Steve Warren

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 U.S.-led coalition campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria has successfully completed its first "phase" of operations, Baghdad-based U.S. military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said April 13.  

The coalition is working through three main steps as it wages its 20-month-old fight against ISIL, Warren said. 

A fledgling U.S. base in northern Iraq came under attack again on March 21 from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and even drew a threat from an Iran-backed Shi'ite militia, two days after a U.S. Marine there was killed in a rocket attack. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 17 declared his country's Syria mission a resounding success, but stressed Russia would continue to support the Syrian government and could build up its military presence in the region again within hours if necessary. 

Russia will complete the withdrawal of the bulk of its forces from Syria before the end of the week, a top Russian general suggested in an interview published on March 17.

Preparations to retake Iraq's Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is continuing, according to a top U.S. official assigned to the coalition.

At least 38 people were killed in air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition in Hasakeh province in northeast Syria in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Feb. 18. 

The toll included at least 15 people who were killed when strikes hit a bakery in the city of al-Shadadi near the border with Iraq, the Britain-based Observatory said. 

The U.S. military has a contingency plan to deal with a potential collapse of Mosul dam in northern Iraq which would be catastrophic, the top U.S. general in Iraq said on Jan. 28. 

A spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has confirmed that Turkish artillery strikes are firing on an area in Syria known as the hometown of the suicide bomber who killed 10 people in Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet Square on Jan. 12. 

Turkish artillery strikes in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Syria have had a "very good effect," said U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition spokesperson on Jan. 14.