WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said his country would partner with nations like Afghanistan in building their security forces to defeat and disrupt terrorist networks.

“We'll continue to also partner with nations, from Afghanistan and Nigeria, to build up their security forces. We're going to work day and night with allies and partners to disrupt terrorist networks and thwart attacks and to smother nascent ISIL cells that may be trying to develop in other parts of the world,” Obama told reporters on Monday at Pentagon after his meeting with national security team on challenges being faced by ISIL.

Following the meeting, Obama acknowledge that ISIL has been particularly effective at reaching out to and recruiting vulnerable people around the world, including here in the United States. “And they are targeting Muslim communities around the world. Numerous individuals have been arrested across the country for plotting attacks or attempting to join ISIL in Syria and Iraq,” he said.

Obama said ISIL's recent losses in both Syria and Iraq prove that ISIL can and will be defeated. “Indeed, we're intensifying our efforts against ISIL's base in Syria. Our airstrikes will continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations,” he said.

 “We're going after the ISIL leadership and infrastructure in Syria, the heart of ISIL that pumps funds and propaganda to people around the world. Partnering with other countries, sharing more information, strengthening laws and border security allows us to work to stem the flow of foreign fighters to Syria as well as Iraq and to stem, obviously, the flow of those fighters back into our own countries,” said the US President.

He asserted that this continues to be a challenge. And working together, all nations are going to need to do more.

The US strategy, he said, recognizes that no amount of military force will end the terror that is ISIL unless it's matched by a broader effort, political and economic, that addresses the underlying conditions that have allowed ISIL to gain traction. They have filled a void and we have to make sure that, as we push them out, that void is filled, he said. (Pajhwok)