U.S. and Allies Form Coalition With Intent to Destroy ISIS

NEWPORT, Wales — The Obama administration said Friday that the United States and its allies had formed a coalition to fight Sunni militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, unveiling a military and political campaign that officials said could serve as a model for combating extremist groups around the world. In a hastily organized meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit meeting here, diplomats and defense officials from the United States, Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark conferred on what they called a two-pronged strategy: working to bolster allies on the ground in Iraq and Syria, while attacking Sunni militants from the air. They said the goal was to destroy the Islamist militant group, not to contain it. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, seated.NATO Prepares New Sanctions Over Russian Action in Ukraine SEPT. 4, 2014 President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain visited students at Mount Pleasant Primary School, in Newport, Wales, as leaders gathered for a NATO summit meeting on Thursday.Obama and Cameron Call on NATO to Confront ISISSEPT. 4, 2014 Obama, in Estonia, Calls Ukraine Conflict a ‘Moment of Testing’ SEPT. 3, 2014 “There is no containment policy for ISIL,” Secretary of State John Kerry said at the beginning of the meeting, using an alternate acronym for ISIS. “They’re an ambitious, avowed, genocidal, territorial-grabbing, caliphate-desiring quasi state with an irregular army, and leaving them in some capacity intact anywhere would leave a cancer in place that will ultimately come back to haunt us.” But he and other officials present made clear that at the moment, any ground combat troops would come from either Iraqi security forces or Kurdish pesh merga fighters on the ground in Iraq, or from moderate Syrian rebels opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. “Obviously I think that’s a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground,” Mr. Kerry said.

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