Kerry urges global ‘ coalition’ to fight ISIS
Iraq begins major operation to free jihadist- besieged town
Damascus/ Kirkuk, Aug. 30: US secretary of state John Kerry has called for a global coalition to combat the ISIS jihadist group and their “genocidal agenda”. His remarks came as Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah warned that the West would be the group’s next target unless there was swift action to stem their advances through Iraq and Syria. In Britain, meanwhile, authorities raised the terror alert level over fears of possible jihadist attacks.
And in Syria, clashes broke out between Philippine UN peacekeepers and another jihadist group, the Al Qaedalinked Al- Nusra Front, which is also holding hostage dozens of Fijian UN peacekeepers.
Writing in the New York Times, a week before a Nato summit in Wales, Mr Kerry urged “a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations”.
He said he and defence secretary Chuck Hagel would meet European counterparts on the sidelines of the summit to enlist assistance, and then travel to West Asia to build support “among the countries that are most directly threatened”.
US President Barack Obama has acknowledged that Washington has no strategy as yet to tackle the Islamic State, which has declared an Islamic “caliphate” in large swathes of territory under its control in Iraq and Syria.
But Mr Kerry said in his op- ed Friday that the United States would be putting forward an action plan at a summit meeting of the UN Security Council in September, when Washington will hold the group’s rotating presidency.
Meanwhile, Iraqi securi- ty forces, Shia militiamen and Kurdish fighters launched a major operation Saturday to break the more than two- month jihadist siege of a ShiiaTurkmen- majority town, the officials said.
The operation has been in the works for days, with Iraqi aircraft carrying out strikes and forces massing for the drive toward Amerli, which has been besieged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, now known as the Islamic State.