International
Larry Downing / Reuters
The United States refuses to be intimidated by the "barbarism" of the Islamic State (IS), President Barack Obama said on Wednesday, vowing to seek justice over the beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff, by the extremist group.
Speaking during a news conference in Estonia, Obama said, "Our objective is clear, and that is to degrade and destroy ISIL [an alternative acronym for the group] so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also the region and to the United States."
"The United States will continue to lead a regional and international effort against the kind of barbaric and ultimately empty vision that ISIL represents," he continued.
The comments came a day after Islamic State released a video depicting Sotloff’s beheading. The murder appears to have been committed two weeks after U.S. journalist James Foley was killed in a similar fashion.
Both U.S. and British officials who have examined the latest video, which appears to show the same British-accented executioner as in Foley’s murder, have concluded it was authentic.
The masked figure in the video also issued a threat against a British hostage, a man the group named as David Haines. He also warned governments to back off "this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State."
Responding to the threats in the video, Obama said, “We will not be intimidated.”
"Their horrific acts only unite us as a country and stiffen our resolve to take the fight against these terrorists," he continued, adding, "And those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served."
The United States began airstrikes on IS targets in Iraq in August, representing the first such raids in the strife-torn country since the end of U.S. occupation in 2011. The action followed major gains by Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.
On Tuesday, military officials confirmed an airstrike against Islamic State fighters near the Mosul Dam, which the group had taken control of in recent weeks.
And over the weekend, the IS’ two-month siege on Amerli — where about 15,000 Shia Turkmens had been stranded with dwindling supplies — was broken by Iraqi forces and U.S. military support.
But despite recent gains by the U.S.-led coalition, Obama warned that the fight against the IS would take time because of the power vacuum in Syria and the abundance of battle-hardened fighters spawned from Al-Qaeda in the Iraq war.
He said a coalition including local Sunni communities would be necessary to battle the extremist group.
"What we’ve got to do is make sure that we are organizing the Arab world, the Middle East, the Muslim world along with the international community to isolate this cancer, this particular brand of extremism that is, first and foremost, destructive to the Muslim world and the Arab world and North Africa, and the people who live there," Obama said.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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