Barack Obama warnS Islamic State of Iraq and Levant that they were next

US President Barack Obama confirmed the death of Mohammed Emwazi, a Briton known as “Jihadi John”, in an air strike last month and warned the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) that they were ‘next’.

Obama made his eight-minute address after having a meeting with his national security council.

“As we squeeze its heart, we’ll make it harder for ISIL to pump its terror and propaganda to the rest of the world. “This continues to be a difficult fight. ISIL is dug in, including in urban areas, and they hide behind civilians, using defenceless men, women and children as human shields.

So even as we’re relentless, we have to be smart, targeting ISIL surgically, with precision,” Obama said flanked by Vice-President Joe Biden, the defence secretary, Ash Carter, and three military generals.

Obama listed several prominent ISIS leaders, commanders and killers who have been taken out, including Emwazi, “who brutally murdered Americans and others”.

He asserted that the US will go after the ISIS in their stronghold in Raqqa, Iraq and said that the terror group could not hide anymore and that his message was simple: ‘You are next’.

“So far ISIL has lost about 40% of the populated areas it once controlled in Iraq, and it will lose more… ISIL’s lost thousands of square miles of territory it once controlled in Syria and it will lose more.

The special forces that I ordered to Syria have begun supporting local forces as they push south, cut off supply lines and tighten the squeeze on Raqqa,” Obama said.

Emphasizing that ISIS was losing the ‘propaganda’ war, the President said that the world had starts to see them as the ‘thugs, thieves and killers’ they truly were.