US not losing war with IS, Obama says

In his interview with The Atlantic, Obama also describes the loss of key Iraqi territory to the Islamic State group as a tactical setback, while insisting that the war against the jihadist group is not being lost.

“I don’t think we’re losing,” he says, days after the Iraqi city of Ramadi was overrun. “There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time.”

Since August 2014, on Obama’s orders, a US-led coalition has hit more than 6,000 targets in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes, with the aim of degrading the Islamic State group.

Obama has refused to return US combat troops to Iraq, following a long brutal war after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But the rout in Ramadi has called into question US strategy and the credibility of Iraq’s central government.

Obama blames it on a lack of training and reinforcement of Iraq’s own security forces.

“They have been there essentially for a year without sufficient reinforcements,” he says. “But it is indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the Sunni parts of the country.”

— AFP