US President Barak Obama is expected to give a major address on Wednesday outlining his plans for battling the Islamic State (IS, formally ISIS) terror militia, following a NATO summit late last week in which a “core group” of countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark committed to the fight. Meanwhile, the US military stepped up air strikes on IS positions in Iraq on Sunday, expanding the campaign to the western provinces near the Syrian border, on the same day a united front against IS was urged by a meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo. Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby declared that Arab countries need to make a “clear and firm decision for a comprehensive confrontation” with “cancerous and terrorist” groups. He added that IS represented “one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably, has not been able to confront.” Read More
