The US and its allies have vowed to step up efforts to combat the Islamic State (IS), but also admitted that there were more risks ahead.
During a meeting of Defence Ministers of 12 countries in Germany, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter also expressed regret at the death of a Navy SEAL in an attack by the jihadist group in northern Iraq on May 3.
“These risks will continue … but allowing ISIL safe haven would carry greater risk for us all,” Mr Carter said. “We also agreed that all of our friends and allies across the counter-ISIL coalition can and must do more as well, both to confront ISIL in Iraq and Syria and its metastases elsewhere,” he added.
The talks included ministers from France, Britain and Germany and were planned well in advance, prior to the attack on May 3 in which the IS fighters blasted through Kurdish defence forces. The elite serviceman who was killed was the third American to be killed in direct combat since the US-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014. The aim of the campaign was to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State and is a measure of the US’s increased involvement in the conflict.
Disclosing new details, Mr Carter said that the SEAL’s job was to operate with Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to train and assist them north of the city of Mosul. “That part of the peshmerga front came under attack and they found themselves in a firefight,” Mr Carter said. US President Barack Obama had announced last month that he would send an additional 250 special operations forces to Syria to expand the US presence on the ground. The aim was to help draw in more Syrian fighters to combat the IS.
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