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Text of President Barack Obama's address

US President Obama delivers a live televised address to the nation on his plans for military action against the Islamic State from the White House in Washington. (Reuters photo)

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A legacy of war is extended with new military campaign

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Highlights from Obama's speech on Islamic State

WASHINGTON: President Obama is walking the United States back into the Middle East minefield to "degrade and destroy" Sunni terrorists operating under the banner of the Islamic State, whose extremists he said posed a threat outside the region, including to the United States.In a prime time TV address on the eve of the 13th anniversary of 9/11, Obama assured Americans that the US will not get dragged into another war in Iraq, made it clear that terrorists who threaten America will have to be hunted down, wherever they are, including in Syria; left unchecked, they would pose an imminent danger to the US, he said, opening a potentially new front in Washington's ceaseless war on terror since 2002 that has seen military action against Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen."This is a core principle of my presidency — If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven," Obama said, reminding Americans that the rabid terrorists had executed two American journalists , and while Washington has not yet detected specific plotting against the US homeland, ISIS leaders have threatened America and its allies.President Obama, whose middle name Hussein is derived from his Kenyan father, took pains to tell the Islamic world that the US was not against Islam and did not consider the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Syria) to represent Islam."ISIS is not 'Islamic'. No religion condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISIS's victims have been Muslim. And ISIS is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq. It is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates. ISIS is a terrorist organization, pure and simple," the US President said, laying the ground for expanded air strikes in the region while pledging there will be no ground troops, although he was deploying some 475 more military advisers to hundreds already in Iraq.The democrat president also tried to distinguish the specific military action he is initiating from the outright wars begun by his predecessor, indicating his strategy will center on punitive US air strikes of the kind he has initiated against terrorists in Somalia and Yemen. He also spoke of roping in allies, from the usual US partners in the region to the new broadbased Iraqi government and other forces such as Kurdish insurgents and Syrian opposition factions who are fighting the Sunni extremists.Obama indicated they will be supported with US training, intelligence, and equipment, while asking Congress for more funding. He also said he has all the authority he needs to act against ISIS, and while he preferred legislative backing, he would go it alone if Congress did not support him.Everything Obama said pointed to an indirect war, and a long drawn out one at that. "It will take time to eradicate a cancer like ISIS. And any time we take military action, there are risks involved — especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions," he warned Americans, saying the counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a "steady, relentless effort to take out ISIS wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground."While some Americans fear that this could become yet another Mission Creep, a term to describe expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, Obama maintained that this strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten US, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that Washington has successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. The Somalia-Yemen model is consistent with the approach of using force against anyone who threatens America's core interests, but mobilizing partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order, he added.