The Hill, 2 Sep 2014 – The leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged President Obama on Tuesday to launch strikes against members of an Islamic militant group operating in Syria.
Although Obama has authorized surveillance missions over Syria to monitor the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the president has been reluctant to target the group there directly, as he’s done in Iraq.
Appearing on the same program, Engel agreed.
“ISIS is obviously across the border, into Syria and into Iraq, and they really have to be defeated,” Engel said.
The president faced growing pressure on Tuesday to intensify U.S. operations against ISIS after the group released a video that apparently shows the execution of a second American journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday that Obama is still at work developing a strategy for countering ISIS, also known as ISIL, in Syria. That strategy, he emphasized, “may include the use of military force.”
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