MESOP TOP OF THE AGENDA : COALITION DEFENSE CHIEFS DISCUSS CHALLENGES OF ISIS / PLUS COMMENTARIES BY BBC / CFR / NYT / AFP / AP & MORE
Representatives from more than thirty countries are in Washington to discuss contingency plans in the event that the self-proclaimed Islamic State strongholds of Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, fall in the coming months (NYT). U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that the biggest concern was that governance and stabilization efforts would lag behind the military campaign (AP). French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said his country would increase support to Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces and strengthen its cooperation (Medill) with the United States. UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said he would double UK troops in Iraq to five hundred (BBC). Meanwhile in Syria, U.S.-backed rebels issued an ultimatum for Islamic State fighters to leave the city of Manbij in forty-eight hours (AFP), and the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition called for a suspension of the U.S. anti-Islamic State bombing campaign following reports of dozens of civilian deaths around Manbij (Reuters). |
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