On Thursday, Al-Qaeda announced it opened a new branch in India.



On Friday, Barack Obama said, “We’re going to defeat ISIL the same way we’ve gone after Al-Qaeda.”

The Times of Israel reported, via Free Republic:

President Barack Obama said Friday he was confident he could gather a broad international coalition to defeat Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria, following two days of talks at the NATO summit.

“I leave here confident that NATO allies and partners are prepared to join in a broad, international coalition,” Obama said after a meeting of the Western military alliance in Wales. “We’re going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL (IS’s previous name) the same way we’ve gone after al-Qaeda,” he said.

Following the beheading of two US journalists by the Islamic State, which has overrun swaths of northern Iraq and Syria, Obama said there was “unanimity” among NATO members that the group “poses a significant threat”.

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Obama cautioned that “it’s not going to happen overnight”, but “we’re going to achieve our goal.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to the Middle East to seek support of regional powers, Obama said, insisting that Arab involvement was “absolutely critical”.

The president added: “Our hope is the Iraqi government is actually formed and finalised next week. That, then, allows us to work with them on a broader strategy.”

Kerry on Friday co-chaired with Britain a meeting of ministers from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Turkey in a bid to win support for the fight against IS.

IS caught the world by surprise when it made huge territorial gains and declared an Islamic “caliphate” in an area straddling Iraq and Syria countries.

The US has conducted more than 100 airstrikes in northern Iraq in recent weeks, allowing Kurdish and Iraqi forces to regain ground lost to the jihadists.