Page 3 - ATODAY

U.S. NEWS A3
Wednesday 14 October

US says Iraqis now in position to retake city of Ramadi

ROBERT BURNS military official said Tues- Iraqi F-16 fighter jets have a counteroffensive that an acronym for Iraqi Secu-
AP National Security Writer day. recently joined the battle the Iraqi government an- rity Forces, which collapsed
WASHINGTON (AP) — Af- Army Col. Steve Warren, a in support of Iraqi ground nounced in July. in Ramadi in May, allowing
ter months of preliminary spokesman in Baghdad for forces. It has been stalled for nu- the Islamic State group to
merous reasons, including capture the Sunni city.
the Islamic State’s effec- Ramadi is the capital of
tive use of improvised land Anbar province.
mines. The loss of Ramadi was the
The counteroffensive also most damaging Iraqi set-
has been weakened by back this year against the
sectarian divisions within Islamic State, which in 2014
the Iraqi government. captured the northern city
“We now believe that bat- of Mosul and still controls
tlefield conditions are set much of northern and west-
for the ISF to push into the ern Iraq despite more than
city,” Warren added, using a year of U.S. airstrikes.q

Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks to reporters at the Pentagon. After months of preliminary
skirmishes and hundreds of U.S. airstrikes, conditions are now right for Iraq to launch a decisive
assault on Ramadi and reclaim the provincial capital from Islamic State fighters, a U.S. military
official said Tuesday.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

skirmishes and hundreds the U.S.-led coalition that “Iraqi ground forces re-
of U.S. airstrikes, conditions is fighting the Islamic State cently trained by the (U.S.-
are now right for Iraq to in Iraq and Syria, said Iraqi led) coalition have been
launch a decisive assault ground forces have ad- deployed around Ramadi
on Ramadi and reclaim vanced about nine miles in in time for the decisive
the provincial capital from recent days and are in the phase of this operation,”
Islamic State fighters, a U.S. city’s outer suburbs. He said Warren said, referring to

In Syria:
US draws line on backing CIA-trained rebels

KEN DILANIAN allies to arm, train and fund rebels of American-made
Associated Press thousands of so-called TOW anti-tank missiles. Reb-
WASHINGTON (AP) — The moderate rebels to oppose els have deployed the mis-
Russian military intervention Assad, American officials siles to great effect over
to prop up Syria’s govern- have watched in recent the last six months, and
ment has brought new scru- days as Russian bombs even more so in the last
tiny of the CIA’s secret sup- and missiles have targeted week, destroying dozens
port to Syrian rebels fighting those groups. of Russian-made Syrian ar-
President Bashar Assad. But U.S. officials and outside mored vehicles.
how far is the U.S. willing to experts say the Obama The CIA requires the vet-
go to empower its proxies administration is unlikely to ted rebel groups it sup-
to take on Vladimir Putin’s protect CIA-backed reb- ports to take a video of
allies? The answer seems to els from Russian air strikes every use of a TOW missile
be: Not very far. — by providing them with and to send the empty
“Countering Russia’s in- surface-to-air missiles, for canisters back to American
volvement in Syria doesn’t example — for fear they operatives in Turkey, ac-
rate nearly as high on the could fall into the wrong cording to Charles Lister, a
scale” as battling the Is- hands and be used against Syrian expert at the Brook-
lamic State, which has de- passenger jets in a ter- ings Doha Center, a U.S.
clared a caliphate across rorist attack. There is also think tank branch in Qatar.
parts of Syria and Iraq, little appetite in the White A U.S. official confirmed the
White House spokesman House for a U.S.-enforced arrangement, speaking on
Josh Earnest told report- no-fly zone in Syria, officials condition of anonymity be-
ers Tuesday. After the CIA say. cause he was not autho-
spent more than two years Instead, the U.S. has been rized to discuss the matter
secretly working with Arab continuing its delivery to publicly.q