John Kerry: Ground Forces Needed to Defeat ISIS; Says Using Them Now Being Discussed with Allies

Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN today (September 2, 2015) that ground troops will be needed in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in order for it to be defeated, the Newsmax website reports.

Kerry -- in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour -- said ISIS "does need to be defeated." The fact is that using airstrikes against ISIS for the past year by the U.S. and its allies has been a fiasco, as ISIS has seized more land -- both in Iraq and Syria -- than it controlled before the airstrikes began.

Kerry said the terror group "has made that [it's need to be defeated]  more clear putting its exclamation point on that reality which we knew anyway." He referred to the recent beheading of former professor Hanna Al-Baghdadi while her children watched, and the destruction of antiquities in Syria.

"We need to increase the pressure on them [ISIS],"  Kerry said, adding that specific ways to do that in concert with other countries in the area are currently being discussed.