Andrei AKULOV 23.01.2016

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told CNBC on January 22 he wants to speed up the battle to defeat the Islamic State.

In an interview with «Squawk Box» at the World Economic Forum, Carter said the United States' active allies in the fight are doing a lot, but can do more.

Specifically, he said he wants to defeat ISIS in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and its home base in Raqqa, Syria.

In two weeks, Carter will meet with a broad group of defense ministers where he said he will press those who are in the fight «on paper» but are not doing enough. The Secretary said the United States would continue to keep boots on the ground. «We're looking for opportunities to do more, and there will be boots on the ground – I want to be clear about that – but it's a strategic question, whether you are enabling local forces to take and hold, rather than trying to substitute for them», as he put it.

Yes, indeed, the plans for ground operation have come into the open. And there is something being done by the US in pure practical terms. The United States has begun construction of an airbase in Kurdish controlled northeast Syria.

Air Force specialists are working to reconstruct and equip a disused facility, reportedly located several kilometers south of the small town of Rimelan in the northeast Syrian province of Hasakah, close to Iraqi Kurdistan.

The area is under control of Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG). Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reports, the runway is planned to be expanded to 2500m in length and 250m in width.

The Syrian Observer reported on January 20: “In a step which is the first of its kind, American helicopters have begun to use the Rimelan airport in the countryside of the Syrian province of Hasakah. Syrian activists recorded the landing of two helicopters on Tuesday, January 19, at the airport, which lies in the province’s northeast, near the border with Iraq and is under the control of the Kurdish ‘self-administration’.”

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