US military action in Iraq has a better chance of success than the last war there because American troops are playing a supporting role to local forces from the start, top officer General Martin Dempsey said Wednesday.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also voiced cautious optimism that Iraqi forces were gaining strength and predicted they would make progress on the battlefield in the coming months against the Islamic State group.

Asked at a Washington conference why Americans should expect the latest US intervention in Iraq to go better this time, Dempsey said "we think we're taking a different approach."

"Instead of grabbing a hold of it, owning it and then gradually transitioning it back, we're telling them from the start, look, that is about you, this has to be your campaign plan," the general said at a conference organized by the Defense One website.

As an example, Dempsey cited an episode that played out during his recent visit to Iraq over the weekend.

The Iraqi army asked for US assistance to parachute supplies to about 1,300 Kurdish forces on Mount Sinjar in the country's north, he said. But the American commander in Baghdad pointed out that the Iraqis had a C-130J cargo plane and trained pilots that were capable of carrying out the mission.

"As this unwound, what the commander on the ground ... said was, 'We'll provide you with the expertise for what you don't have, but you have what you need to accomplish this mission,'" Dempsey said.

"And so the only thing we provided at that point was the expertise to actually rig the parachute extraction system that would do the air drop."

The outcome reflected the difference in the US approach compared to the 2003 US invasion and the occupation that followed, he said.

"So they do what they can do, and we fill in the gaps and continue to build their capability," said Dempsey, who led troops in Iraq in the previous conflict.

- 'Some tactical success' -

President Barack Obama has ruled out a large US ground force in Iraq but has backed air raids against the IS group and sent in hundreds of military advisers to help Iraqi forces.

US-trained Iraqi army units suffered humiliating defeats earlier this year when they were overrun by Islamic State jihadists in the west and north, but Dempsey said Baghdad's forces had been shored up and new commanders were being named.

Iraqi troops are "having some tactical success" and are "pushing the defensive belt around Baghdad out," he said.

"They are doing much better. But they've still got, as I said, some deep structural vulnerabilities that we, but mostly they, have to overcome."

He warned that it was important that "their enthusiasm doesn't overshadow their capability at this point."

With US and coalition assistance, "I think there will continue to be progress on the ground" over the next few months, the general added.

UN chief urges action to tackle violent extremism
United Nations, United States (AFP) Nov 19, 2014 - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday cautioned against tackling violent Islamic extremism through military means alone and urged governments to avoid counter-terrorism responses that could lead to rights abuses.

Ban told a special Security Council meeting on counter-terrorism that the United Nations was looking at ways to address violent extremism by working with communities "at the grassroots level."

"We must continue to think more deeply into the fundamental conditions that allow extremism to thrive. Looking at these challenges solely through a military lens has shown its limits," the secretary-general told the 15-member council.

He warned against targeting Muslim communities in the name of counter-terrorism and said "such abuses are not only immoral, they are counter-productive."

The council was meeting to follow up on a resolution adopted in August aimed at choking off the flow of foreign fighters and financing to Islamist groups who now control vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop chaired the meeting to ramp up international efforts to confront the threat from the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and from the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch.

Bishop said the jihadists' "hateful ideologies are an affront to the values of the United Nations" and called for the appointment of a UN envoy to build a "coordinated and strategic message" to counter the spread of violent extremism.

The envoy would provide guidance to governments worldwide and help them develop the capacity to counter Islamic extremists who make savvy use of social media and other digital platforms.

Diplomats said the appointment was being discussed but that some countries had reservations over the mandate of the envoy, who would focus primarily on hotbeds of radical Islam.

In a unanimous statement, the council stressed the need "to improve the visibility and effectiveness of the UN's role in countering the spread of violent extremist ideologies that are conducive to terrorism."