Retaking territory held by Islamic State militants (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria is a necessary first step to the group’s ultimate defeat, though the multi-national coalition fighting the terrorists is widening its approach beyond military confrontation, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said July 25.

“The defeat and destruction of ISIL in Iraq and Syria is necessary…because we need to destroy the idea and the fact that there can be a state based upon this ideology,” Carter said.

Iraqi security forces and other U.S.-trained and equipped local forces are marshaling to assault and recapture the ISIL strongholds of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul in Iraq. Expelling the extremists from its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa holds greater significance than a military victory, Carter said. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq and therefore is a powerful symbolic objective for the Iraqi security forces to retake.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter takes a moment to speak with Marines following a room clearing demonstration during a visit to Camp Pendleton Calif., Aug. 27, 2015. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz
Defense Secretary Ash Carter takes a moment to speak with Marines following a room clearing demonstration during a visit to Camp Pendleton Calif., Aug. 27, 2015. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz

The U.S. military and its coalition partners are constantly considering ways to expand the counter-ISIL campaign and hasten the group’s military defeat at its heart. Potential expansions include more airstrikes and a possible detente with Russia if that nation will agree to ground the Syrian air force and exclusively target ISIL forces.

“We are looking for ways of identifying new targets based on new intelligence, so the air campaign – which has been going on for quite some time – is constantly expanding,” Carter said. “We’re looking for more opportunities to train, equip and enable capable, motivated forces like we have in Iraq. … We are looking for more opportunities and more contributions in the area of reconstruction and stabilization to make sure that the territory, once it is taken from ISIL, is secured and governed and the people have their lives back and those are prosperous lives.”

Carter will visit Fort Bragg in North Carolina this week to speak with soldiers in the 18th Airborne Corps who are about to deploy to Iraq as part of a 560-troop increase in U.S. military contribution to the fight. Carter did not rule out a further expansion of forces, though any increase in coalition personnel or material support to Iraq must be approved by that country’s government.

Once the military campaign to retake Mosul and Raqqa is complete, focus will shift to help with stabilizing and rebuilding the ravaged cities. The military and messaging campaign against ISIL and its ideology will also then shift from the Middle East to the rest of the world, to where the group’s radical beliefs are spreading.

“Outside of Iraq and Syria, we continue to combat ISIL,” he said. “And then, of course, even though we are in a support role here at home, I know that our intelligence and law enforcement and homeland security officials are also trying to identify opportunities to do more.”

I think we want to hasten and accelerate the defeat of ISIL,” he said. “I’m sure that will occur on all of those fronts but we’re trying to identify ways to do that.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford described three quantifiable measures of ISIL’s defeat: recapture of territory, loss of resources and weakening its freedom of movement for personnel, equipment and weapons.

“Those would be the three areas I would look to this year and our campaign is designed to deny the enemy sanctuary, to take back the territory they currently hold,” Dunford said. “That will have an impact on their resources because many of their resources come from taxing people within the territory they hold.”