Pentagon providing Israel urban combat advisers as ground assault looms

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has sent military advisers, including a Marine Corps general versed in urban warfare, to Israel to aid in its war planning and is speeding multiple sophisticated air defense systems to the Middle East days ahead of an anticipated ground assault into Gaza.

One of the officers leading the assistance is Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn, who previously helped lead special operations forces against the Islamic State and served in Fallujah, Iraq, during some of the most heated urban combat there, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss Glynn’s role and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Glynn will also be advising on how to mitigate civilian casualties in urban warfare, the official said.

Israel is preparing a large-scale ground operation in an environment in which Hamas terrorists have had years to prepare tunnel networks and set traps throughout northern Gaza’s dense urban blocks. Glynn and the other military officers who are advising Israel “have experience that is appropriate to the sorts of operations that Israel is conducting,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday. The advisers will not be engaged in the fighting, the unidentified U.S. official said.

The military team is one of many fast-moving pieces the Pentagon is getting in place to try and prevent the already intense conflict between Israel and Hamas from becoming a wider war. It also is trying to protect U.S. personnel, who in the last few days have come under repeated attacks that the Pentagon has said were likely endorsed by Iran.

Kirby said Iran was “in some cases actively facilitating these attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict for their own good, or for that of Iran. We know that Iran’s goal is to maintain some level of deniability here. But were not going to allow them to do that.”

Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, has vowed to destroy Israel and backs the terrorist networks of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Monday, the U.S. military garrison at an-Tanf, Syria, came under attack again, this time by two drones. The drones were shot down and no injuries were reported. It was the latest episode of more than a half-dozen times in the last week that U.S. military locations in the Middle East had come under rocket or drone attack since a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital.

Last Thursday the destroyer USS Carney shot down four land-attack cruise missiles launched from Yemen that the Pentagon has said were potentially headed toward Israel.

In response, over the weekend the Pentagon announced it was sending multiple Patriot missile defense system battalions and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to the Middle East, as well as repositioning the Eisenhower strike group to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. The ship had previously been en route to the Eastern Mediterranean.

The shift means that the Navy will have a carrier strike group off the shore of Israel — the Ford carrier strike group — and another, the Eisenhower, potentially maneuvered to defend U.S. forces and Israel from the Red Sea or the Gulf of Oman.

“We’re going to continue to do what we need to do to protect and safeguard our forces and take all necessary measures,” Ryder said. “No one wants to see a wider regional conflict. But we will not hesitate to protect our forces.”

Glynn’s assignment to Israel was first reported by Axios.