Admitting that efforts to find a solution to the Syria crisis are turning his hair grey, U.S. President Barack Obama has said that Islamic State (IS) group is losing ground in the Middle East but it continues to inspire attacks around the world.
Obama at a press briefing in Washington after meeting top military and security officials at the Pentagon said, "Two years ago ISIL was racing across Iraq to the outskirts of Baghdad itself and to many observers ISIL looked invincible."
"[But] in both Iraq and Syria, ISIL has not been able to reclaim any significant territory that they have lost. Even ISIL's leaders know they're going to keep losing," abc.net.au quoted Obama, as saying.
He said that Washington will keep hitting the militant group until it's pushed back.
"And their message to followers - they're increasingly acknowledging that they may lose Mosul and Raqqa. And ISIL is right. They will lose them. And we'll keep hitting them and pushing them back and driving them out until they do..In other words ISIL turns out not to be invincible. They are, in fact, inevitably going to be defeated," he said.
President Obama highlighted that U.S.-led forces continued to make significant gains against IS, recapturing key towns such as Fallujah and Ramadi, and preventing the group from recording any major military successes in a year.
Stating that U.S.-led coalition had carried out 14,000 air strikes against ISIS and 100 thousand sorties, he, however, said military force would not be enough to defeat ISIS.
He pointed out that the twisted ideology of the militant group persists and drives people to violence and that's why his country is working to counter violent extremism more broadly, including the social, economic and political factors that help fuel groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda in the first place.