Air strikes alone will not defeat Daesh, Kerry warns

BELGRADE — Syrian and other Arab ground forces must be found to take on Daesh, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday, warning the extremist group would not be defeated by air strikes alone.

Kerry was speaking hours after Britain launched bombing raids against Daesh targets in Syria, joining forces with France and the United States nearly three weeks after the extremist group killed 130 people in attacks across Paris.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says there are as many as 70,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria ready to take on Daesh with the help of foreign air strikes, an assertion opponents of the bombing campaign have questioned.

"I think we know that without the ability to find some ground forces that are prepared to take on Daesh, this will not be won completely from the air," Kerry said, using an Arabic term for the jihadist group.

Asked later if he meant Western ground forces, Kerry said after a meeting in Belgrade of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): "[I'm] talking about Syrian and Arab, as we have been consistently."

A US official travelling with Kerry said the secretary of state was speaking mainly of Syrian ground forces, but that it was conceivable troops of other Arab nations could be involved.

"They have to be troops from those countries [who] know the culture, know the groups, know the terrain, and are capable and are supported by the coalition on the ground," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

"So what he is referring to in Syria is largely Syrian partners on the ground. It could possibly include Arab partners but we're not at that stage right now."

In a policy reversal, the United States on October 30 said it would send up to 50 US special forces to Syria to coordinate on the ground with US-backed rebels.

Kerry met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the OSCE meeting, with Washington and Moscow at odds over the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad more than four years into a war that has killed over 250,000 people.

The West says Assad must go, but Russia launched its own air strikes on September 30 in support of his government, saying it was going after Daesh. Western officials say Russian jets have hit mainly other anti-Assad rebels.

Kerry said a "political transition" in Syria would pave the way for a united front against Daesh — "the Syrian army together with the opposition... together with Russia, the United States and others to go and fight Daesh".