The U.S. is considering helping Egypt better arm itself as part of a renewed effort to ramp up the campaign against the Islamic State group, according to a key lawmaker briefed on President Barack Obama's private considerations for a new tack in the war against the extremist network.

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis were among a congressional delegation that just returned from Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to meet with leaders and field concerns about the U.S. war strategy for the region.

The trip coincided with a renewed urgency in Washington for, as Obama has said, an acceleration of the military campaign against the Islamic State group, which has reached an inflection point amid claims from defense officials that U.S.-backed allies on the ground in Iraq have seized momentum in the fight. The largely untested forces the U.S. supports, however, reportedly require more assistance to rout the extremist network from strongholds in Iraqi and Syrian cities like Mosul and Raqqa, and to eliminate the safe havens from which it has helped organize attacks like those in Paris and Brussels.

Graham on Thursday confirmed he has been briefed on the so-called accelerants to the war campaign that the White House is considering, and that he discussed those with the foreign leaders he met on this trip.

"I can't share them with you," the South Carolina Republican told a group of reporters, "but I want to say this about the White House: They are taking the problem in the Sinai seriously. They are trying to put together packages that would increase Egyptian capability."

Egypt has been a central focus of the war against the Islamic State group in recent days, amid reports the U.S. is considering withdrawing forces from a decades-old peacekeeping mission on the Sinai Peninsula tasked with monitoring the Egypt-Israel border, following concerns of an increased threat from the Islamic State group there.

Both the State Department and Pentagon say no U.S. forces have been withdrawn, and that there are no plans to withdraw from that mission.

Any suggestion of bolstered support to Egypt, meanwhile, is intrinsically accompanied by concerns over human rights abuses there, most recently under the rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt's former military chief who seized power in a coup in 2013 and has subsequently been elected the country's president. Human Rights Watch recently cited protester killings and mass arrests as contributors to the most serious human rights crisis in that country's modern history.

Tillis, however, said el-Sissi inherited the problems he faces now. The North Carolina Republican also contended that further aid could prove to be "a show of good faith" that would broaden and deepen the U.S. relationship with Egypt.

"It would make it easier for us to be advocates for greater partnership, more opportunities to work together," Tillis said.

The North African nation also faces turmoil on its western border with Libya, where instability caused by the U.S.-led air campaign that ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 aided that country's descent into civil war. The Islamic State group since has exploited the situation to establish a new outpost of operations.

Army Gen. David Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Africa Command, said Thursday there are now as many as 6,000 Islamic State group fighters in Libya based around the port city of Sirte, and that those numbers have probably doubled in the last 18 months.

U.S. policy, however, limits the military to conducting strikes in Libya only when there is an imminent threat to Americans, Rodriguez said. Until the fractured country is able to establish a unity government and figure out how to organize the disparate militias vying for control, the U.S. will not further involve itself – despite the fact that, as Rodriguez confirmed, Islamic State group affiliates there do aspire to attack the West.

"It's their level of what they are doing," Rodriguez said. "[It's] what we're going after, and continue to go after, as long as they [present an] imminent threat to U.S. personnel and facilities. Not an intent to do that; the ones who do that."

"We'll have to see how this government of national accord grows and develops," he said.

Graham envisions an adjusted U.S. military policy for the region that would include an increase in military aid, possibly in the form of an emergency appropriation. He said any shift to the U.S. strategy would likely require bolstering the number of U.S. forces there, which Pentagon officials have confirmed is included in their proposals to the White House.

Graham and Tillis additionally said any changes to the U.S. response must also include increased economic aid in a sort of updated version of the post-World War II Marshall Plan. The effort would help countries like Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Turkey manage the humanitarian and refugee crisis the war against the Islamic State group has created, they said.

But such support presents a complicated calculus amid U.S. law and policy that dictates its ally Israel must have a "qualitative military edge" over the capabilities of its potential foes in the region.

Graham cited Israel when asked about why U.S. military efforts to sell weapons to regional allies – such as F-18 fighter jets to Kuwait and Qatar – have been conspicuously held up in recent months.

"The Israeli argument is that you've seen regimes in the neighborhood change pretty quickly. 'Be careful of introducing new weapons to the region – Iraq,'" Graham said, referencing the U.S.-supplied military stockpiles the Islamic State group raided during its initial onslaught in Iraq in 2014. "And I say to my Israeli friends, 'You need partners. Partners without capability are just paper partners.' So I'll probably be in the camp of pushing the increased capability of Gulf states, understanding Israel's concern."

The State Department, which oversees foreign military sales, previously has cited "significant interagency consideration" and the time required to study the implications of potential arms sales when asked about delays in such transactions.

Sophisticated equipment like helicopters and surface-to-air missiles could be a part of increased U.S. support, but Graham said the leaders he met on his trip were advocating also for much simpler and more immediately necessary equipment.

"The biggest threat they face is IEDs," Graham said, referring to improvised explosive devices. "Armor the helicopters so they can survive the threats in the battlespace, but if we don't flow some IED countermeasures into the Sinai, you're going to lose a lot of Egyptian troops. Then what happens inside the Egyptian public? The ripple effect of Sinai going bad militarily ... could push [el-Sissi] to do something very draconian."

Graham said his proposal would cost in the billions, but that "leaving is not an option."

"Having a presence is a must, but it has to be more than military," he said. " That's the theme of this trip and what the Marshall Plan is about."