Working to ease public jitters ahead of the holidays, President Barack Obama opened a rare meeting of his National Security Council at the Pentagon on Monday, part of a weeklong push to explain his strategy for stopping the Islamic State group abroad and its sympathizers at home.
Obama, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the top national security team gathered for a private meeting to be followed by a public update from the president about the fight against IS. Yet White House officials cautioned that the session didn’t signal a major change in approach.
“If there’s an opportunity for us to intensify efforts behind one aspect of our strategy, then that is something that he wants his team to be prepared to do,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The president is also slated for a briefing at the National Counterterrorism Center later in the week.
