WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's point man for dealing with the Islamic State group, often known as ISIS or ISIL, plans to step down from his position, according to a new report.
John Allen, a retired four-star Marine Corps general who has served as Sspecial Ppresidential Eenvoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL since September of 2014, plans to leave that job before the end of the year, according to a report by Bloomberg View.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said he could not confirm the report and referred questions to the State Department, but praised the retired general's work.
"Gen. Allen is someone obviously very familiar to the folks here at the Department of Defense, and he's done a great job pushing the ball forward in terms of the diplomatic effort in the fight against ISIL and building up a coalition," Cook said. "We hold Gen. Allen in high regard for his work and appreciate the efforts he's made in the overall effort to bolster the coalition against ISIL."
Allen's departure comes at a delicate time for the anti-ISIS fight, with major questions about whether the Obama administration's strategy is a viable one being asked throughout Washington.
Allen's replacement is unclear, although it is likely at least some of his responsibilities will fall to his deputy, Ambassador Brett McGurk.
Interestingly, former Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, the retired general who remains a popular figure in Congress despite a public fall from grace following revelations of an affair and a guilty plea of mishandling classified information, spent the morning discussing ISIS on the Hill.
While the question of who replaces Allen is a major one, another question lingers: Will this trigger a series of moves to replace the leaders of the anti-ISIS effort?
Today's news comes less than a week after a hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee where Gen. Lloyd Austin, chief of US Central Command, acknowledged major failures of the Syrian "train and equip" mission that the Obama administration has made the center of its anti-ISIS efforts.
In particular, the statement by Austin that there are only "four to five" US trained Syrian fighters operating at the moment was called "a joke" and "a failure" by members of the committee of the SASC.
After Austin's comments, and the Senate reaction to them, led toCook having had to defend the general in a press conference the next day.
In response to multiple questions about whether Defense Secretary of Defense Ash Carter would consider replacing Austin, Cook said Carter has "full confidence" in the general.
Email: amehta@defensenews.com
Twitter: @AaronMehta
Aaron Mehta was deputy editor and senior Pentagon correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Defense Department and its international partners.
