Pentagon chief repeats calls for more help in Daesh fight
US Secretary of State Ashton Carter has once again called on his counterparts from the US-led coalition to step up their efforts in fighting the terrorist group.
Speaking ahead of a meeting with coalition defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, Carter raised an alarm over surging terror attacks around the globe, warning that fighting extremist in Syria and Libya would require more financial and greater military and financial commitments from coalition members.
The Pentagon chief used that argument to push forward his “concrete” plan to accelerate the campaign, details of which he said would be laid out in the afternoon meeting with allies and non-NATO partners such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
"That will be new, for there to be a plan that everyone sees, which is a concrete military campaign plan and an opportunity to do what the United States has been doing for some months now, which is accelerating its own contributions," Carter told reporters.
According to the top military official, the US is determined to accelerate the fight and recapture ISIL’s main strongholds in Syria and Iraq, as soon as possible.
In late January, the Pentagon chief noted that the coalition was aiming to "destroy the ISIL cancer's parent tumor in Iraq and Syria by collapsing its two power centers in Raqqah and Mosul."
However, America’s numerous calls on its allies to step up military campaign have been met with mixed responses so far.
Netherlands which has been conducting airstrikes in Iraq, has made promises to extend those attacks into Syria. Saudi Arabia has also expressed readiness to deploy ground troops to Syria.
This is while Canada has announced that it will cease its airstrikes in the two Arab countries by February 22.
More than 18 months has passed since the US-led coalition began bombing alleged Daesh positions in Iraq and Syria, carrying out more than 10,000 air raids at a cost of nearly $6 billion (5.2 billion euros).
American officials claim that at least 25,000 Daesh fighters have been killed since the onset of the US-led airstrikes. However, the Pentagon has admitted that in many cases there also have been civilian casualties.
A US defense official said that there have been 120 allegations of civilian casualties, at least 33 of which determined to be credible.
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