Friday, August 5, 2016

Obama: ISIL/ISIS still a threat despite coalition gains. "We're far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa"

US President Barack Obama has touted gains in the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but cautioned that the group, also known as ISIS, can still direct and inspire damaging attacks.



Speaking after meeting with top aides at the Pentagon, Obama said on Thursday that ISIL will continue to be a threat, highlighting the group's ability to motivate so-called "lone wolf" supporters to launch small-scale attacks that are harder to detect and prevent.

"What ISIL has figured out is that if they can convince a handful of people, or even one person, to carry out an attack on a subway, or at a parade or some other public venue, and kill scores of people as opposed to thousands of people, it still creates the kinds of fear and concern that elevates their profile," Obama said.

ISIL has claimed responsibility for a number of recent mass killings, including a lorry attack in the French city of Nice last month that left 84 dead, and the nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49.

While they may not have been directed by the group, the attackers were reportedly inspired by ISIL.

  • Obama said the US must do a better job disrupting ISIL networks and intercepting the internet messages that can get to individuals and inspire them to act.

"Those networks are more active in Europe than they are here, but we don't know what we don't know, and so it's conceivable that there are some networks here that could be activated," he said.
Warning on overreaction

Obama cautioned against overreacting to such attacks and rejected efforts to demonise Muslims as a way to make the US safer, in a criticism of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.

"If we start making bad decisions, indiscriminately killing civilians, for example, in some of those areas, instituting offensive religious tests on who can enter the country, those kinds of strategies can end up backfiring," Obama said...
  [aljazeera.com]
5/8/16
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