Ashton Carter made his first visit to Iraq as U.S. defense secretary Thursday to review the military offensive against Islamic State extremists, including a plan to retake the town of Ramadi.

After arriving in Baghdad, the Pentagon chief was scheduled to meet with top Iraqi officials, U.S. troops and Sunni tribal leaders for what he told reporters would be an “on-the-ground assessment” of the effort to defeat Islamic State.

A year after the fall of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and Islamic State’s declaration of a caliphate across parts of Iraq and Syria, the radical Sunni group has proven resilient when confronted by Iraqi ground forces and U.S.-led airstrikes. In May, militants captured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.

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