Defense secretary praises Kurds in Syria
Official singles out fighters as partners in bombing campaign
WASHINGTON — Nearly a year into a bombing campaign intended to degrade and destroy the Islamic State, the United States finally may have found a reliable partner on the ground in Syria.
In comments Monday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged that Kurdish fighters from the YPG militia are identifying bomb targets for U.S.-led airstrikes. He referred to the militia as “capable,” praised its “effective action,” and said that because of the Kurds’ actions, U.S. forces had been able to “support them tactically.”
It was the first public description by a senior Obama administration official detailing the cooperation between the United States and the militia, to which NATO ally Turkey has objected.
The militia’s success is one of the reasons the United States is intensifying its bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, Carter said.
“That’s what we were doing over the weekend north of Raqqa, which is conducting airstrikes that limit ISIL’s freedom of movement and ability to counter those capable Kurdish forces,” Carter said, referring to the Islamic State by a common acronym.
Carter’s singling out of the YPG, or the People’s Protection Units, comes after months in which U.S. officials have said they were putting off a more concerted campaign in Syria in favor of pressing against the Islamic State in Iraq because the U.S. lacked a capable ground partner in Syria.
But Carter praised the YPG’s recent successes against the Islamic State. Backed by U.S. air power, he said, YPG forces have advanced to within 18 miles of Raqqa, the main stronghold of the Islamic State in Syria.
How far the YPG will push its offensive is uncertain. Raqqa is not traditionally a Kurdish area, and Kurdish troops, which are said to number 16,000, are not expected to try to take the city alone.
But the YPG offers a much more robust anti-Islamic State force in Syria than does the training program the United States has undertaken: So far, only about 190 so-called moderate rebels have been enlisted in the program, which is intended to train 5,000 anti-Islamic State fighters a year.