House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), asked President Obama to try to kill the leaders of ISIS, also known as ISIL, as part of a strategy for defeating the organization without launching a full-scale invasion.
Obama met with congressional leaders to discuss ISIS on Tuesday. “The speaker stated he would support the president if he chose to deploy the military to help train and play an advisory role for the Iraqi Security Forces and assist with lethal targeting of ISIL leadership,” a Boehner aide relayed in a readout to reporters.
A Pentagon spokesman said that the military had not targeted ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in any airstrikes,
“We certainly hope he’s dead, but we haven’t conducted any strikes against him,” Army Colonel Steve Warren told reporters Monday.
Boehner also raised the possibility that ISIS could exploit a vulnerable U.S. border to launch a terrorist attack on the United States.
“[T]he Speaker made clear that the administration should re-examine our border and homeland policies and authorities to determine whether there are loopholes or weaknesses that could expose the homeland to an immediate ISIL-linked attack,” the readout said.