US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Cairo on Saturday amid a growing campaign to build a broad international coalition for a “war” against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq, according to The Guardian newspaper.
Retired US general John Allen, the hawkish former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who also led troops in western Iraq, was named on Friday to lead the international effort against Islamic State extremists.
Allen, 60, is on record saying that Isis “is an entity beyond the pale of humanity and it must be eradicated. If we delay now, we will pay later”.
Both the White House and the Pentagon stressed that the United States is now “at war” with the group that has seized large chunks of Iraq and Syria.
But Kerry appeared reluctant to use the term in a series of television interviews, speaking instead of a “major counterterrorism operation” as Washington expands its campaign against IS.
“The United States is at war with the "so-called" Isis in the same way that we are at war with al-Qaida and its al-Qaida affiliates all around the globe,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, using another acronym by which the group is known.
In Cairo, Kerry will press his campaign to build a broad international coalition and will meet, among others, Arab League chief Nabil el-Arabi.
However, Washington has insisted it will not work with Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and his regime.
The conflict in Syria has killed around 200,000 people in three and half years and allowed the emergence of the most violent and powerful group in modern jihad.
The so-called Isis led a major offensive in Iraq that began on June 9 and swept through the country’s Sunni Arab heartland, where many are angry and alienated by what they see as the sectarian policies of the Shiite-dominated government.
US aircraft have carried out more than 150 strikes in Iraq since early August but Washington now plans to help revamp the Iraqi army to combat Isis.
Source: MENA