The Times of India :
US President Barack Obama on Thursday said that while the United States is sending more forces to combat Islamic State in Iraq, it is not following the model of its 2003 invasion of the country that locked it in violent conflict there for many years.
“We’re not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert,” he said in an interview with CBS, using a common acronym for the militant group, ISIL.
“But what I’ve been very clear about is that we are going to systematically squeeze and ultimately destroy ISIL and that requires us having a military component to that.”
In a policy reversal, the United States on October 30 said it would deploy up to 50 US special forces to Syria to coordinate on the ground with US-backed rebels.
Earlier, a coalition led by the United States bombarded Islamic State in Syria with 14 air strikes, and also hit the militant group in Iraq with 18 strikes, according to a statement on Thursday.
The Syria strikes were spread across the country with the most, six, near Dayr Az Zawr, where they hit three oil field well heads. Three strikes near Abu Kamal also hit well heads, the Combined Joint Task Force said in the statement.
Britain joined air strikes on Syria on Thursday in a show of European solidarity against Islamic State, but Vladimir Putin issued bitter new denunciations of Turkey for shooting down a Russian plane, demonstrating the world’s lack of unity.
British Tornado jets took off from the Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus before dawn on Thursday, hours after the British parliament voted 397-223 to support Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to extend air strikes from Iraq to Syria. Britain said they struck oil fields used to fund Islamic State.
Most of the world’s powers are now flying combat missions over Iraq and Syria against Islamic State. But any consensus on how to proceed has been thwarted by opposing policies towards the 4-year-old civil war in Syria, which has killed 250,000 people, driven 11 million from their homes, left swathes of territory in the hands of jihadist fighters and defied all diplomatic efforts at a solution.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday said that while the United States is sending more forces to combat Islamic State in Iraq, it is not following the model of its 2003 invasion of the country that locked it in violent conflict there for many years.
“We’re not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert,” he said in an interview with CBS, using a common acronym for the militant group, ISIL.
“But what I’ve been very clear about is that we are going to systematically squeeze and ultimately destroy ISIL and that requires us having a military component to that.”
In a policy reversal, the United States on October 30 said it would deploy up to 50 US special forces to Syria to coordinate on the ground with US-backed rebels.
Earlier, a coalition led by the United States bombarded Islamic State in Syria with 14 air strikes, and also hit the militant group in Iraq with 18 strikes, according to a statement on Thursday.
The Syria strikes were spread across the country with the most, six, near Dayr Az Zawr, where they hit three oil field well heads. Three strikes near Abu Kamal also hit well heads, the Combined Joint Task Force said in the statement.
Britain joined air strikes on Syria on Thursday in a show of European solidarity against Islamic State, but Vladimir Putin issued bitter new denunciations of Turkey for shooting down a Russian plane, demonstrating the world’s lack of unity.
British Tornado jets took off from the Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus before dawn on Thursday, hours after the British parliament voted 397-223 to support Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan to extend air strikes from Iraq to Syria. Britain said they struck oil fields used to fund Islamic State.
Most of the world’s powers are now flying combat missions over Iraq and Syria against Islamic State. But any consensus on how to proceed has been thwarted by opposing policies towards the 4-year-old civil war in Syria, which has killed 250,000 people, driven 11 million from their homes, left swathes of territory in the hands of jihadist fighters and defied all diplomatic efforts at a solution.
