Obama says US hitting ISIL 'harder than ever' in bid to reassure public

U.S. military and allied forces are hitting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) “harder than ever,” President Barack Obama said Monday as he opened a rare meeting of his National Security Council at the Pentagon.

The meeting outside the White House is part of a public relations drive to ease Americans' worries about domestic terrorism and defend his strategy in countering the threat from ISIL.

Obama said ISIL's leaders cannot hide, and the group is losing territory. The president added that the U.S. strategy of hunting down leaders, training forces and stopping the group's financing and propaganda is progressing.

As Obama, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the top national security team gathered, White House officials cautioned that the session didn't signal a major change in approach.

"If there's an opportunity for us to intensify efforts behind one aspect of our strategy, then that is something that he wants his team to be prepared to do," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The president is also slated for a briefing at the National Counterterrorism Center later in the week.

The high-profile visits to agencies charged with keeping the U.S. safe follow a televised address Dec. 6 that aimed to reassure the public but that critics said failed to do the job. Obama is also hoping to draw a contrast with Donald Trump and his inflammatory remarks about Muslims, which Obama's administration has said endangers U.S. national security.

"Terrorists like ISIL are trying to divide us along lines of religion and background," Obama said in his weekly address. "That's how they stoke fear. That's how they recruit."

This week, he said, "we'll move forward on all fronts."

After a series of setbacks, the U.S. and its coalition partners have claimed progress recently in wresting back territory from ISIL and eliminating some of its key leaders in Syria and Iraq. The military has said hundreds of U.S airstrikes in recent days dealt a major blow to ISIL ranks in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, which the group seized in May.

But progress in Ramadi, as elsewhere, has been slow, leading to calls in the U.S. and abroad for a tougher U.S. response. Obama has authorized sending small numbers of U.S. Special Forces to Iraq and Syria, but has insisted he won't budge from his determination not to send in major U.S. ground forces.

The American public remains jittery about the specter of extremism after deadly attacks in California and Paris. Seven in 10 Americans rate the risk of an attack in the U.S. as at least somewhat high, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll — a sharp increase from the 5 in 10 who said that in January.

U.S. officials have insisted there are no specific, credible threats to the United States. But the apparent lack of warning before the San Bernardino massacre has raised concerns about whether the U.S. has a handle on potential attacks, especially during high-profile times such as the end-of-year holidays.

At the National Counterterrorism Center, which analyzes intelligence at its facility in suburban Virginia, Obama planned to address reporters Thursday after a briefing by intelligence and security agencies on threat assessments. Obama receives a similar briefing each year before the holidays.

Obama has tried to use his bully pulpit as a counterpoint to Trump and his widely condemned proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. The White House scheduled a conference call Monday with religious leaders about ways to fight discrimination and promote religious tolerance.

The Associated Press