We have to be smart while targeting ISIS: Obama

So even as we’re relentless, we have to be smart, targeting ISIL surgically, with precision….

On Friday, British Defense Minister Michael Fallon said the United Kingdom would not be sending ground forces into Iraq.

Seventy-four percent of respondents said they think it is likely the US will deploy ground troops, including 43 percent who said it was “moderately likely” and 31 percent who said it was “extremely/very likely”.

“We’ve been devising and executing such accelerating steps for some time now”, he said. Obama said airstrikes had increased and the coalition had successfully knocked out key figures in the group’s leadership “one by one”.

FILE – U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter delivers a speech during the 14th International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-la Dialogue, or IISS, Asia Security Summit, May 30, 2015.

“As we squeeze its heart, we’ll make it harder for ISIL to pump its terror and propaganda to the rest of the world”, Mr Obama insisted at the Pentagon, after meeting top military and national security advisors.

Analysts say the public desire for more action reflects growing anxiety over the Islamic State after its attack in Paris, and the shootings in San Bernardino, California, carried out by a couple apparently inspired by the group.

Obama has tried to use his bully pulpit as a counterpoint to Trump and his widely condemned proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. The White House scheduled a conference call Monday with religious leaders about ways to fight discrimination and promote religious tolerance.

Obama announced no change in strategy but said coalition forces will continue to search for and kill terrorist leaders, and train and equip Iraqi forces and some of the opposition fighters in Syria who are battling Islamic State militants.

However, the advances in Iraq have been offset by repeat setbacks in USA efforts to train local Syrian moderates to fight the Islamic State in Syria.

Obama usually meets the National Security Council at the White House, and the last time he had travelled to the Pentagon was on July 6.

The coalition is destroying Islamic State fighters, bunkers, heavy weapons and bomb making factories. Obama wants Turkey to firmly seal its borders with Iraq and Syria.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a Twitter post Monday that the president’s speech shows “it’s business as usual” for the administration.

“That is why I have asked Secretary Carter to go to the Middle East – he’ll depart right after this press briefing – to work with our coalition partners on securing more military contributions to this fight”, he added.

“Terrorists like ISIL are trying to divide us along lines of religion and background”, Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address, using an acronym for the extremist group.