No ground troops against Islamic State:Obama

President Obama said Monday that there was “nothing specific” in America’s intelligence gathering that could have predicted the horrific terrorist attack in Paris, while Iraqi claims that their intelligence service tried to sound the alarm just 24 hours before the tragedy unfolded. The Islamic State is unique in its ability to retain territory, Obama said. The Islamic State took responsibility for placing a bomb on board the Metrojet flight from the Sinai Peninsula to St. Petersburg last month. He said most of his critics are simply “talking as if they’re tough” and offering no real ideas.

“I found the text too weak and that it wasn’t up to what we should expect from the G20”, said Mr Fabius. The Paris attacks have eerie similarity to the November 26, 2008 Mumbai strike, has galvanised the world with calls for united front to combat terrorism. And, in a shameless display of pandering to fears, more than a dozen Republican governors, unfortunately including North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, said they would block Syrian refugees from resettling in their states.

Ruling out troops on ground as it would not help solve the terrorism problem, he said, “We have the right strategy and we are going to see it through”.

“The faster we can degrade and destroy (IS) the safer we will be”, he said.

But the United States and its allies have no choice, Obama contends, but to continue down the long and arduous path of rebuilding Syria with Syrian hands, and Iraq with Iraqi hands. “We also have to remember that many of these refugees are victims of terrorism themselves”, Obama said from the conference.

“Even as we grieve with our French friends, however, we can’t lose sight that there is progress being made”.

The president also rejected the notion that the White House underestimated the Islamic State.

He said US intelligence agencies have been concerned about a potential attack on the West by Islamic State militants for over a year but they did not pick up specific threats about an attack on Paris that would have enabled officials there to respond effectively to deter the assault. 6 News will carry the news conference over the air and online.

The two-day summit brings Obama and fellow world leaders just 500 km (310 miles) from Syria, whose 4-1/2-year conflict has transformed Islamic State into a global security threat and spawned Europe’s largest migration flows since World War Two.

Critics, such as Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign rival Mitt Romney, have said that the latest developments are proof that the strategy is not working.

French president Francois Hollande says he will meet with Obama and Russian Vladimir Putin in coming days ‘to join our forces’.

Numerous discussions about next steps in Syria and the Islamic State campaign were held today on the sidelines of the summit in the Turkish seaside resort of Antalya. A foreign ministers’ meeting in Vienna over the weekend resulted in a new diplomatic plan that envisions negotiations between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government and opposition groups starting by January 1.

Assad’s future remains to be resolved.

With regards to the terrorist shootings and bombings in Paris Friday that killed and injured hundreds, the G20 goals to accomplish included promising to tighten up border controls, as well as more sharing of intelligence data, and cracking down on terrorist financing.