Washington: The US can accomplish its goal of degrading and destroying the Islamic State without sending troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria, the White House has said.
This includes a combination of measures like air strikes, supporting local troops of the ground, building an international coalition, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Thursday.
"The ISIL forces wreaking havoc in this already volatile region of the world is not in our best interest. We have, therefore, an interest in acting with the international community to try to stabilise the situation.”
"We can do that in a way that doesn't require the introduction of American ground combat troops to Iraq or Syria, but rather, we can deploy a tried-and-true counter terrorism strategy that this administration has used successfully in other contexts," he said.
Earnest said, "Essentially, that means building up support for fighters on the ground, ramping up our support to Iraq and Kurdish security forces and ramping up our support to Syrian opposition fighters."
The White House also said that the Islamic State, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS or ISIL, is in fact following the policies of al-Qaeda.
"For a decade or more ISIL was actually known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. And that there was important coordination and communication that was taking place between the leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the al-Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden," he said.
Earnest said there are indications even after public disagreement of continued ties between al-Qaeda fighters or al-Qaeda operatives and ISIL.
"In fact, there are some al-Qaeda operatives who have indicated that they actually believe ISIL is the true inheritor of Osama bin Laden's legacy. So these ties between ISIL and al-Qaeda persist," he argued.
"We have seen ISIL continues to carry out the kinds of brutal tactics that they employed under the previous name. We've seen them perpetrate terrible acts of violence against Iraqis. And tragically, we've seen them carry out two terrible, heinous acts of violence against at least two American citizens. So the tactics of al-Qaeda in Iraq have not changed simply because they've changed their name," the press secretary said.
"The ultimate aspiration of al-Qaeda was always the formation of an Islamic caliphate. As their new name suggests, ISIL harbours the same ambition," he said.
