President Obama said on Sunday that the US and its international partners “will not relent” in the fight against Islamic State and that the world will not accept the extremists’ attacks on civilians in Paris and elsewhere as the “new normal”.Speaking dismissively of the global prowess of Isis, Obama said: “They’re a bunch of killers with good social media.”
The president spoke at the end of a nine-day trip to Turkey and Asia that has been overshadowed by the attacks in Paris – which killed 130 people and injured hundreds more – and at a hotel in Bamako, Mali and latterly a state of high alert in Brussels.
“The most powerful tool we have is to say we are not afraid,” Obama said.
The president also pressed Russian president Vladimir Putin to align himself with the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against Isis, noting that the militant group has been accused of bringing down a Russian passenger jet last month, killing 224 people.
“He needs to go after the people who killed Russian citizens,” Obama said of Putin, whose government supports the embattled regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The president spoke in Malaysia shortly before departing for Washington. His trip also took him to the Philippines and Turkey, where he met Putin on the sidelines of an international summit.
While Russia has stepped up its air campaign in Syria, Obama said Moscow has focused its attention on moderate rebels fighting Assad. He called on Russia to make a “strategic adjustment” and drop its support for Assad.
“It will not work to keep him in power,” Obama said. “We can’t stop the fighting.”
Nearly five years of fighting between the Assad government and rebels has created a vacuum that allowed Isis to thrive in both Syria and Iraq.
French president François Hollande is due to meet Obama at the White House on Tuesday to discuss ways to bolster the international coalition. Hollande then heads to Russia for talks with Putin.
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