Ground troops needed to expel Daesh, US says

Washington: The US-led coalition fighting Daesh needs to take back the cities Mosul and Raqqa and will use “boots on the ground” as part of its strategy in doing so, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Friday.

“We need to destroy them in those two places, and I’d like to get on with that as soon as possible,” Carter, speaking from Davos, Switzerland, said in an interview on CNBC.

He said the coalition is using raids and bombs to take control of the routes between the two cities and cut off communication between them.

“That’ll essentially separate the Iraqi theatre from the Syrian theatre,” he said.

Carter said more ground soldiers will probably be added to support those already there, but part of the strategy is also mobilising local forces “rather than trying to substitute for them”.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s prime minister appealed on Friday to Turkey to pull its troops out of Iraqi territory and instead provide training and equipment to fight Daesh, which he and US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted is losing ground.

“We in Iraq want very good neighbourly relations with Turkey, we hope Turkey will help us to fight Daesh,” Al Abadi said. “Daesh is killing our own citizens, occupying our own cities. We have 4 million internal refugees because of that, and Turkey should help us with that. And I appeal to the Turkish government to help us, and withdraw their forces.”

He said Ankara hasn’t responded to his government’s question about why Turkish troops are in Iraq, adding: “We have to have an answer.”

Turkey has had troops near the Daesh-controlled city of Mosul in northern Iraq since 2014. The arrival of additional troops last month sparked an uproar, and Ankara subsequently halted new deployments.

Turkey has not been clear about the exact number of troops it has deployed in Iraq, but the issue was one of several that US Vice President Joe Biden, in Istanbul on Friday, was expected to bring up in Saturday meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

“I don’t know what their aim is. Is it an expansionist plot to control part of Ninevah?” Al Abadi said, referring to Mosul’s region. “I hope not. ... If they truly want to fight against Daesh, well, they can train our forces. We have asked them to do that. They can supply us with equipment and weapons. We have asked for that. They didn’t send it.”