In a significant escalation of the battle for Mosul, elite Iraqi special forces joined the fight Thursday, unleashing a pre-dawn assault on an Islamic State-held town east of the besieged city, and the US military announced the first American combat death since the operation began.
Speaking from Hannover, Germany, President Obama announced on Monday that another 250 U.S. special forces troops would be sent into Syria, joining roughly 50 special operators already deployed there.
When Taya Kyle, wife of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, fondly recalled her late husband’s humility on Breitbart News Daily Tuesday morning, she was speaking in the context of a New York Times article published over the weekend. The article described a growing rift among current and former Navy SEALs, and Pentagon commanders, over what some denounce as the commercial and political exploitation of the legendary service.
An anonymous U.S. official told CNN on Monday that Army Delta Force special operators have begun operations against the Islamic State in Iraq.
A Libyan intelligence official told the BBC on Wednesday that senior Islamic State commanders are moving into Libya, along with a growing number of foreign fighters flowing into the battleground city of Sirte.
The Battle of Mosul, a decisive campaign to retake that captured city from the Islamic State and drive the savages out of Iraq, was supposed to happen a long time ago. It remains in the planning stages as we head into 2016. The U.S. military is now considering committing Apache attack helicopters to the battle, along with a growing number of special-forces scouts and advisers on the ground.
Russian media outlets are reporting that a high-ranking Islamic State commander has been captured after a U.S. special forces raid in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
President Obama struggled to keep his “no boots on the ground” talking point alive on Monday, saying in an interview with NBC News that U.S. special forces about to be deployed in Syria do not count, because they are not supposed to fight front-line combat operations against ISIS, and smaller units of special operations troops have been working in Syria for some time.
The White House officially “announced” on Friday that small teams of U.S. special forces would be deployed in Syria, totaling up to 50 commandos on the ground.
Reuters, citing two Obama Administration officials, reports that U.S. special operations in Iraq and Syria may occur in the near future.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter insisted in a press conference on Friday that the anti-ISIS raid in which Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler was killed does not mean American troops have a “combat role” in Iraq.
More details have emerged about the raid against an ISIS prison camp near Hawija, Iraq, where a joint American-Kurdish-Iraqi strike force rescued seventy prisoners who were about to be executed and dumped in mass graves.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced an American soldier was killed during a mission to rescue Kurdish hostages from ISIS near the Iraqi town of Hawija.
The SAS – Britain’s elite fighting force – has been given free rein by Prime Minister David Cameron to take out ISIS leadership in Syria and Iraq. It is expected that 60 – 100 troops, working alongside intelligence agencies MI6
Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, trained by both Russian and American special forces to head up the elite OMON police force of Tajikistan, has defected to the Islamic State.
U.S. special operations forces based in Iraq conducted a cross-border raid into eastern Syria and killed senior ISIS leader Abu Sayyaf, said to be responsible for major Islamic State financial operations, including the sale of oil and gas assets.
The Islamic State (ISIS) released an unintentionally hilarious propaganda video showing its “elite special forces” in training, but far from showing off their fearsome skills, it makes them look like a clown act.
Given both the crisis still in progress at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the controversy over NBC News’ Brian Williams getting in trouble for a phony story of taking fire in Iraq, this was not a good moment for a combo scandal in which the new VA Secretary, Robert McDonald, got caught making a false claim of serving with U.S. Special Forces.
The White House issued a statement Monday saying, “We take him at his word and expect that this will not impact the important work he’s doing to promote the health and well-being of our nation’s veterans.”
The United States has reportedly aborted an effort to rescue a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State near Raqqa, Syria– the proclaimed “capital” of the Islamic State.
