KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 – Closing out the final leg of his 9-day trip overseas, U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday said the United States and its allies would not relent in its fight to combat Islamic State extremists and would hunt down their leaders and cut off the group’s financing.
“Destroying Islamic State (ISIL) is not only a realistic goal. Using a preferred acronym for the terror group, we’re going to get it done and we’re going to pursue it. It’s going to get done,” Obama said in a press conference after a meeting of Asian leaders in Malaysia.
“We will destroy them. We will take back land they are currently in, take out their financing, hunt down leadership, dismantle their networks, supply lines and we will destroy them. It ‘would be helpful’ if Russia directed its focus on tackling Islamic State and he hoped Moscow would agree to a leadership transition in Syria that meant its president stepping down. The president made the remarks on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at a press conference Sunday.
