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Obama to meet congressional leaders amid concern about ISIS

As concern in Washington grows about the threat posed by extremists with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), President Obama will meet with senior congressional leaders from both parties next week, Reuters reports.

Obama: NATO members agree on threat posed by ISIS 04:24

The meeting, set for Tuesday afternoon, comes just one day after lawmakers return from their five-week August recess. It also comes several days after the president returned from a trip to Europe in which he rallied commitments from NATO members to push back on the jihadists that have raged across Syria and Iraq in recent months.

The topic of the meeting has not been announced, but it's likely the threat posed by ISIS will be a key topic of discussion.

House Speaker john Boehner, R-Ohio, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will attend the meeting.

Lawmakers in both parties have pushed the administration to more clearly explain its strategy to combat ISIS, asking whether the U.S. hopes to contain the group or defeat it outright.

Obama: "You can't contain" ISIS in Iraq and Syria 03:49

At a press conference in the United Kingdom on Friday, President Obama offered at least some clarification, saying "you can't contain" a brutal group like ISIS that has run "roughshod" over such a broad swath of territory.

"It's not gonna happen overnight, but we are steadily moving in the right direction," he said. "And we are gonna achieve our goal. We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, the same way that we have gone after al Qaeda."

The U.S. has already launched dozens of air strikes against militant targets in Iraq, diminishing the group's combat capabilities and keeping their expansion in check as Iraqi and Kurdish forces take the fight to the group on the ground.

Policymakers have warned that ISIS could pose a threat to the U.S. and other nations if left unchecked. Many are concerned about the possibility that foreign fighters who flocked to the conflict using U.S. and Euoprean passports could return home with hopes to attack targets in the West.

Calls for action in the U.S. grew last in recent weeks after ISIS militants executed two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and posted grisly videos of their murders online.

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