President Obama Laid Out Plan to Address ISIS in Rare Prime-Time Address

UPDATE: A summary of the president's speech, along with its full text, can be found here.

Last night President Obama gave a televised address to inform the country of his administration's long-term strategy regarding the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the barbaric militant group that has taken over parts of the Middle East.

The Islamic State, abbreviated as either ISIS or ISIL, released videos in the past few weeks showing the decapitations of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. This followed several months during which ISIS invaded and won large swaths of territory in Syria, which has endured a bloody civil war for three years, and Iraq, which American troops left in 2011 after nine years of conflict and occupation.

Here are some of the main points the President announced:

• The U.S. will lead a large coalition of countries to degrade and destroy ISIS, though there will be no placing of American ground troops in harm's way. “It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil,” the president plans to say.
• The U.S. will increase air strikes against ISIS, including in Syria. American jets have executed more than 150 bombing missions already, but all of those have been in Iraq. Syria, though, is where ISIS is based and where it is strongest.
• The U.S. will send aid to rebels in Syria, including both arms and training. These rebels are fighting against both ISIS and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.