US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Cairo on Saturday, amid a growing campaign to build a broad international coalition for a “war” against Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq.
Retired US general John Allen, the hawkish ex-commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who also led troops in western Iraq, was named yesterday to lead the international effort against the self styled “Islamic State” extremists.
Allen, 60, is on record saying that IS “is an entity beyond the pale of humanity and it must be eradicated. If we delay now, we will pay later.”
Both the White House and the Pentagon stressed that the United States is now “at war” with the group that has seized large chunks of Iraq and Syria.
“The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with Al-Qaeda and its Al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest asserted.
