the 1961 Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy, in which CIA-trained Cuban guerrillas mounted a doomed invasion to fight Fidel Castro’s forces. And President Ronald Reagan suffered a major humiliation in the 1980s when the CIA tried and failed to topple Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by secretly supporting the contra rebels.

After nixing airstrikes on the Assad regime, Obama in April 2013 authorized the CIA to begin a program to arm and train moderate rebels at a base in Jordan. Obama recently decided to expand that mission with a much larger base in Saudi Arabia to train “vetted” rebels to fight ISIS in Syria.

Obama has been adamant about not deploying U.S. ground troops to Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS – so-called “boots on the ground” -- and insists it’s up to the Iraqi Army and moderate Syrian rebels to take on that onerous assignment. But the study found that the CIA was “even less effective when the militias fought without any direct American support on the ground,” said The Times. The only exception was “when the CIA helped arm and train mujahedeen rebels fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s.”Read More >>

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