Voice Of Post

New attack pressures Congress to act on IS, A brazen suicide attack by Islamic State fighters yesterday on an air base in Iraq where U.S. and coalition troops are training will put pressure on Congress to quickly approve President Obama’s war authorization request, a terrorism analyst says.

“It shows that there are some issues with the present policy not being quite robust enough to really drive these guys back and out of Iraq,” said Steven P. Bucci, a former Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official. “It should motivate us to double our efforts, increase the airstrikes and make that call to include special operators on the ground.”

An estimated 20 to 25 Islamic State militants were involved in the attack on al-Asad air base in Iraq’s Anbar province, said Pentagon spokesman and Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby. Most of the Islamic State fighters died in the attack, he said, killed either by Iraqi government forces or by detonating their suicide vests.

“Early indications are that yes, some of them did detonate their vests, detonate themselves,” Kirby said. “And then they were followed by roughly something on the order of 15 or so other fighters.”

It appeared that most, if not all, of the militants were wearing Iraqi uniforms, Kirby said.

No Iraqi or U.S. troops were killed or wounded in the attack, Kirby said, and no U.S. troops were involved in the gunfight.

“These special operators the president is requesting are our professionals who do their job with allied forces, which is what they’re designed to do,” Bucci told the Herald. “I think we should let them do it — because it will help and it will go a long way toward keeping all of these 18- and 19-year-old American kids out of the fight.”

U.S. unmanned surveillance aircraft and Army Apache attack helicopters were sent to the scene from Baghdad, but the attack was over before they arrived, so they did not engage in fighting, Col. Steven Warren said.