The United States and its allies have formed a coalition to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Obama administration said on Friday, finally unveiling the strategy against the militants that critics said are long overdue.
In a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Newport, Wales, diplomats and defense officials from the U.S. and nine other countries–Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark, agreed on what they called a two-pronged strategy: bolster allies on the ground in Iraq and Syria, and attack Sunni militants from the air, The New York Times reported.
The end goal is to destroy the Sunni extremists, also known as ISIL, not to contain it, Secretary of State John Kerry said.
“There is no containment policy for ISIL,” Kerry said. “They’re an ambitious, avowed, genocidal, territorial-grabbing, caliphate-desiring quasi state with an irregular army, and leaving them in some capacity intact anywhere would leave a cancer in place that will ultimately come back to haunt us.”
However, he and other officials made it clear that no foreign troops would be deployed on the ground–forces would come from the Kurdish military in northern Iraq and moderate rebel forces against President Bashar al-Assad.
[quote text_size=”small” author=”–Sec. John Kerry” author_title=”Secretary of State”]
Obviously I think that’s a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground,
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According to the secretary, the alliance will come up with a more detailed strategy within two weeks by the time the United Nations Security Council meets, TIME reported.
