US to Speed Up Efforts to Fight Islamic State, Says Kerry

Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday would not rule out greater military cooperation with Russian Federation as the USA looks to speed up its efforts to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The US military is accelerating its attacks on tanker trucks used by the Islamic State to haul oil for its lucrative smuggling operations.

Secretary of State John Kerry has stated that he believes ISIS is not “10 feet tall” and can be defeated by USA and coalition forces.

Although he said Washington was not under pressure to work more closely with Moscow, such cooperation would be possible under the right circumstances and could lead to “constructive possibilities”.

Hollande will meet with President Obama at the White House on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states have always been major backers of the insurgency against Assad, whom they say must leave power.

The two spoke of efforts to halt Syria’s civil war through talks between the rebels and the government of president Bashar Al Assad, and the need to stop ISIL.

Kerry has been pushing hard to get a ceasefire in place before the end of the year and negotiations started in January.

What Daesh has succeeded in doing is attracting them because of what they ve been doing on the ground in Syria and in Iraq, he said but added that the United States and its partners have been focused on attacking them in Syria and Iraq and that will increase even more in the days ahead.

Kerry said much will depend on whether Ahrar al-Sham decides to be “part of the political process, they’re willing to observe a cease-fire and put down their weapons and so forth”. Further, 66 percent of Americans do not believe President Obama has a good idea of how to deal with ISIS, and 83 percent think a terrorist attack is likely to happen in the U.S.in the near future. The hopes are to get talks moving toward a political transition in Syria that eventually would unseat Assad.

A truce could be a couple of weeks away, he insisted, even if several matters remain unresolved.

But he told journalists that it was wrong to see any of Washington’s moves as helping keep Assad in power. And no agreement has been reached on which fighting forces, beyond IS and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, would be barred from participating.

GUTHRIE: You know, it’s the picked up territory in other countries, they have expanded into other countries during this time that we’ve been fighting them. He also heads to Israel and the West Bank to meet with senior government officials to discuss Syria and the recent spike in violence in the region.

Kerry sought a middle line.

“And then you’ll have greater support going to bad actors which ultimately could fuel greater growth in Nusra and Daesh”, he said, using an Arabic term for IS.