U.S. Plans New Steps to Fight and Defeat ISIS
ISIS fighters say that God will help them conquer all the countries of the world including the U.S. and they were planning to enter Europe.
By Rakesh Raman
President Barack Obama’s proposed authorization to use military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) is flexible enough to allow for the full range of military scenarios, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel Wednesday.
Carter testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee alongside Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.
Last month, President Obama had submitted a draft proposal to Congress that would authorize the continued use of military force against ISIL terrorists.
A White House statement said that a bipartisan AUMF against ISIL would provide a clear and powerful signal to the American people, to U.S. allies and enemies that the U.S. is united behind the effort to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.
[ Read: President Obama Plans to Use AUMF Against ISIS ]
The proposed AUMF takes into account the reality that ISIL as an organization is likely to evolve strategically, Carter said, morphing, rebranding and associating with other terrorist groups as it continues to threaten the United States and its allies.
The AUMF wisely does not include geographical restrictions, Carter said, “because ISIL already shows signs of metastasizing outside of Syria and Iraq.”
[ Also Read: ISIS Terrorists Damage Cultural Heritage Sites in Iraq ]
Of late, the terrorist outfit revealed its strategy and plan of action to a visiting German author Jürgen Todenhöfer, who visited the Islamic State with its permission to know about the life in the ISIS-controlled areas.
Todenhöfer, who was given a written protection assurance by ISIS, interviewed the militants to know their views and future plan of action. In the interviews, the ISIS fighters told Todenhöfer that God will help them conquer all the countries of the world including the U.S. and they were planning to enter Europe.
[ Read: Undeterred by U.S. Offensive, ISIS Now Eying Europe ]
Meanwhile, while addressing a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, Obama opined that a violent extremist could be anyone — a person of any color or creed. “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” Obama said.
What we do know is that their extremism is rooted in common challenges: the unchecked spread of extremist ideologies, their economic grievances, and their political grievances, he said.
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
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