WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has invited more than 60 nations and international organizations to Washington later this month for a strategy session on how to counter the Islamic State group after a widely expected U.S.-backed military assault on the extremists’ home base.
The session is viewed as an important signal that the new administration intends to maintain leadership of a sprawling diplomatic effort begun by former President Barack Obama in 2014, despite President Donald Trump’s scathing assessment of Mr. Obama’s approach to IS during the presidential campaign.
Also on Thursday, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East signaled that there will be a larger and longer American military presence in Syria to accelerate the fight against IS and quell friction within the complicated mix of warring factions there.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will lead a two-day gathering of a global coalition focused on fighting the extremist group militarily and starving it of money, weapons and fighters.
U.S. officials described plans for the March 22-23 session in interviews with The Washington Post ahead of a planned announcement Thursday at the State Department. The meeting will be the largest since the inaugural session, and comes as IS appears to be losing ground militarily. (However, State Department spokesman Mark Toner warned Thursday that there are new “battlefields,” such as the internet, where Islamic State frequently recruits, indoctrinates and strategizes.)
“It tells the coalition partners the U.S. remains incredibly committed to working with them to defeat” the group now loosely based in Raqqa, Syria, a senior U.S. official said.
“The first thing the new administration will do is reinforce the importance of the coalition,” which includes both military partners and nations that support diplomatic and humanitarian efforts through donations of money, expertise and other resources, the official said.
Russia will not participate in the conference, Mr. Toner said, even though it is a leading fighting force in Syria.
The Trump administration had said it would retain Mr. Obama’s top official in charge of what was formerly called the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, but had not spelled out its goals for the group of 68 countries and international organizations.
The Trump administration has substituted its preferred acronym, ISIS, in the global coalition’s name but left the organization’s structure and focus intact. The revised State Department web page for the coalition also stripped out mention of Mr. Obama and former secretary of state John F. Kerry, but kept language stressing that “there is a role for every country to play in degrading and defeating” the militants.
“It’s consistent with what the president talked about in terms of burden-sharing and asking other countries to carry their load,” said one U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the U.S. goals for the meeting ahead of its announcement. “They need to hear that from the new secretary of state,” and know that “this was not on autopilot. He decided to do this.”
The coalition’s future is a question that involves the new politics in Washington and the eroding military power of IS. Diplomats from some of the countries involved have questioned whether the coalition would be disbanded if the extremist group is routed from Raqqa.
One European diplomat said the expected military assault would leave no clear physical battlefield to confront the extremist group, despite the continued humanitarian and political problems in Iraq and Syria.
But U.S. officials said that Mr. Tillerson will stress the importance of keeping the coalition intact and focused on what is likely to be a diffuse but potent extremist threat.
“We expect them to disperse,” but not disappear, one official said.
Another official said that although the upcoming meeting is not a fundraising conference, the coalition aims to raise about $1.5 billion for humanitarian and other efforts in the near term.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a pledge to expand what he called a weak and indecisive fight against the militants in Syria, Iraq and beyond, but his strategy thus far is not markedly different from Mr. Obama’s.
A revised Pentagon plan for Raqqa calls for significant U.S. military participation, including increased Special Operations forces, attack helicopters and artillery, according to U.S. officials. It also would send arms to the main Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighting force on the ground.
A U.S. military official said Thursday that a Kurdish-led force fighting IS with the support of U.S. troops will close in on the extremists’ de facto capital Raqqa within a few weeks.
Meanwhile, Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, told senators Thursday that he will need more conventional U.S. forces to ensure stability once the fight to defeat IS militants in their self-declared capital of Raqqa is over. The U.S. military, he said, can’t just leave once the fight is over because the Syrians will need help keeping IS out and ensuring the peaceful transition to local control.
Gen. Votel’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee came as up to 400 U.S. forces have moved into Syria in recent days. Until recently, the U.S. military presence in Syria was made up of special operations forces advising and assisting the U.S.-backed Syrian troops.
The increase represents a near-doubling of the number of American troops in Syria. Well more than half of those are Marines, bringing in large artillery guns for the Raqqa fight, and the rest are Army Rangers who went into northern Syria to tamp down skirmishes between Turkish and Syrian forces near the border. The numbers have been fluctuating, often on a daily basis, as troops move in and out.
Turkey, a key NATO ally, considers the Syrian Kurdish force, known as the YPG, a terrorist organization. Turkey wants to work with other Syrian opposition fighters known as the Free Syrian Army to liberate Raqqa.
In an unusually pointed message that highlighted Turkey’s frustration, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that his country would fight the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces if they did not withdraw from the town of Manbij and would have “a problem” with Russia if it interfered.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also warned Thursday that the United States will “seriously undermine and damage” relations with its NATO ally if Mr. Trump goes through with the plan to back Kurdish forces in the fight to retake Raqqa.
Earlier on Thursday at least 20 civilians, including some children, were killed in suspected U.S.-coalition airstrikes on a village east of Raqqa, activists said.
In other news, congressional investigators are demanding documents and contacting witnesses in a wide-ranging probe of the Defense Department’s troubled anti-propaganda efforts against IS.
The Associated Press, Tribune News Service, McClatchy Newspapers and The New York Times contributed.
First Published: March 10, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
