US President Barack said on Thursday it was “inevitable” that the so-called Islamic State’s (IS) in Iraq and Syria would be defeated providing Russian Federation showed that it was “serious” about supporting an end to the Syrian conflict. “The possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real”.
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President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference after attending a National Security Council Meeting on efforts to counter the Islamic State, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2016, at the Pentagon in Washington.
Without using Trump’s name, Obama said that only “bad decisions” made by the USA would prevent a defeat of Isis that he portrayed as inevitable. If they want to be president they have got to start acting like (a) president.
“They’ve seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller-scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles”, Obama said. “The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions, and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran, that we couldn’t send them a check, and we could not wire the money”, he added.
The twin US goals in Syria have been to end the violence that has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and to seek a political process to replace Assad, whom Obama has said “must go”.
But serious challenges remain in the fight against Islamic State, which the president two years ago this month announced was beginning. “And we’re going to keep working with partners.to expose [the Islamic State group] for what they are: murderers who kill innocent people”.
Speaking to reporters after his meeting with security and military officials, Obama acknowledged that pressure against the group has prompted the militants to increase attacks outside Syria and Iraq, including in the US, France and Turkey. And we’ll keep hitting them and pushing them back and driving them out until they do.In other words ISIL turns out not to be invincible.
In a strong message to Russia, Obama said the country’s direct involvement in these actions over the last several weeks raises very serious questions about their commitment to pulling the situation back from the brink.
Following an hours-long meeting of his National Security Council at the Pentagon on Thursday, the United States president said Trump’s broad-brush rhetorical attacks on Muslims worldwide, his enthusiasm for “bomb [ing] the shit” out of Isis and his proposed ban on Muslim immigration would “backfire”. And he said: “We’re taking this extremely seriously”.
The U.S. needs to see restraint on the part of the Russia-backed Syrian government before Washington embarks on any cooperation with Moscow beyond rudimentary deconfliction between military operations, Mr. Obama said during a press conference at the Pentagon.
Despite the massive effort, the jihadists still hold Mosul – Iraq’s second-largest city – and the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The strikes came at the request of Libya’s Western-backed unity government as its forces battled to reclaim the Mediterranean coastal city, which became an important Islamic State stronghold after militants seized it previous year.
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He accused Russian Federation of failing to take the necessary steps to do that, though, adding that deteriorating conditions make it imperative for Russian Federation to show it is serious.
