Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States, despite intensified air strikes, has acknowledged significant gains by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

President Barack Obama’s envoy to the anti-ISIL coalition said ISIL continues to advance in Iraq. [Ret.] Gen. John Allen said U.S. and coalition air strikes failed to stop ISIL in its drive toward Baghdad.

“The emergency in Iraq right now is foremost in our thinking,” Allen said.

In a briefing on Oct. 15, Allen said ISIL was moving through Iraq’s largest province, Anbar. The presidential envoy said the U.S.-led coalition has focused air strikes on the Kobane region of northern Syria, where ISIL was threatening Kurds.

“But in the Anbar province, our hope is to stop or halt that tactical initiative and momentum that they have there,” Allen said.

Allen also cited difficulties in restoring the Iraq Army. He said U.S. training of the Iraqis and reorganizing their units would “take a while.”

“But obviously, ISIL has made some substantial gains in Iraq,” Allen, who returned from a Middle East tour, said. “And the intent at this juncture is to take those steps that are necessary with the forces that we have available and the air power that we have at our fingertips to buy the white space necessary for what comes next, which is the training program for those elements of the Iraqi national security forces that will have to be refurbished and then put back into the field.”

Officials said U.S.-led air strikes on Kobane were stopping the ISIL advance near the Syrian border with Turkey. They said ISIL was taking heavy losses and could be withdrawing some of its forces to avoid air strikes.

“We believe that we have killed several hundred fighters in and around Kobane,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said on Oct. 15. “Kobane could still fall.”

For his part, Allen said he envisioned a multinational effort to train Iraqi security forces. He said some of these countries would also train the Western-backed Free Syrian Army for operations in northern Syria.

“We have the capacity to do both, and there is significant coalition interest in participating in both,” Allen said.

  Anbar province, Kobane, Kurds, Obama envoy admits administration strategy failing to stop ISIL advance on Baghdad