Obama to outline strategy for combatting Islamic State militants

Published 9:42 am Monday, September 8, 2014

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to begin laying out his strategy for defeating Islamic State militants expanding their grip in Iraq and Syria.

He’ll outline his evolving tactics when he meets with congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Tuesday and then delivers a speech Wednesday on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Lawmakers said in advance that they would like the president to give specifics.

Email newsletter signup

The president should target command and control centers and oil refineries controlled by insurgents within Syria, suggested Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who sits on both the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees.

Rubio, claiming that Obama has committed “presidential malpractice in his foreign policy,” said he is eager to hear directly what Obama “should have said months, weeks ago.”