Globe Trot: Will the president order anti-ISIS airstrikes in Syria?

ISIS: President Barack Obama plans to address the nation tonight in a rare primetime speech, outlining his strategy for confronting the terror group ISIS.

The president’s plans likely include airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria, a move that would end the administration’s three-year resistance to military engagement in the war-torn country.

The speech comes as Obama has battled criticism for not having a strategy against ISIS, and as polls show nearly two-thirds of Americans support attacking ISIS militants.

Beyond political considerations, lives and homelands are at stake across the Middle East. Ryan Crocker, former U.S ambassador to Iraq and Syria warns:

“There is no time left to argue, dither, and wonder what should be done about those who are butchering Americans—and anyone else they care to—across a growing portion of the Middle East.

The enemy has no such doubts. They are not going away. They are getting stronger. The war, ladies and gentlemen, is truly on. We’re just not a meaningful part of it yet.”

LIBYA:We noted in the last edition of Globe Trot that the president’s speech comes on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. It’s also the second anniversary of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi (not the third, as we previously reported), which brings a slew of new books, reports, and investigations.

Islamists remain in control of most of the city of Benghazi, as well as Libya’s embattled capital of Tripoli. How bad is the militant fighting? Perhaps one of the most telling signs: Members of Libya’s parliament have fled to the eastern city of Tobruk and now live in a Greek car ferry docked in the port.

SOMALIA: In a lesser reported, but significant development on terror, a U.S. military airstrike killed the top leader of the Somali militant group al-Shabaab. A Pentagon spokesman called the death of Ahmed Abdi Godane a “major symbolic and operational loss to al-Shabaab.”

The Islamist extremist group has carried out massacres across Africa, including the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people a year ago this month. Earlier this year, the group targeted non-Muslims in a coastal Kenyan town during the World Cup, going door-to-door and killing residents who said they were Christians.

The U.S. airstrike that killed Godane included unmanned and manned aircraft firing missiles and laser-guided bombs.

WORLD has published a list of aid agencies assisting displaced Christians in Iraq.