President Barack Obama “strongly condemned” the beheading of the British aid worker on Saturday as the US continued to gather support for its international coalition against ISIS.
The US also continued to pound ISIS positions in Iraq, in and around Mosul Dam, in support of local security forces, logging 160 airstrikes by the end of Friday.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Mr. Haines and to the people of the United Kingdom,” Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.
“We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world.”
Obama announced last week an international coalition of nations to “degrade and destroy” the brutal terrorist outfit that now controls vast areas of Iraq and Syria.
Secretary of state John Kerry was in Egypt o Saturday continuing his travels in the region seeking support of Sunni majority nations for this international coalition.
He has been to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. But his efforts have yielded mixed results. While some Arab nations have agreed to carry airstrikes, others have been less fortcoming.
While ISIS is a significant threat to nations in the region, it’s not their top headache. Jordan, for instance, remains far more concerned about the Palestinian issue, and Gaza.In Cairo on Saturday, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi told Kerry that "any international coalition against terrorism must be a comprehensive alliance that is not limited to confront a certain organization or to curb a single terrorist hotbed but must expand to include all the terrorist hotbeds across the Middle East and Africa."
While ISIS is a significant threat to nations in the region, it’s not their top headache. Jordan, for instance, remains far more concerned about the Palestinian issue, and Gaza.In Cairo on Saturday, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi told Kerry that "any international coalition against terrorism must be a comprehensive alliance that is not limited to confront a certain organization or to curb a single terrorist hotbed but must expand to include all the terrorist hotbeds across the Middle East and Africa."