• Obama
United States president, Barack Obama, yesterday, vowed to step up efforts to eliminate Islamic State (IS) in Syria and prevent it from carrying out attacks like those that took place in Paris over the weekend. This is just as European leaders urged Russia to focus its military efforts on the "radical Islamists".
Speaking at a G20 leaders’ summit in Turkey, Obama described the killings in Paris, for which the IS has claimed responsibility, as an attack on the civilised world and stated the United States would work with France to hunt down those responsible. The two-day summit brings Obama and fellow world leaders just 500km (310 miles) from Syria, where a 4-1/2-year conflict has transformed IS into a global security threat and spawned Europe’s largest migration flows since World War II.
“The skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris just a day and a half ago,” Obama stated after meeting Turkish President, Tayyip Erdogan.
“We will re-double our efforts, working with other members of the coalition, to bring about a peaceful transition in Syria and to eliminate Daesh as a force that can create so much pain and suffering for people in Paris, in Ankara, and in other parts of the globe,” he added, using an alternative name for Islamic State.