U.S. Special Forces By Themselves Will Not Be Able To Defeat The Islamic State

Sean Naylor, Wall Street Journal: Fighting ISIS With Only the Tip of the Spear

U.S. special-ops forces are back in Iraq, but they can’t win the war on Islamic State by themselves.

On Thursday, U.S. troops suffered their first fatality in Iraq since 2011. A special operator, whose name was not immediately released, was killed during a shared mission with Kurdish fighters that liberated prisoners held in northern Iraq by Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Details of the raid were initially scarce, but it reportedly involved the Army’s Delta Force—part of the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command, which is leading the U.S. fight against Islamic State.

Direct combat operations have become rare, but since airstrikes began in August 2014, the U.S. has dropped thousands of bombs on ISIS. Although the effort has had seemingly little effect on the territory it controls, the campaign to take out top leaders has met with some success: The terrorist group’s second in command, Haji Mutazz, was killed by a drone strike in Iraq on Aug. 18.

WNU Editor: A good summary and analysis on the limits and benefits of U.S. Special Operations against the Islamic State.