Photo Credit: WNDBy Chelsea Schilling.
In his prime-time speech to the nation on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, President Obama vowed to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes and 475 U.S. boots on the ground – but he also made a particular point of declaring that the Islamic State terrorists “are not Islamic.”
“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic,” Obama said, speaking from the state floor of the White House residence. “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”
He added, “And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”
Obama said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, poses a threat to Iraq, Syria and the broader Middle East – including American citizens, personnel and facilities.
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Digital jihad: ISIS, Al Qaeda seek a cyber caliphate to launch attacks on US
By Jamie Dettmer.
Jihadists in the Middle East are ramping up efforts to mount a massive cyber attack on the U.S., with leaders from both Islamic State and Al Qaeda – including a hacker who once broke into former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Gmail account – recruiting web savvy radicals, FoxNews.com has learned.
Islamic militants brag online that it is only a matter of time before they manage to pull off a highly disruptive attack on America’s infrastructure or financial system. In addition, Islamic State, the terror group that claims to have established a caliphate across Syria and Iraq, boast openly of plans to establish a “cyber caliphate,” protected by jihadist developed encryption software from behind which they hope to mount catastrophic hacking and virus attacks on America and the West.
“The jihadists are investing a lot in encryption technologies and they have developed their own software to protect their communications and when western agencies work out how to crack them they adapt quickly,” said Steve Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-DC-based non-profit that tracks jihadist Internet activity. “They are forward-thinking and are experimenting with hacking. In the future, the jihadist cyber army’s activities will become a daily reality.”
The terror groups are trying to add to their numbers to boost their capabilities, using social media to reach a larger pool of potential recruits and calling on militant-minded specialists to join them. The targets are the websites of U.S. government agencies, banks, energy companies and transport systems.
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Obama lays out plan to ‘eradicate cancer’ of Islamic State fighters
By Amie Parnes.
President Obama vowed to “destroy” Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorists in a prime-time address Wednesday that sought to restore eroding public confidence in his leadership and ability to safeguard national security.
The president announced a “systematic campaign of airstrikes” against fighters with the ISIS “wherever they exist,” signaling U.S. targets will expand from Iraq to Syria. [READ FULL TEXT OF OBAMA’S SPEECH.]
“I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are,” Obama said during the 15-minute address from the White House. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against [ISIS] in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”
Obama also said he will send 475 additional U.S. armed services personnel to Iraq to reinforce that country’s military and ask Congress to approve a program allowing the Pentagon to train and equip moderate rebels inside Syria battling both ISIS and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.
“America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” Obama declared. “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”
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Action against Islamic State is a ‘legacy issue’ for President Obama
By David Nakamura.
Nearly six years into a presidency devoted to ending U.S. wars in the Muslim world, President Obama faced the nation Wednesday night to explain why he has decided to engage in a new one.
Obama did not describe his authorization of direct military action to defeat the Islamic State terror group as a conventional war. To the contrary, in a prime-time address from the White House, he sharply contrasted his use of targeted but limited American force with the large-scale air-and-ground invasions launched by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
“This effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, casting the strategy as a “counterterrorism campaign” similar to U.S. intervention in Somalia and Yemen. “It is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible.”
But make no mistake: Obama’s escalation of airstrikes and the use of U.S. personnel to help “degrade and destroy” the extremist Sunni group represents a major setback for a commander in chief whose early international appeal was built on a pledge to remove the United States from “permanent war footing.”
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