Obama prepares UN speech as US-led airstrikes target Islamic State in Syria
Further airstrikes overnight were reported in northern Syria. President Obama will chair a UN Security Council meeting Wednesday to propose new resolution to curb foreign volunteers aiding Islamic State.
Further airstrikes overnight were reported in northern Syria. President Obama will chair a UN Security Council meeting Wednesday to propose new resolution to curb foreign volunteers aiding Islamic State.
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US President Barack Obama will press for a broad international coalition to fight Islamic State militants in a speech to the United Nations today, a day after the US launched airstrikes against the group in Syria.
On Tuesday, the US and five Arab nations dropped more than 160 missiles and bombs inside Syria in the first round of what Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby called 鈥渙nly the beginning鈥� of US-led strikes.
Additional airstrikes were reported overnight Wednesday, but not confirmed by the Pentagon. An organization that tracks the Syrian civil war said today that strikes were conducted in IS-controlled Syrian territory close to the border with Turkey, Reuters reports.
Mr. Obama鈥檚 UN speech comes as the president who sought to extricate the US from costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now seeks to rally world leaders to a military campaign against IS. The group has shocked the world by seizing聽territory in Iraq and Syria this summer and releasing videos of beheadings and other violent reprisals.聽
US airstrikes have also targeted another little-known organization within Syria, the Khorasan group, which US officials said Tuesday posed a greater immediate threat to the US and Europe than IS, the New York Times reports.
Obama faces criticism from some Syrian regime supporters such as Iran and Russia, who say that strikes within Syria are illegal without the approval of President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime Obama opposes. Some European allies have also questioned the legality of unauthorized military action in Syria.聽
US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power outlined the US argument for strikes within Syria in a letter to the UN Secretary-General:
Reporting from Gazientep, Turkey, near the border with Syria, 海角大神's correspondent Dominique Soguel writes that some analysts in the region warn that the US-led strikes could aid IS:
A resident of Raqqa, Syria, where some of the strikes Tuesday took place, described the scene to the Monitor:
At the UN today, Obama will chair an afternoon meeting of the Security Council after his morning address. He will seek to pass a resolution that will 鈥渙blige countries to prosecute its citizens who go to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State,鈥� the New York Times reports.