The U.S. military will for the first time begin airstrikes to target militants in Syria, among other new tactics to fight the Islamic State, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday night, in a major strategy speech designed to garner world support and clarify the U.S. mission to defeat the extremist group.

A U.S.-led coalition will also begin training moderate factions of the opposition fighters in Syria, as they wage war against both Islamic extremists and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, he said.

[READ: U.S. Needs Arab States to Fight Islamic State]

“Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [the Islamic State] through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy,” Obama said.

This new plan, which Obama has stressed aligns with his goals of removing the U.S. from lengthy Middle East ground wars, centers on a highly touted but unspecific international group of countries that will support this endeavor, including some North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

Any strategy to defeat the Islamic State will require long-term commitments and widespread support, he said.

The Islamic State neither acts in the interests of Muslims nor as its own state, Obama said. It has targeted tens of thousands of Christians and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria, though most of its victims are Muslims, he emphasized.

Obama also said victory will not come quickly.

“It will take time to eradicate a cancer like [the Islamic State]. And any time we take military action, there are risks involved, especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions,” Obama said. “But I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

He described a “steady, relentless effort” to destroy the Islamic State through American air power and partner forces on the ground.

A senior administration official, speaking on background before Obama’s speech, singled out only Saudi Arabia as a nation that so far will specifically provide support. Saudis will play a key role in training the Syrian opposition fighters, likely from the Free Syrian Army, by providing facilities on its soil where the rebels can train and return to their fight against both Islamic extremists and the Assad regime.

The strategy will also involve 475 more ground troops in Iraq in conjunction with new stepped-up airstrikes, similar to those the military has been conducting in Iraq for weeks, but no longer hampered by the original constraints of only protecting U.S. interests and supporting Iraqi forces.

“We will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are,” Obama said. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against [the Islamic State] in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

The new deployments will support the 1,043 troops already on the ground in Iraq, currently staffing tactical operations centers in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Irbil, protecting U.S. personnel and assisting local security forces. No U.S. ground troops will be deployed to Syria.

(AP Photo| Raqqa Media Center of the Islamic State group

President Barack Obama announced Wednesday the United States would engage in airstrikes in Syria to fight the Islamic State.

The White House has said Obama can order the new strikes in Syria and Iraq without congressional approval, citing the commander in chief’s ability to respond to direct threats against the homeland. There is no evidence, however, that the Islamic State has such plans, Obama said.

The new training mission in Syria, however, will hinge on Congress granting permission to U.S. troops under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which limits military actions. Obama called for swift action from the legislative body to reach an agreement on the training.

“We must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like [the Islamic State], while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all,” Obama said.

The Obama administration is confident the U.S. can successfully carry out airstrikes in Syria without the massive infrastructure it has already deployed to Iraq, a nation under a shaky new government that has granted permission to the U.S. to operate there. Intelligence and reconnaissance technology allows the U.S. military to find and eliminate targets in Syria, the senior official said, despite threats from Assad of unspecified consequences if the U.S. violates Syrian territory.

It remains unclear how U.S. involvement will affect the active conflict zone in Syria, well into its fourth year of bloody and destructive civil war. Opposition elements are “most likely to benefit” from these strikes, the official said, adding they will be conducted mostly in areas the Assad regime has already lost control.

For this mission, the U.S. is drawing on experience from other overt and clandestine wars in predominantly Muslim nations designed to dismantle indigenous al-Qaida affiliates. A similar campaign has been waged in Yemen to target al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot group which analysts believe posed one of the greatest foreign threats for an attack on the U.S. homeland.

“Our own safety, our own security, depends upon our willingness to do what it takes to defend this nation, and uphold the values that we stand for – timeless ideals that will endure long after those who offer only hate and destruction have been vanquished from the Earth,” he said.