GCC denies air caign against IS has failed

(MENAFN- Arab News) DOHA: The GCC on Sunday rejected claims a US-led coalition air campaign against the Islamic State group has failed following advances by extremists in Syria and Iraq.
Speaking in Doha after a meeting between foreign ministers of the GCC and European Union Khalid Al-Attiyah Qatar's foreign minister conceded that military action alone was not enough.
'The coalition is not failing but the air campaign is not enough' Al-Attiyah who was representing GCC countries at the meeting said. 'There are so many steps which we have to cooperate and coordinate together. To date the campaign against terror is effective. 'One of them is to enhance and expedite the dialogue in Iraq and in Syria it is to find a way out to save the Syrian people because they have been put between the tyranny of the regime and the brutality of the terrorist' he said.
Meanwhile Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said that Iraqi forces 'failed to fight' in Ramadi which has fallen to Islamic State militants and said the troops lacked the will to defend themselves.
Carter said the city fell to the militants because Iraqi forces despite strength in numbers did not have the will to fight.
'What apparently happened was the Iraqi forces showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered and they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and they failed to fight and withdrew from the site' Carter told CNN.
Carter said training and equipping the army was of little use if the troops lacked necessary morale. 'We can give them training and we can give them equipment and we can't obviously give them the will to fight' he said.