What you need to know about the Islamic State group ahead of speech

Updated: Watch President Barack Obama’s Sept. 10 speech on the Islamic State militant group.

A year ago, President Barack Obama spoke to PBS NewsHour co-anchor Gwen Ifill about convincing the American people and Congress that airstrikes in Syria might be necessary to stop the regime from using chemical weapons against its citizens.

A year later, the U.S. military is flying drones over Syria for possible airstrikes for another reason — to defeat the militants who call themselves the Islamic State.

President Obama will address the nation at 9 p.m. EDT tonight to outline the U.S. response to Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Syria and Iraq. You can watch the president’s speech in the live stream window above, or in a special 9 p.m. EDT broadcast of the PBS NewsHour. Political commentators Mark Shields and David Brooks will provide analysis immediately following the president’s remarks (updated with link).

The U.S. military has conducted nearly daily pinpoint airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq since early August, and airdropped supplies to stranded people when the militants have taken control of their towns.

But the response involves more than the military, President Obama noted at the end of the NATO summit in Wales earlier this month. It involves encouraging Iraqi leaders to form and implement an inclusive government, gathering intelligence to conduct airstrikes, forming a political coalition and diplomatic effort to go with it, and developing a communications strategy to discourage people from supporting the Islamic State militants, he said.

President Obama also said he will not send U.S. troops to Syria but instead will support local moderate rebels who are fighting the extremist group:

“With respect to the situation on the ground in Syria, we will not be placing U.S. ground troops to try to control the areas that are part of the conflict inside of Syria. I don’t think that’s necessary for us to accomplish our goal. We are going to have to find effective partners on the ground to push back against ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is another name for the militants). And the moderate coalition there is one that we can work with. We have experience working with many of them. They have been, to some degree, outgunned and outmanned, and that’s why it’s important for us to work with our friends and allies to support them more effectively,” the president said on Sept. 5. (Read his full remarks at NATO on the White House website.)

More resources:

• Our partners at the Council on Foreign Relations have a backgrounder on the Islamic State militant group.
• The Institute for the Study of War is keeping track of airstrikes in Iraq and analyzing U.S. actions on its website.
• The BBC has a map of areas in Syria and Iraq where the Islamic State group is in control.
• We answered a viewer’s question: How is the Islamic State funded?

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