New U.S. intelligence report says Islamic State weaker

A dozen American and European military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said in interviews that they had little doubt that the Islamic State in Libya posed an ominous threat.

The debate, which played out in a meeting Obama had with his advisers last week, has not yet been resolved, nor have the size or contours of any possible USA military involvement been determined.

New intelligence assessments show that the number of Islamic State group fighters has dropped in Iraq and Syria but is rising in Libya, a senior USA defense official said Thursday. Any military action would be coordinated with European allies, officials said.

The numbers are revealed as ISIS extremists rounded up a group of their own fighters and beheaded them for trying to flee Ninevah in Iraq following clashes with government troops.

“The more that we can bolster the capacity of the national unity government to govern that country, the better off we will be”, he said.

The White House says Obama and Cameron also discussed Libya, where nations are struggling to determine how to address the Islamic State’s expansion. The President reaffirmed continued US support for a strong United Kingdom in a strong European Union. That’s why the United States has been so invested in shoring up the political process in each of those countries. “That’s the reason why we develop options for what we might do in the future”. The White House says Obama told Cameron that Secretary of State John Kerry would announce the aid at the summit.

The U.S. military is closely monitoring Islamic State movements in Libya, and small teams of U.S. military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months.

Forming a unity government would most likely lay the groundwork for the West to provide badly needed security assistance to the new Libyan leadership. He called for more security training and undefined military support for Libya.

However, Kerry said the United States was opposed to deploying any of its ground forces into Libya and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius dismissed media speculation that Paris was poised to intervene in the oil-rich country. The plan includes Mosul and Raqqa’s recapture.