US Pentagon chief vows ‘lasting defeat’ against ISIL

US defence secretary Ashton Carter, centre, holds a regional security meeting at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait on February 23, 2015, gathering top US military commanders and diplomats for talks on the battle against ISIL. Jonathan Ernst/AP PhotoShow less

CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT // New Pentagon chief Ashton Carter vowed “lasting defeat” of ISIL as he summoned top generals and diplomats to Kuwait yesterday to review war efforts.

The meeting came as the US and its allies staged 25 airstrikes on ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

Most of the strikes were focused on the Syrian cities of Kobani and Hasakah while seven strikes targeted ISIL positions in Iraq, the combined joint task force said on Monday.

Only days after taking office, Mr Carter convened the extraordinary meeting of more than two dozen senior military officers, ambassadors and intelligence officials at the sprawling US army base of Camp Arifjan.

Speaking to American troops before the talks, Mr Carter said the US-led coalition was “pressing” the ISIL group “very ably from Kuwait and elsewhere”.

“And we will deliver lasting defeat,” he said.

Mr Carter said the meeting was to “talk about all of the dimensions of this campaign”, and would beyond the fight in Iraq and Syria.

“ISIL is not just a threat to Iraq and Syria. It’s a larger threat to the region,” he said.

The talks follow more than six months of US-led airstrikes that have halted ISIL advances for the most part and enabled Kurdish forces to recapture some ground in northern Iraq and the Syrian town of Kobani on the border with Turkey.

But the militants still hold large swathes of territory seized last year across Iraq and Syria and appear to have spread their influence to Libya.

The meeting of top brass and diplomats was not intended to produce a new strategy but to allow Mr Carter to better understand the challenge posed by ISIL and the range of efforts aimed at defeating them, said a senior US defence official.

Mr Carter would also be looking for an update on the Iraqi government’s efforts to recruit other Sunnis into the fight against ISIL.

Commanders believe the air war against ISIL and the training of Iraqi soldiers is mostly on course, but Baghdad’s Shiite-led government has more work to do to persuade Sunnis to take up arms.

“Thousands” of Sunni tribesmen have signed up to fight but a proposed Sunni national guard was still a long way off, the official said.

Mr Carter was likely to raise questions about what it means when groups swear allegiance to ISIL in Libya, in Egypt, in Afghanistan and how the counter-terrorism fight will pan out in the next few years, the official said.

The meeting was to include the commander running the anti-ISIL campaign, Lt Gen James Terry, and US ambassadors to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait.

The heads of the US Central, African, European, Special Operations and Joint Special Operations commands would also join in, as will John Allen, Mr Obama’s envoy to the anti-ISIL coalition and the US special envoy to Syria, Daniel Rubinstein.

Mr Carter was in Kuwait after a two-day visit to Afghanistan consulting commanders about the pace of a US troop withdrawal. It was his first trip abroad as defence secretary after being sworn in last Tuesday.

* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting from Reuters