“What does that mean?”, President Obama, mocking the Republican nominee, said to a reporter who asked about Donald Trump’s claims, during a press conference at the Pentagon Thursday afternoon.
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Obama said that ISIS has been losing ground in both Iraq and Syria. They have taken key territory from ISIL and are preparing campaigns against ISIL in Mosul. Obama lauded “patriotic Muslim Americans” who fight in the US armed forces.
Still, nothing can be certain or foolproof, the president said.
“As we have seen, it is hard to prevent small cells of terrorists willing to kill the innocent and (who) are willing to die”, he said.
USA military forces stand guard during a visit by Kabul’s officials in the governor’s compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 4, 2016.
“We continue to take out senior ISIL leaders and commanders”.
The President, who has been accused by critics of not doing enough to stop the splintering of Syria amid a vicious civil war, indicated that he was always searching for a better policy.
“We are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS, and we’re going to defeat them fast”, Trump said in his speech accepting the Republican nomination. “Which is why we have to test whether or not we can get an actual cessation of hostilities”.
He says as the jihadist group loses ground in the Middle East, there are signs that it is shifting to attacks overseas.
Iran released the five detainees on January 16 after the United States had agreed to grant clemency to seven Iranians held mostly for sanctions violations and drop charges against 14 Iranians overseas. “But we don’t know what we don’t know, and so it’s conceivable that there are some networks here that could be activated”.
Obama, in his last planned public appearance before his annual vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, said he had never heard of anyone complaining that they had been cheated before the score had been tallied.
Obama underlined that IS “has not had a major successful offensive operation in either Syria or Iraq in a full year”. “They will inevitably be defeated”.
Obama said he was confident that the Islamic State would continue to lose territory as Iraqi and Syrian forces, backed by American air power, close in on Mosul, Raqqa and strongholds near the Turkish border.
“They will lose them”.
He said that Washington will keep hitting the militant group until it?s pushed back. Obama said Thursday that negotiations are critical in achieving a political solution in Syria, and speed the demise of the Islamic State group there.
A plan is in place for the “day after” ISIL is gone, the president said.
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.
WASHINGTON-Violations of the cease-fire the USA and Russian Federation brokered in Syria have grown to the point where the deal only barely exists, President Barack Obama said Thursday, suggesting the violence could scuttle a proposal for the U.S.to increase cooperation with Russian Federation in the conflict.
Eyeing a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo – the besieged northwestern city of 250,000 people that was once Syria’s commercial hub – Obama said it was “time for Russian Federation to show that it is serious” about bringing peace.
ISIL has raised its hateful flag in other areas, the president said.
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Earlier this week, the United States announced that it launched a series of air strikes on IS strongholds in and around the city of Sirte in Libya at the request of the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).
