US Defense Secretary Mattis to Tackle ISIS With Middle East Leaders
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, April 18, as part of his first official trip to the Middle East and Africa where he is expected to articulate President Donald Trump's policy toward Syria and on the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
According to the Defense Department, the purpose of the trip is to reaffirm key U.S. military alliances, engage with strategic partners in the Middle East and Africa and discuss cooperative efforts to counter destabilizing activities and defeat extremist terror organizations.
U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake the ISIS strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. If successful, one of the main concerns is whether the United States has a plan to prevent these areas from succumbing to a new generation of extremism as what happened in parts of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Mattis may likely ask member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to expand their roles in stabilizing Iraq and Syria after these are retaken from ISIS as well as the possibility of establishing safe zones for civilians to set in place a good environment to begin reconstruction.
Trump has given military commanders broader latitude to act independently on several battlefields where U.S. forces are involved. In the past two weeks, he has ordered missile strikes against Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack and dropped America's largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan.
Mattis will crisscross the region during the weeklong tour that will take him to Egypt, Qatar, Israel and Djibouti.
"Particularly with the Saudis and the Israelis, part of the discussion will be clarifying for them what our strategy is towards Syria in light of the strike," said Christine Wormuth, a former number three at the Pentagon.
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi might seek more support for fighting ISIS.
"They would also like more American support in fighting terrorism in the Sinai peninsula," said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
