Coalition vows to crush Islamic State
Tillerson meets partners in alliance, says US won’t ‘ nation build’
The US- led coalition against the Islamic State ( IS) group vowed to crush the jihadists Wednesday at a meeting overshadowed by an attack in London and civilian deaths in Syria.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson welcomed his counterparts from the mainly Western and Arab 68- nation alliance to Washington with a promise to hunt down IS leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi.
But he also warned the coalition is “not in the business of nation- building or reconstruction,” amid concerns President Donald Trump is preparing to slash the US foreign aid budget.
Meanwhile, even as the ministers gathered at the State Department, news was breaking of the latest coalition air strike to have reportedly killed dozens of civilians in northern Syria.
Then, as the delegates talked, reports came in from London that three people had been killed in a suspected terrorist attack on pedestrians and police outside the British parliament.
Tillerson met with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson after the coalition summit, but a joint press appearance at the State Department was canceled at the last minute.
In a joint statement released after the meeting, the 68 partners underlined their “determination to intensify and accelerate ... efforts to eliminate ISIS” in Iraq, Syria and beyond.
They hailed progress by US- backed local forces against the group’s main strongholds in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian capital of its socalled “caliphate,” Raqqa.
And, as they predicted victory on the battlefield, they vowed to prevent the group’s fleeing fighters from spreading instability or from setting up a propaganda base in cyber space.
Tillerson said the US and its allies would help in mine clearance and establishing stability in the aftermath of the fighting, but warned Iraq must lead its own reconstruction.
The strategy he outlined did not differ much from that in place under the previous US administration of president Barack Obama, but he did suggest a new plan for regional truces in Syria. He admitted that “a more defined course of action in Syria is still coming together.”
But he added: “The United States will increase our pressure on ISIS and alQaeda and will work to establish interim zones of stability through cease- fires to allow refugees to go home.”