IS will be destroyed, Obama assures UN
WASHINGTON—US President Barack Obama, in a rare prime-time speech, vowed on Sunday that America would destroy the Islamic State (IS) group and hunt down its followers at home and abroad.
Facing questions about his leadership and strategy, Obama harnessed the highest trappings of US power to calm a country put on edge by a rampage in California that killed 14 people.
“After so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure,” Obama said in a solemn address from the Oval Office.
Obama also touched on the San Bernardino massacre. On Wednesday, a young married Muslim couple dropped off their six-month-old daughter with her grandmother, donned tactical gear and opened fire on an office party full of his coworkers in San Bernardino.
He said the pair had gone down the dark path of radicalization.
“They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition and pipe bombs. So this was an act of terrorism,” Obama said.
Both shooters died in a hail of police bullets a few hours later.
The IS group praised the attackers, US-born Syed Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, as “soldiers” of its selfproclaimed caliphate, but stopped short of claiming outright credit.
As a father of two daughters, Obama said, he could imagine himself or his kin in San Bernardino or Paris.
“Here’s what I want you to know: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy IS and any other organization that tries to harm us. Our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary,” he said, referring to IS.
Woven throughout Obama’s address was a plea for unity.
“We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam,” he said, facing down some of his shrillest critics who have called for a registry of Muslim-Americans.
“IS does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers… part of a cult of death,” he said. “If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Mus- lim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.”
Obama, elected on an antiwar platform, showed little sign of meeting his political foes in the middle as he reiterated calls for gun control and ruled out a new ground war.
“Our success won’t depend on tough talk or abandoning our values or giving into fear.” he said. “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq and Syria. That’s what groups like the IS want.”