Oil is the name of game in Iraq _January 31 2016

In a surprise move, the United States has announced that it will deploy a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to combat the Islamic State (IS) terror group which has seized swathes of the country and neighbouring Syria.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter wrote in the US publication Politico last week that soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division would soon deploy to Iraq to join the fight against IS “with a clear campaign plan to deliver the barbaric organisation a lasting defeat.”

Though Carter did not give details about the deployment, he said the troop mission was to destroy the IS “parent tumour in Iraq and Syria by collapsing its two power centres in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria.”

“Our campaign is to deliver IS a lasting defeat,” Carter wrote.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said “the government of Iraq was of course briefed in advance of secretary Carter’s announcement” and the two sides would work out details about the new deployment.

Joseph F Dunford Jr, the US top military officer, also said discussions between Washington and Baghdad had begun on how American forces would “integrate” with Iraqi military units to take back Mosul.

The move is a sharp departure from US President Barack Obama’s previous strategy that the US would not deploy “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria and would continue instead its current air campaign and military assistance to the Iraqi government.

Baghdad has not yet made it clear if it had agreed to let the US troops into Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has repeatedly said foreign ground combat troops are not needed in Iraq. Leaders of the country’s Shia groups have warned that they will consider such a presence a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

If the statements by top American officials are any indication, the United States is now gearing up for war with IS, including in the battle for Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city which was captured by the terror group in spring 2014.

Analysts believe that the US-led coalition against IS needs to take back Mosul where Saddam's Hussein sons Uday and Qusay were captured and killed back in 2003, a sprawling city of more than two million people, and the US military shift signals Washington’s readiness to engage IS strongholds with ground combat operations.

Iran's Fast Attack Small Boats

Iran Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy said the speedboats manufactured in Iran can sail at a much higher speed than the US vessels.

"Our fast attack craft fleet is often twice as fast as their American rivals. The plan is to make them go even faster,” Navy Spokesperson told the state-run TV

Referring to the US official remarks that Washington is aware of the scope of IRGC's missile tunnels and vessels along the Iranian coasts, he said, "The Americans don’t know everything about us and the things they know is what we, ourselves, have shown and wanted them to know it."

"Their unknown is twice the realm of their known," he added.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and systems.

Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.

Iran Navy announced back in May that plans to mass-produce missile launching speedboats with the speed of 80 knots per hour are on the menu.

"Based on the fifth five-year (development) plan, we should materialize our objective of mass-producing military speedboats with the speed of 80 knots per hour. This is a formidable speed in the world's navies," Iran Navy said.

"Therefore, we should try to mass-produce speedboats that can traverse at the speed of 80 knots (per hour) and are equipped with missiles with a range of 100km; the vessels no one can catch," the IRGC commander added.

Commander also said that the IRGC Navy is equipped with laboratories and pools in which the country's experts can design and test speedboats with the speed of 120 knots per hour.