Fight may last 'generation': US

The Islamic State group is a "global threat" which will take a generation or more to defeat, Washington's envoy for the US-led coalition fighting the jihadists said yesterday.

Despite "strategic momentum" against ISIS -- or Daesh as he called it -- General John Allen conceded that the fight would continue for several years in a keynote speech to the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.

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And he added that if ISIS was not defeated it could "wreak havoc on the progress of humanity".

"This will be a long campaign," he said. "Defeating Daesh's ideology will likely take a generation or more. But we can and we must rise to this challenge.

"In an age when we are more interconnected that at any other time in human history, Daesh is a global threat."

On the ground, Iraqi officials yesterday voiced fears that jihadists will use their seizure of a dam in Ramadi to mount fresh attacks on pro-government forces preparing to try to retake the city.

A string of advances last month by the Islamic State group cast doubt on the strategy of the US-led coalition battling the jihadists, but Washington has insisted it is on the right track.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said after the May 17 fall of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, that his men would take it back within days but operations are moving slowly.

The chaotic retreat from Ramadi last month was reminiscent of the complete collapse of federal forces in second city Mosul a year ago, when ISIS-led fighters conquered almost a third of Iraq within days and brought the country to the brink of breakup.

US Deputy Security of State Anthony Blinken told France Inter radio that 10,000 ISIS members had been killed since the start of a nine-month-old US-led air campaign in Iraq and Syria.

At a meeting in Paris that wrapped up on Tuesday, Western powers and other members of the 60-nation coalition vowed more support for Abadi's efforts.

Abadi had said that ISIS's regained momentum on the ground was a sign of the "failure" of the international community to provide adequate support.

But Washington and the coalition insisted they had a "winning strategy" of air strikes combined with thousands of forces training and advising Iraqi forces.

"In Iraq right now we have the right strategy, a combination of air strikes, training and effective global partners," Blinken said at the meeting.