Qayyarah

U.S. President Barack Obama said April 21 that Washington and the Arab monarchies of the Gulf were united in their commitment to defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

"We remain united in our fight to destroy [ISIL]," Obama was quoted as saying by AFP in Riyadh at the close of a Gulf Cooperation Council summit on April 21.

The Iraqi army said March 24 that its troops and allied militia had launched what is expected to be a long and difficult offensive to retake the second city of Mosul, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) main hub in Iraq.