NEW YORK – US President Barack Obama has laid out plans to defeat Islamic State (IS) militants by extending US airstrikes from Iraq to Syria and bolstering the forces of Kurds, Iraqis and moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.
“We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy,” Obama said in a primetime address on Wednesday. “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.
“This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”
Obama said he would send an extra 475 servicemen to Iraq in an effort to defeat IS – an extremist group that is also known as ISIS and ISIL, and has imposed a caliphate of centuries-old religious laws across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
“These American forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment,” Obama said.
Attacking IS in Syria is awkward for the White House, stoking concerns that it would bolster Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of atrocities against civilians during a three-and-a-half year uprising against his rule.
“We cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people,” Obama said. “We must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.”
This month, the president will chair a UN Security Council meeting to toughen global efforts against the extremists, by sharing intelligence, cutting its funding, stopping the flow of foreign fighters and countering its “warped ideology”, he said.
The president spoke on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which precipitated former president George W Bush’s War On Terror, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the country’s descent into sectarian chaos.
He was elected in 2008 by a war-weary US public with a pledge to extricate the US from Iraq. Polls now suggest that Americans are ever-more worried about Muslim fanatics, while Obama is depicted as a dithering dove by Washington hard-liners.
A Pew Research Center study on Wednesday found 62 per cent of Americans are anxious about the rise of Islamic extremism globally, while 42 per cent say the US government fares poorly in reducing the terror threat, up 16 points from November.
Anti-IS feeling hardened after the release of videos showing a British-accented IS militiaman beheading the American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley as well as gruesome executions of captured Kurdish troops.
Western leaders are troubled by the 12,000 foreign fighters who have travelled to Syria these past three years – including more than 1,000 Europeans and more than 100 Americans who could acquire terrorism training on their combat vacations.
Estimates of IS troops vary from 10,000 to 50,000 and it controls an area that could be as large as Jordan, exercising influence across a population as large as 8 million – mostly Sunni Muslims, who complain they have been marginalised by Damascus and Baghdad.
“It has the elements of both a terrorist organization and an insurgent army,” said Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security. “It kills innocent civilians, and has seized large amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria, which it can utilize for safe haven, training, command and control, and from which it can launch attacks.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Saudi Arabia on Thursday in a bid to bring Sunni Arab nations more firmly into a coalition that is dominated by Western NATO members and the national forces and Shia militias under Baghdad’s control.
“ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way,” Obama said. “In a region that has known so much bloodshed, these terrorists are unique in their brutality. They execute captured prisoners. They kill children. They enslave, rape, and force women into marriage. They threatened a religious minority with genocide.”
According to the Pentagon, the US already has 1,043 military personnel in Iraq, in diplomatic posts and operation centres in Baghdad and Irbil. Since August, it has launched 154 airstrikes at Mosul Dam, Irbil, Haditha, Sinjar (Shingal) and Amerli, hitting 162 IS vehicles, 29 facilities and 21 weapons systems.
In Baghdad, Kerry pledged almost $37 million for civilians in war-ravaged Iraq and a further $11 million for those who have fled to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, announced a September 11-14 visit to Iraq.
