MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - The US Senate has endorsed President Barack Obama’s plan to help the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria fight off the onslaught of the jihadi Islamic State insurgency, despite opposition from rank and file members from both parties.
"And yet here we are again wading into a civil war," a Republican senator from Kentucky was quoted by Sky News as saying after the vote that supported Obama’s initiative 73-22.
The bill is now expected to be signed by the president. A day earlier it had been endorsed by the House of Representatives.
Last week, US President Barack Obama announced a strategy to counter the IS threat, implying the creation of a broad anti-IS coalition.
The IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is a Sunni jihadi group that has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it launched an offensive in Iraq, seizing vast areas in both countries and announcing the establishment of an Islamic caliphate on the territories under its control.
