Defense officials on Thursday (January 14) said to brace for more attacks, like the one in Indonesia claimed by Islamic State, as the organization was looking to distract from setbacks on the battlefield.
The officials made the comments at a news conference at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, where Defense Secretary Ash Carter also confirmed a navigational error caused sailors to stray into Iranian waters where they were detained.
An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed, along with five attackers, while 20 people, including a Dutchman, were wounded in the Jakarta attack. Two of the militants were taken alive, police said.
Carter said the attack justified increasing the pressure on Islamic State at the organization’s heart.
“The metastasis of ISIL is a global concern. And the countries, including Indonesia, have expressed that to me personally. And that tells us a couple of things about our campaign that are that are essential. One is that we have to go after the metastases, and that means working with governments like that of Indonesia, but it also tells you that job one has to be to destroy ISIL in Iraq and Syria, that’s not sufficient…But it is necessary, because it’s necessary to show that this movement has no future,” Carter told reporters.
Central Command leader General Lloyd Austin predicted more attacks as local forces and U.S. advisers and special operations personnel were gaining ground back from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“All together our different efforts targeting ISIL forces, targeting his leadership, targeting his infrastructure, his gas and oil production and distribution capabilities, his economic infrastructure, and the various sources of revenue – all together these efforts translate into devastating effects on the enemy,” Austin said.
“Indeed ISIL has assumed a defensive posture in Iraq and Syria, and going forward we can expect to see him rely increasingly on acts of terrorism such as we saw this week in Baghdad and in Turkey and most recently in Jakarta. We can expect to see more of this type of activity in part because ISIL wants to draw attention away from the growing number of setbacks that he is experiencing,” he added.
The 10 U.S. sailors briefly held by Iran before being released on Wednesday (January 13) made a navigational mistake that led them into Iranian waters but did not communicate that to Navy commanders before being intercepted, Carter said.
“This much is clear: there was a navigational error of some kind. All the contributing factors to that we don’t know yet, and we’re still talking to those folks. And we’ll find out more what combination of factors led to that navigational error, but they were clearly out of the position that they intended to be in,” he said of the sailors, who were flown on Wednesday to a U.S. military facility in Qatar after Iran released them along with their two riverine boats.
Carter’s comments were the most detailed so far from American officials on the incident, which rattled nerves just before the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. But the defense secretary would not comment on whether televised video of the sailors’ capture violated the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners.
“Well, obviously I don’t like to see our people being detained by a foreign military. I’m very glad they’re released; I’m very glad they’re safe. What we don’t know is the full context. Remember what you’re looking through in those is a is the lens of the Iranian media. So I think we need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on and what the overall context is before we can really know,” Carter said.
In an interview with Fusion Television, Carter denied the sailors were on a covert mission, saying that “they were simply transiting from one place to another.”
Still, many questions about the incident remained unanswered, including what precisely led the sailors off-course and how they did not realize they were in danger before being detained by Iran. (Reuters)