Obama, Iraqi leader vow to get Mosul back

Associated Press

NEW YORK

President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi put the Islamic State group on notice Monday that they plan to recapture the city of Mosul within months. If successful, the operation could mark a major turning point in the campaign to defeat the extremist group.

Neither leader glossed over the immense difficulty of the battle ahead as they met in New York on the sidelines of a U.N. summit. Still, Obama said he and Abadi were confident that Iraq’s military and the U.S.-led coalition could make progress in Mosul “fairly rapidly,” adding that he was hoping for progress by year-end.

“This is going to be hard. It’s going to be challenging. It will require resources,” Obama said. But he professed confidence that more territory can be wrested from the militants, in part because he said “the Iraqi forces are getting more confident.”

Abadi, speaking in English, echoed Obama’s timeline for retaking Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and the extremist group’s stronghold in the country. He called the group a “huge threat” to Iraq’s stability.

“We hope within the next few months we’re going to kick Daesh out of Mosul,” Abadi said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. He added: “They must be crushed on the ground.”