Cameron to U.S: UK will help destroy IS (See)

 

Britain is committed to working with the United States to destroy the “caliphate” set up by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

Cameron told U.S TV network NBC he wanted the United Kingdom to do more but said he needed to “take Parliament with him.”

MPs voted against proposed military action in

Syria two years ago, the BBC reports.

Meanwhile, Lord Richards, former chief of defence staff, called for a new “grand strategy” to defeat IS, saying the UK should get on a “war footing.”

Cameron is due to use a speech on Monday to warn young Britons tempted to join IS fighters they will end up as little more than “cannon fodder.”

“If you are a boy, they will brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up. If you are a girl, they will enslave and abuse you,” he will say.

Speaking about the UK’s possible role in fighting the group, Cameron told NBC: “I want Britain to do more. I’ll always have to take my parliament with me.

Speaking with the BBC, Lord Richards said military leaders need to “look again” at the strategy to defeat IS, saying the current plan “won’t work in the time I think we have available.”

He said the current strategy – of training and equipping local fighters to do the “hard work” – could prove successful, but warned the “scale of effort” going into it was “woefully insufficient.”