200 more American troops headed to Syria

Manama - That operation coincides with a US-backed Iraqi effort to retake Mosul.

Washington will send another 200 troops to Syria to help an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters seize the Daesh group bastion of Raqa, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said on Saturday.
"I can tell you today that the United States will deploy approximately 200 additional US forces in Syria," Carter told Gulf policymakers in the Bahraini capital Manama.
They will complement 300 American special forces already in Syria to assist US-backed Kurdish-Arab fighters who in recent weeks began their offensive on Raqa.
That operation coincides with a US-backed Iraqi effort to retake Mosul.
The two cities are the last major urban centres under Daesh control after the militants suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq and Syria over the past year.
Carter told the Manama Dialogue security forum that the troop reinforcements will include bomb disposal experts and trainers as well as special forces.
Car bombs and elaborate networks of booby traps and mines have been the militants' favoured weapons as they battle to defend what remains of the "dominant" they declared across Iraq and Syria in 2012.
"We're now helping tens of thousands of local Syrian forces to isolate Raqa," from which they are only about 25 kilometres (15 miles), he said.
Raqa, which has also served as a hub for militants plotting attacks abroad, is being isolated according to plan, Carter said.
With the offensives against Mosul and Raqa, the US-led coalition against Daesh has reached "a critical milestone", Carter said.
Iraqi forces are battling militants deep inside Mosul, edging closer to the River Tigris that divides the city and looking for a breakthrough in the seven-week-old offensive.
"This is a complex mission that will take time to accomplish but I'm confident that militants' days in Mosul are numbered," Carter said.
He warned that it is unclear what form Daesh will take after its eventual defeat in Iraq and Syria, so the coalition of Western and Middle Eastern nations battling it will need to remain vigilant.
"We must be ready for anything," said Carter, who is on a Middle East tour before leaving office at the end of President Barack Obama's term in January.

• MENA