World leaders vow to do 'whatever necessary' to defeat Isis jihadis

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/15/world-leaders-pledge-defeat-isis-paris-summit

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US-led efforts to construct an international coalition to destroy Islamic State (Isis) are to intensify after leaders from 24 countries pledged at a crisis meeting in Paris on Monday to use "whatever means necessary" to defeat what they called a "global threat".

The talks were held as France began reconnaissance flights over Iraq after announcing it was ready to join US air strikes there. Philip Hammond, Britain's foreign secretary, said the UK would play a leading role in the coalition, suggesting military efforts beyond its current involvement in arming the Kurds and flying reconnaissance missions. The US says nearly 40 countries have already offered to help fight the transnational jihadi movement.

Iraq's new government won broad support. However, on a day of strong statements there was no public mention of attacking Isis on Syrian soil, where armed action is far more problematic legally and politically than in Iraq because it would not have the consent of President Bashar al-Assad – or the legitimacy of a UN resolution that Russia would insist on. However, Hammond said the UK was not ruling out the option of strikes against Isis in Syria.

Speaking after the conference, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, ruled out coordination with Iran in any US-led campaign. Earlier, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that Tehran had privately refused US requests for cooperation. "I saw no point in cooperating with a country whose hands are dirty and intentions murky," Khamenei said.

Kerry's spokesperson said there might be a future opportunity to talk to Iran – likely to be in the margin of talks at the UN later this month. French officials said Arab countries, probably led by Saudi Arabia, had blocked Tehran's presence.

Hammond told reporters that British forces were unable to mount a rescue attempt to free hostages held by Isis because they did not know their whereabouts. Isis extremists – who beheaded the British aid worker David Haines and two American journalists – have threatened to murder a second UK hostage, former cab driver Alan Henning.

Amid continuing uncertainty about who will do what in the US-led coalition, urgent appeals were the order of the day. The French president, François Hollande asked western and Arab countries to engage "clearly, loyally and strongly on the side of the Iraqi authorities". There was "no time to lose" in dealing with the Isis threat. "Iraq's fight against ter-rorism is also ours," he said. The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said Isis was neither "a state or representative of Islam", neither were its "throat-cutters".

Fuad Masoum, the Iraqi president, called for concerted action to defeat Isis (Daesh in Arabic). "Daesh leaders are working at setting up a state and do not deny the existence of terrorist volunteers from European countries who may or may not have dual nationality … it goes beyond what we experienced before with al-Qaida," he said.

"These criminals are experts at the brainwashing of young people in these regions. They control and prepare them for terrorist actions. They use modern technology to spread propaganda and terror through the internet and social media networks.

"We are asking for airborne operations to be continued regularly against terrorist sites. We must not allow them to set up sanctuaries. We must pursue them wherever they are. We must cut off their financing. We must bring them to justice and we must stop the fighters in neighbouring countries from joining them."

International support for Hayder al-Abadi's new government in Baghdad was probably the most important message of the event, amid hopes that it will prove less sectarian than its predecessor – and thus better able to rally alienated Sunnis to confront Isis.

A second conference is to be held in the Gulf state of Bahrain to examine ways to cut off the funding and the flow of fighters to Isis, though no date was given. The extremist group is believed to have recruits from 51 countries.

Last week, at talks in Jeddah, the US won the backing for a "coordinated military campaign" from 10 Arab countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. On Sunday, amid outrage over the ritualised killing of Haines, western diplomats reported that several Arab states – likely to include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – had privately offered to join the US in carrying out air strikes.

Arab participation in military action would give a wider sense of legitimacy to the campaign. A senior western source told the Guardian that Saudi Arabia felt so threatened by Isis that it was prepared to act in a frontline role.

"There is a very real possibility that we could have the Saudi air force bombing targets inside Syria," the official said. "That is a remarkable development, and something the US would be very pleased to see."

But the political difficulties remain formidable. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted that Syria and Iran were "natural allies" in the fight against the extremists, and therefore must be engaged.

"The extremists are trying to use any disagreements in our positions to tear apart the united front of states acting against them," he was reported as saying.

A statement released at the end of the Paris conference, which was attended by 24 countries as well as the Arab League, the EU and the UN, said they supported an inquiry led by the UN high commissioner for human rights into whether the slaughter of Iraqi and Syrian civilians constituted crimes against humanity.