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Obama to Present Anti-Terrorist Strategy for Iraq on September 10

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US President Barack Obama will present a strategy aimed at countering the Islamic State (IS) terrorist threat during his planned September 10 speech, the president told NBC News Sunday.

WASHINGTON, September 7 (RIA Novosti) – US President Barack Obama will present a strategy aimed at countering the Islamic State (IS) terrorist threat during his planned September 10 speech, the president told NBC News Sunday.

"I'm preparing the country to make sure that we deal with a threat from ISIL," Obama said.

"And what I want people to understand, though, is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL. We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat 'em," the president added.

The IS insurgent group, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS or ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it started launching attacks in northern and western Iraq, capturing vast areas in the north of the country, including major cities and oilfields.

Later that month, the radicals seized the Iraqi city of Mosul and announced that they had established a caliphate on the territory under their control.

In August, the United States started launching air strikes against IS positions in Iraq, as part of an operation, which, according to US President Barack Obama, is aimed at protecting American personnel in the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region Irbil, as well as preventing the “genocide" of Iraqi religious minorities.

The United Nations has characterized ethnic and religious cleansing carried out by the IS as crimes against humanity.

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