Assault on Raqqa imminent
The United States expects the campaigns against Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa to overlap, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday, signalling that a push to start isolating the group's de facto capital in Syria may not be very far off.
Iraqi forces are already nine days into their U.S.-backed campaign to take the city of Mosul from Islamic State, fighting their way towards the city's outer limits in what could become the biggest military operation in Iraq in over a decade.
The campaign itself could last weeks or even months, allowing some leeway in timing.
"Yes, there will be overlap and that's part of our plan and we are prepared for that," Carter told a news conference in Paris after a gathering of 13 countries in the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.
He did not offer further specifics, but his words suggested that military moves against Islamic State's stronghold in Syria might not be far off.
French President Francois Hollande, addressing the meeting of defence ministers, warned the coalition needed to watch out for flows of Islamic State fighters from one besieged city to another.
"In these columns of people leaving Mosul will be hiding terrorists who will try to go further, to Raqqa in particular," Hollande said, calling for greater intelligence sharing to identify them.
Carter yesterday said more than 35 Islamic State commanders were targeted by the coalition in the past 90 days, including many of the top leaders.
But the fight against the Jihadist has been mired by infights among the coalition fighting to capture Mosul.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday said his country is ready to launch a ground operation in Iraq if it feels threatened by developments there.
Turkey will not tolerate the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state for greater Kurdish autonomy, using parts of northern Iraq as bases, Cavusoglu said.
He accused Iraq's central government in Baghdad of "tying itself to a terrorist organisation" and said Turkey would take whatever steps necessary to protect its soldiers stationed at the Bashiqa military camp, near the northern city of Mosul.
"If there is a threat to Turkey from Iraq, we will use all our resources and rights, including a ground operation," Cavusoglu said in an interview with the Kanal 24 TV station.
Largely Sunni Muslim Turkey and the Shia-dominated central government in Iraq are at loggerheads about the presence of Turkish troops at Bashiqa, and about Ankara's demand to take part in the US-backed Mosul operation. Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said Baghdad does not want Turkey's help.
Turkey says it has a responsibility to protect ethnic Turkmens and Sunni Arabs in the area around Mosul, once part of the Ottoman empire.
Meanwhile, A Syrian Kurd leader in France on Tuesday accused Turkey of waging attacks on Kurdish forces trying to recapture Raqa, the Islamic State group stronghold in Syria.
"With its artillery and aircraft, the Turkish army is taking advantage of the media and international community's focus on Mosul to massively attack Syrian Kurds to stop them taking Raqa," Khaled Issa told a news conference in Paris.
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