Obama touts NATO unity on Ukraine cease-fire, Islamic State response

President Barack Obama said Friday he is encouraged that NATO members universally acknowledge the “significant threat” the Islamic State poses, and that they have to take action.

He spoke at the close of the NATO summit in Wales, where he also commented on the cease-fire declared earlier in the day between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels: “We are hopeful, but based on past experience, we are skeptical that in fact the separatists will follow through.”

If the cease-fire is followed, he said, sanctions against Russia that are currently in the works by U.S. and European nations “could be lifted.”

Regarding the fight against Islamic State militants, also known as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), President Obama said, “ISIL combines terrorist tactics with military activities,” but Iraqi security forces aren’t providing an effective response. So he said the United States has been providing air support and additional arms to Kurdish and Iraqi security forces. In addition, Secretary of State John Kerry will be traveling around the region to engage Arab states in the coalition response to the extremist group.

The overall response has been a multi-layered process of encouraging Iraqi government formation, building on intelligence assessments to conduct limited airstrikes and humanitarian activities in Iraq, and now taking the fight to the Islamic State on a regional level, the president said.

It will take time, he added, but “we are moving in the right direction, and we are going to achieve our goal.

“You can’t contain an organization that is running roughshod through that much territory, causing that much havoc, displacing that many people, killing that many innocents, enslaving that many women.  The goal has to be to dismantle them.”

In terms of countering the Islamic State militants in Syria, the president said the United States wouldn’t be sending ground troops there – “I don’t think that is necessary for us to accomplish our goal” – but instead trying to find forces within Syria to counteract them, such as moderate anti-government forces, and getting regional allies to support them.

Somalia: Just prior to President Obama’s press conference, the Department of Defense confirmed that a U.S. airstrike in Somalia on Sept. 1 killed Ahmed Godane, the leader of al-Shabab.

“Godane’s removal is a major symbolic and operational loss to the largest al-Qaida affiliate in Africa and reflects years of painstaking work by our intelligence, military and law enforcement professionals,” the DOD statement said.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the four-day siege of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, which left at least 67 people dead in September 2013. The extremist group has conducted numerous car bombings and suicide attacks in Africa in its pursuit of establishing a strict Islamic state.