Germany, UK will not join anti-IS airstrikes

The foreign ministers of Germany and Britain said they would not be taking part in air strikes in Syria against the Islamic State militant group.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a news conference in Berlin that Germany has not been asked to take part in the air strikes and would not be participating.

His British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said Britain “supports entirely the US approach of developing an international coalition” against the Islamic State, whom he described as “barbaric”, and said that, in terms of how to help such a coalition, “we have ruled nothing out”.