Obama to reveal strategy on Islamic State fight

BARACK Obama has promised to lay out within days a strategy to defeat Islamic State, as Australia completes a third weapons drop to Iraq.

AN Australian military plane has airlifted a third shipment of weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, as US President Barack Obama prepares to lay out a “game plan” to defeat Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

Revealing his plans during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Mr Obama said he wanted Americans to understand the nature of the threat and how their government was going to deal with it.

In the interview, Mr Obama restated his opposition to sending US ground troops to the region to engage in direct combat with the militants. Australia has also ruled on providing ground troops for the mission.

Australia has, however, committed to supported US and Iraqi air strikes on the militant group, which has taken control of a swathe of northern Iraq and Syria.

This morning Defence said a Globemaster aircraft had delivered 50 tonnes of small arms and ammunition to Erbil yesterday.

The US military has conducted more than 130 air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq in the past month. Overnight, the US said it had launched air strikes around Haditha Dam in western Iraq. US officials said the offensive was an effort to beat back the militants from the dam, which remained under Iraqi control.

EDITORIAL: Arab states must join fight against Islamic terrorists

The militants could have opened or damaged the dam, flooding wide areas as far as Baghdad’s international airport, where hundreds of US personnel are stationed, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

Other US air strikes yesterday targeted Islamic State fighters in Iraq’s long-contested Anbar province for the first time, launching attacks with bomber and fighter aircraft.

The American military said the air strikes destroyed, among other things, an Islamic Group command post and several vehicles, two of which were carrying anti-aircraft artillery.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Iraqi government had asked the US to launch the air strikes.

On Tuesday EST Mr Obama will meet with congressional leaders at the White House to discuss the threat posted by Islamic State. And he’ll give a speech on Wednesday, the eve of the 13th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Meanwhile, Arab states have agreed to take the “necessary measures” and are prepared to co-operate internationally to confront Islamic State, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said.

At the start of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo, Arabi had called for a political and military confrontation with the jihadists and other militants he said threatened the existence of Arab states.

COMMENT: West’s bid to crush Islamic State risks strengthening Assad

He later stopped short of explicitly backing US air strikes targeting IS jihadists who control swathes of Iraq and Syria.

“The Arab foreign ministers have agreed to take the necessary measures to confront terrorist groups including” IS, Arabi said at a news conference.

“International co-operation is included; international co-operation on all fronts,” he said.

The ministers agreed to “take all measures to counter terrorism: political, security and ideological,” he added, without spelling out what these measures would be.

His remarks came as the United States expanded air strikes against the militants and sought wider regional backing for its campaign.

Arabi had earlier urged the foreign ministers to take “a clear decision for a comprehensive confrontation, militarily and politically”.

Iraq has welcomed Mr Obama’s plan for an international coalition against jihadists as a “strong message of support”, after repeatedly calling for aid against the militants. Obama outlined the plan at a NATO summit Friday for a broad coalition, which includes Australia, to defeat IS.

IS, originally an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq that expanded in the Syrian conflict, claims its chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the rightful leader, or Caliph, of all Muslims.

The group’s astonishing rise in Syria and Iraq caught the weak government in Baghdad, and much of the region, off guard.

Arabi said IS posed a threat to the entire region.

“What is happening in Iraq is that the terrorist organisation not only threatens a state’s authority, but threatens its very existence and the existence of other states,” he said.