President Barack Obama’s strategy for combating Islamic State militants will likely be a major focus Wednesday as his defense secretary and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff go before a panel of lawmakers in Washington to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

Defense chief Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey are scheduled to testify at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee a week after Obama announced plans to send more U.S. forces to advise and assist Iraqi troops.

The 450 troops will be based in Anbar province as part of an effort to bolster an Iraqi push to retake the provincial capital of Ramadi and other areas from the Islamic State group.

The president has resisted critics’ calls to add U.S. ground forces to the fight, relying instead on a campaign of more than 4,500 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria during the past 10 months.

The Pentagon, in its latest report of coalition airstrikes, said Tuesday that warplanes targeted Tal Abyad in northern Syria where Kurdish forces claimed full control after launching an offensive last week to capture the key border town from Islamic State fighters.

Taking Tal Abyad cuts off what is believed to be an entry point for new militants and supplies from Turkey on a route that links with the de facto Islamic State capital of Raqqa.

The Pentagon said the town remained contested, but that anti-Islamic State forces were “on the verge” of closing the border crossing.
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