U.S. to boost attacks on ISIS global network

The United States on Monday sought to rally greater cooperation among allies seeking to crush ISIS group’s “global network,” on the heels of attacks in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad.

Special envoy Brett McGurk urged allies to “increase pressure on ISIL at its core,” the State Department said.

“We need to do more as a coalition to coordinate our efforts and pressure ISIL across its global network,” it added, using another acronym for the group.

McGurk was speaking during a meeting he and Vice President Joe Biden had with top representatives of the 65 coalition members at the State Department -- including French, Italian, Turkish and Lebanese officials -- who have been bombing ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq for more than a year.

The meeting follows a string of attacks claimed by the self-proclaimed ISIS group, including in Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut and Paris, in Ankara, and against a Russian jet blown up over Egypt.

“The coalition is united in our determination to end the scourge that ISIL has brought to the region and the larger global community,” the State Department said.

“We will continue to find strength in our diversity and reject ISIL’s goal of using terror to divide us.”

Seeking to rally major powers to join in battling ISIS, French President Francois Hollande was to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, and then Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

France meanwhile bombed ISIS targets in Syria from jets from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier newly deployed in the eastern Mediterranean, hours after announcing similar strikes in Iraq.

The action came 10 days after coordinated attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and for which ISIS has claimed responsibility.