US Military Chiefs Sign Off On Plan To Hit Isıl İn Syria

Top Pentagon officials have approved a plan to strike extremists in Syria, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told lawmakers Thursday.



"Because ISIL operates freely across the Iraqi-Syrian border and maintains a safe haven in Syria, our actions will not be restrained by a border that exists in name only," Hagel said during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. "CENTCOM's plan includes targeted actions against ISIL safe havens in Syria, including its command and control, logistics capabilities and infrastructure."



CENTCOM is the U.S. military command center responsible for the Middle East, North Africa and central Asia.



U.S. Central Command head Gen. Lloyd Austin briefed Obama on the plan during his visit to the command in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday.  Hagel and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey have signed off on the plan, Hagel said.



As the U.S. prepares to strike the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, in Syria, new countries have announced support for hitting the group in Iraq.



French President Francois Hollande announced that his country will soon begin airstrikes against the militants, but will refrain from any within Syria.



Even so, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. welcomes the public announcement of forthcoming strikes in Iraq, and that France is "one of the countries that we've been counting in our list."



But even as the U.S. works to build a coalition against ISIL, Kerry insisted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's use of chlorine gas during hostilities firmly places him in violation of a key chemical weapons treaty, despite the elimination of his declared chemical weapons stockpile earlier this year.  



"We believe there is evidence of Assad's use of chlorine, which, when you use it, despite it not being on the list, it is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention. So he's in violation of that agreement," he said.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Washington DC