We don't have a strategy: Obama
The US does not yet have a strategy to tackle the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria, Barack Obama has admitted after criticism that American and British failures in the country allowed group to rise.
Meanwhile, the UN yesterday said the number of refugees from the conflict in Syria has now topped three million.
The record figure is one million refugees more than a year ago, while a further 6.5 million are displaced within Syria, meaning that "almost half of all Syrians have now been forced to abandon their homes and flee for their lives," it said.
In a press briefing at the White House on Thursday, the US president rebuffed questions over intervention in Syria, saying more consultation was needed with Congress.
He approved air strikes against Isis in Iraq earlier this month following the beheading of American journalist James Foley but has not made public any plans for across the border.
“We don't have a strategy yet,” he said. “I think what I've seen in some of the news reports suggests that folks are getting a little further ahead of where we're at than we currently are.”
He did not rule out intervention in Syria but said the country's civil war was a political as well as military issue and defeating Isis had to involve the co-operation of neighbouring countries.
The president's statement came after reports of a massacre of more than 150 Syrian soldiers at the hands of Isis militants.
A video emerged yesterday showing the beheading of a Kurdish fighter by Isis fighters in their Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, with a warning that more Kurds will be killed if their leaders continue co-operation with the US.
The Sunni extremists control large areas Syria's north and north-east near the border with Iraq, where fighters pushed into earlier this year and gained control of several towns and cities.
The Syria war, that has killed some 191,000 since it erupted in March 2011 when the government cracked down on protesters, has taken on a new dimension as IS unleashed brutality that has shocked the world.
A UN report documented the group's reign of terror in its strongholds, holding public executions and floggings, the use of child soldiers, kidnappings, beatings and beheadings.
But the report also accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of chemical weapons and illegal bombs against civilians, rape and the torture and murder of prisoners in custody.
Comments