U.S. Marines Move Into Syria to Take ISIS Capital
Hundreds of U.S. marines have been deployed to Syria armed with heavy artillery to help prepare for the battle to take Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital. This is the first time American artillery support has been sent to Syria since the fight against ISIS was launched in 2014.
The force is attached to the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit which The Washington Post reported had left San Diego for Kuwait in October 2016. It then quietly moved into Syria weeks ago to establish an artillery base to support a coalition of militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The Marines have been prepositioning an artillery battery armed with M777 howitzers which, according to Military.com, have the capability to fire 155 mm high-explosive shells with an effective radius of 14 miles as well as global positioning system (GPS) guided Excalibur rounds with a range of 25 miles.
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The movement is seen as part of a new effort to accelerate the fight against ISIS in line with the Trump administration's goal to defeat the militants. The president is considering sending 1,000 troops to Kuwait after Pentagon leaders presented him with a new strategy to fight the terror group late last month.
Army officials hailed the move for being a departure from the Obama administration's standard practice of micromanaging operations. Aside from contending with limited deployments, ground commanders had to secure White House approval even for the tiniest tactical details.
Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, complained to CBS News that his troops "don't have as good mobility, they don't have as much firepower, so we have to be prepared to fill in some of those gaps for them and that may involve additional fire support capability, a variety of other things that we bring in to help offset some of the gaps that they have and we take the burden on ourselves for that aspect of the fight."
