After hostage murders, Obama aims to build coalition against ISIL

US president Barack Obama delivers a speech about US - Estonia relations, as well as the situation in Ukraine, at Nordea Concert Hall in Tallinn on September 3. US President Barack Obama underscored Washington's commitment to the security of NATO allies, announcing additional US planes to police the skies over Europe's eastern flank bordering Russia. AFP PhotoShow less

NEW YORK // Barack Obama said the US would seek to build an international coalition to roll back ISIL’s gains in both Iraq and Syria until the extremist group is a “manageable problem”, a task requiring a long-term strategy.

The ultimate goal of US efforts is to “degrade and destroy” the extremist group, Mr Obama said.

His tone was more circumspect than previous statements by his cabinet secretaries and he said the aim was to contain the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant rather than eliminate it outright, saying “There’s always going to be remnants that can cause havoc”.

“[If] we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem,” Mr Obama said in Estonia on the eve of a Nato summit in Wales.

Mr Obama also said the US would not be intimidated by ISIL after he confirmed that the group had beheaded the US journalist Steven Sotloff, 31, and vowed that “justice will be served”.

Sotloff is the second freelance reporter to be killed by militants in the span of two weeks in retaliation for US airstrikes against ISIL positions in northern Iraq as the group battles Iraqi forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shiite militias and their Iranian battlefield advisers.

Sotloff, whose family live in Miami, Florida, was on Wednesday reported to have held dual US-Israeli citizenship.

Hours after ISIL posted a video online of Sotloff’s murder and a statement from his killer, the US defence department announced that Mr Obama would send an additional 350 US troops to protect the US embassy in Baghdad, bringing the number of US forces to 820. The total does not include the hundreds of special forces advisers working with Iraqi and Kurdish forces, which brings the total US military presence in Iraq to more than 1,000.

The US president also sought to address the fallout from his statement last week that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for combating ISIL. Mr Obama said he was specifically referring to US military action against the group in Syria. US officials have acknowledged that for any strategy to be effective, it must include Syria, where the group is making steady gains against regime forces and rival rebels.

Administration officials have said that Mr Obama is planning to strike the group there, but concerns, including whether such action would strengthen the Syrian regime’s hand against rebels and the lack of trustworthy and capable partners among the moderate opposition, have delayed decisions on a Syria strategy.

Mr Obama said he had no timeline for taking action in Syria, and that he wanted to first make sure military intervention would be effective and coordinated with regional allies and forces on the ground.

“It is very important from my perspective that when we send our pilots in to do a job, that we know that this is a mission that’s going to work, we’re very clear what our objectives are, what our targets are, we’ve made the case to Congress and we’ve made the case to the American people, and we have allies behind us,” Mr Obama said.

He admitted that the regional coalition would “take time” and fighting ISIL “is not going to be a one-week or one-month or six-month proposition”.

“[I]t is going to take time for us to be able to form the regional coalition that’s going to be required so that we can reach out to Sunni tribes in some of the areas that ISIS has occupied, and make sure that we have allies on the ground in combination with the airstrikes that we’ve already conducted.”

The planned focus of the two-day Nato summit that begins on Thursday is countering Russian aggression in Ukraine, but Mr Obama will press individual countries to join the US military campaign against ISIL. The US secretaries of state and defence will then travel to the Middle East to enlist regional allies in forming a plan to combat ISIL.

London is also considering joining the US in carrying out airstrikes against ISIL after the video of Sotloff’s murder included a threat against a British hostage, who was identified by the masked terrorist in the video as David Cawthorne Haines.

“I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State,” said the militant, who UK intelligence officials has confirmed is a Briton and the same man who beheaded journalist James Foley.

“So just as your missiles continue to strike the necks of our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people,” the militant said.

There were few details about Mr Haines, and the British press have maintained a reporting blackout of his abduction. But he is thought to have served in the British military and was doing private security work for an aid group in Syria when he was abducted there in early 2013, NBC News reported.

“I can assure you that we will look at every possible option to protect this person,” the UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond said after an emergency meeting chaired by prime minister David Cameron.

Earlier this week, Mr Cameron implied that he did not need parliamentary approval to carry out airstrikes against ISIL, which he failed to receive in the build-up to military action against Damascus after a chemical weapons attack last year.

“We have to make a judgement about how we best help those on the ground, and to date that judgement has been to provide aid and political support and to help with certain military aspects,” Mr Cameron said.

“The Americans have gone further and provided airstrikes. I think that is the right way to approach this problem.”

* with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse