US ready to send advisers, conduct strikes in Iraq: Obama

President Barack Obama has said that the United States is prepared to take targeted military action if necessary against Iraqi militants. He confirmed that the US would send up to 300 military advisers to support Iraqi forces confronting the jihadists of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda splinter group, which has taken many Iraqi cities, oil refineries, chemical weapon factory and a swathe of land, killing scores of civilians. ‘The US is prepared to take targeted military action if necessary,’ Obama said on Thursday. But the US President, speaking to a news conference after meeting with his national security team, insisted that American combat troops are not going to be fighting in Iraq again. ‘We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq,’ he said. Obama said the military advisers would support Iraqi security forces and create joint operation centres in Baghdad and northern Iraq to share intelligence and coordinate planning to confront the insurgents, according to a news agency.