UPDATE - Turkey joins international anti-Daesh meeting in UK

UPDATES WITH QUOTES FROM US DEFENSE SECRETARY

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) - Additional 200 U.S. troops will be deployed to Syria to boost the capacity of local forces trying to oust Daesh from its stronghold in the Syrian city of Raqqa, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said Thursday.

Speaking at the opening of an international meeting of defense chiefs in London, Carter said the additional troops will “generate additional capable, motivated, local forces to seize and ultimately hold [the Daesh stronghold in Syria’s] Raqqa, they will also continue working with our Turkish allies, both on this effort and to secure the border region in northern Syria.”

He said the 200 troops would be joining the 300 others already present in the region.

Fourteen nations are represented at the meeting in London; Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik is also attending on behalf of Turkey.

Thanking Isik and Iraqi Chief of Staff Gen. Othman al-Ghanimi participation in the meeting, Carter termed the coalition’s campaign in the region as a success.

“Today, we meet having reached a critical milestone in the campaign, as our forces are engaged in an intense effort to help isolate and collapse ISIL's [Daesh's] control over both Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria - the first, primary objective of our campaign,” Carter said.

"Indeed, we must and are combatting ISIL - the ISIL cancer's metastases everywhere they emerge around world, which is the second objective of our campaign," he added.

Speaking in the U.K. on Wednesday, Isik said: “The struggle against Daesh is a duty of Muslims.” He called the terrorist organization as “the worst enemy of Muslims”.

Isik is expected to hold a one-on-one meeting on Thursday with British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon and Carter.

Billed as an attempt to deepen cooperation among anti-Daesh forces, a U.K. government statement released earlier said the meeting would concentrate on developments in eastern Mosul and Raqqa.

It said British warplanes had destroyed Daesh positions around Mosul as Iraqi government forces continued to advance in the east of the city. The U.K. government said it had contributed to efforts to open a second front in Raqqa, Daesh’s so-called “capital”.

Earlier, Fallon said the U.K. was playing a leading role in the fight against Daesh.

“In 2017, we must maintain momentum to deal these terrorists a decisive blow,” he added.

Carter agreed, saying: “In addition to putting ISIL on the path to a lasting defeat, we'll need to continue to counter not only the foreign fighters trying to escape ISIL, but also ISIL's attempts to relocate or to reinvent itself.

“Destroying ISIL's parent tumor in Iraq and Syria and combatting its metastases are critical to destroying both the fact and the idea that there can be an Islamic state based on ISIL's barbaric ideology. But more immediately - and Michael made this point very well, it's also critical - doing so is also critical to stopping plots against our homelands and our people, which is the third and really the most important objective, for our people, of our campaign.”

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN. The Syrian Center for Policy Research, however, put the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.

Meanwhile, Iraq has suffered a devastating security vacuum since mid-2014, when Daesh captured the northern city of Mosul and overran large swathes of territory in the northern and western parts of the country.

According to the UN, more than 3.4 million people are now displaced in Iraq -- more than half of them children -- while more than 10 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.