Defense Secretary Ashton Carter met with Iraqi Kurds to discuss countering ISIS. Photo: DoD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter held talks Friday with Iraqi Kurdish leaders in their regional capital of Irbil, seeking insights to their military successes against the Islamic State.

Afterward he told U.S. and coalition troops that the Kurdish armed forces, known as the peshmerga, are “the model of what we are trying to achieve” with a strategy of enabling capable and motivated local forces in northern and western Iraq to take the ground combat lead.

Read full story at the Associated Press.