"Because we are accelerating the [anti-Daesh] campaign, DOD is backing that up and we need to back it up in our budget with a total of $7.5 billion in 2017, fifty percent more than in 2016," Carter said at the Economic Club in Washington, DC. "This will be critical as our updated coalition military campaign plan kicks in."
On Monday, commander of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State, Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, noted that there is a "good potential" for the need of additional capabilities in the fight against IS militants currently controlling parts of Syria and Iraq, where the the extremists have declared a caliphate on the territories under their control.
A US-led coalition of some 65 nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria since September 2014, but without the approval of the Syrian government or the UN Security Council.
The group is outlawed in Russia and the United States and is considered to be one of the main threats to global security.
