Kerry says US can 'neutralise' Islamic State quicker than it did al Qaeda

Secretary of State says US is going to defeat Islamic State

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday the United States has the ability to "neutralize" Islamic State much faster than it was able to do with al Qaeda.

"We are going to defeat Daesh. We always said it will take time," Kerry said, using an alternative name for the militant group.



"We began our fight against al Qaeda in 2001 and it took us quite a few years before we were able to eliminate Osama bin Laden and the top leadership and neutralize them as an effective force. We hope to do Daesh much faster than that and we think we have an ability to do that," he told reporters.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday also urged a tougher approach to fighting Islamic State militants than President Barack Obama has pursued, with an intensified air campaign and more US special forces and trainers.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the former secretary of state offered her most expansive view to date on how to counter a growing militancy that launched attacks in Paris last Friday in which 129 people died.

“Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS,” she said, using a common acronym for the group, in what amounted to an implicit criticism of Obama, who said days before the Paris attacks that it had been contained.



Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination for the November 2016 election, called for a “new phase” in the fight against Islamic State and outlined an approach that is more hawkish than Obama’s.

Clinton said the United States should increase air strikes and send more special forces to spot targets and get local forces combat-ready, able to reclaim territory lost to militants who have proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.