Obama Ready to Authorize Airstrikes on ISIS in Syria

The New York Times reports that President Obama is prepared to authorize airstrikes in Syria. Action in the country will “take the military campaign against the Sunni militant group, the Islamic State [of] Iraq and Syria [ISIS], into new and unpredictable terrain.”

But the paper also reports that Obama “is still wrestling with a series of challenges, including how to train and equip a viable ground force to fight ISIS inside Syria, how to intervene without aiding President Bashar al-Assad, and how to enlist potentially reluctant partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

“In a prime-time address on Wednesday evening, Mr. Obama is to explain to Americans his strategy for ‘degrading and ultimately destroying the terrorist group’ … People briefed on the president’s plans described a long-term campaign far more complex than the targeted strikes the United States has used against al-Qaida in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere.”

The paper also reports that as the U.S. gears up to expand its operation against ISIS, “longtime adversaries with a common fear of the radical movement are scrambling to see if they can cooperate to defeat the rising threat.”

ISIS “has so far thrived in part because its enemies are also enemies of one another, a reality that has complicated efforts to muster a strong response to its rampage. That factor has been a crucial consideration in war planning in capitals as diverse as Tehran and Washington, London and Damascus. But the potential threat has also forced a re-examination of centuries old tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Turks.”

Blast Kills Leader of Syrian Islamist Group, Other Top Figures

Reuters reports that an explosion Tuesday killed the leader of Ahrar al-Sham – one of Syria’s most powerful extremist insurgent groups. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-backed monitoring group, said that another 28 of its commanders had died.

“Ahrar al-Sham is a hardline Islamist group and part of the Islamic Front alliance that has been in armed conflict with the Islamic State group, which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq,” the wire writes. It is not known who carried out the attack.

ISIS Advances in Iraq Force Syria to Cancel Wheat Deal

Reuters reports that despite food shortages across the country, the Syrian government has canceled a deal to sell 200,000 tons of wheat to private traders from Iraq, as the fight against ISIS in Iraq and ongoing battle in Syria have paralyzed the wheat’s transport.

“The deal was agreed in a June tender, days before Islamic State fighters seized large swathes of Iraq in a lightning offensive,” the wire says. “The wheat is still being held in silos in the northeastern city of Hassaka, just 31 miles from the border with Iraq’s northwest Nineveh province, which was overrun by the Islamic State in June.”