Won’t relent in ISIS campaign: Barack Obama

President Barack Obama vowed on Sunday that the United States and its international partners “will not relent” in the fight against the ISIS, insisting the world would not accept the extremists’ attacks on civilians in Paris and elsewhere as the “new normal.”

“The most powerful tool we have is to say we are not afraid,” Mr Obama said as he wrapped up a nine-day trip to Turkey and Asia that was shadowed by terror attacks.

The President also pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to align himself with the US-led coalition, noting that the ISIS has been accused of bringing down a Russian passenger jet in October, killing 224 people.

“He needs to go after the people who killed Russian citizens,” he said of Mr Putin.The President spoke in Malaysia shortly before departing for Washington. His trip also took him to the Philippines and Turkey, where he met with Mr Putin on the sidelines of an international summit. While Russia has stepped up its air campaign in Syria, Mr Obama said Moscow has focused its attention on moderate rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Russian ally. He called on Russia to make a “strategic adjustment” and drop its support for Mr Assad, insisting the violence in Syria cannot be stopped as long as Mr Assad is in office.

“It will not work to keep him in power,” Mr Obama said. “We can’t stop the fighting.”Nearly five years of fighting between the Mr Assad government and rebels has created a vacuum that allowed the ISIS to thrive in both Syria and Iraq. The militant group is now setting its sights on targets outside its stronghold, including the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more.

French President Francois Hollande is due to meet with Mr Obama at the White House on Tuesday to discuss ways to bolster the international coalition fighting ISIS.

Mr Hollande then heads to Russia for talks with Mr Putin.Mr Obama called Sunday for resolve in the face of heightened jihadist threats, insisting panicked citizens must not succumb to fear and urging world leaders not to abandon a climate summit in Paris.

With Brussels in lockdown, cities from Beirut to Bamako reeling from attacks, and Americans jittery that they too may come under assault, Mr Obama said the world must show steel.

That starts, he said, with leaders who are scheduled to attend climate talks later this month in Paris, where 130 people were killed in one night of blood-soaked violence.

The perpetrators of the Paris attacks were not “masterminds” he said, but rather “a bunch of killers with good social media”.