WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The White House revealed to lawmakers on Tuesday details of its request to Congress for a three-year war authority to battle Islamic extremists that would prohibit “enduring” offensive combat operations.

The authorization for use of military force would also allow for use of U.S. special forces, and would not restrict operations to a geographic area, several Democratic senators said after a closed-door briefing by White House officials.

President Barack Obama’s team has been deliberating for months on how to move ahead in the next phase of its years-long war against militant jihadists.

The White House is expected this week to unveil its proposal for authority to combat the Islamic State extremist group, and administration officials have stepped up their deliberations with congressional leaders.

The new AUMF would supersede the open-ended war authority which Congress passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. The administration currently uses the 2001 authority to prosecute military action against IS, in particular U.S.-led air strikes on the group’s forces in Iraq and Syria.

Lawmakers have stressed that no official war authority language has been released.

“It was an opening salvo,” Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said after the briefing. “There was nothing finalized yet.”

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez said a key plank of the proposal, according to the White House briefers, required “no enduring offensive combat” operations, a qualifier he acknowledged could face opposition in Congress.

“Unless that is further defined, that might be seen as too big a statement to ultimately embrace because, forget about Barack Obama, there would be a new president in two years,” Menendez said.

“The challenge to get a broad bipartisan AUMF is threading the needle between not having too expansive an authorization that can be used for an open-ended, prolonged conflict, and however giving an authorization that gives the president the wherewithal to effectively defeat ISIL.”

President Barack Obama on Tuesday confirmed the death of U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller. Obama vowed that Washington would hunt down the jihadists it held responsible for the 26-year-old aid worker’s death, as her family spoke of their heartbreak.

“No matter how long it takes, the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death,” Obama said in a statement.

Mueller was captured in August 2013 in Aleppo, the war-ravaged city in northern Syria.

IS claimed last week she had been killed in an air strike by a Jordanian warplane in Raqa, the militant group’s self-proclaimed “capital,” also in Syria.

U.S. officials on Tuesday said they remained skeptical of IS claims Mueller died in an air strike, noting there had been no evidence of civilians at that site before it was targeted.

“That certainly would call into question the claims that are made by ISIL,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, using an alternate acronym for IS, which has grabbed large areas of Iraq and Syria in a brutal offensive of beheadings and forced religious conversions.

The White House said IS had sent Mueller’s family a “private message” that was “authenticated” by intelligence, allowing them to confirm her death. The Washington Post reported that Mueller’s parents had been sent a photo of their daughter’s body.

“Our hearts are breaking for our only daughter, but we will continue on in peace, dignity, and love for her,” her parents Carl and Marsha Mueller said.

In a letter from captivity in early 2014, Mueller said she was “completely unharmed” by her captors but heavy-hearted about the toll it must have taken on her family.

“Just the thought of you all sends me into a fit of tears,” she wrote in the letter released by her family.


koreaherald@heraldcorp.com