WASHINGTON — America’s top-ranked military officer says the surging Islamic State group has an “apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision” in the Middle East and cannot be defeated unless the United States and a coalition of partners confront it head-on in Syria.

“They can be contained, not in perpetuity,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference.

The United States so far has restricted a series of airstrikes to Iraq, but concerns have increased as the Islamic militant group has extended its reach from safe havens in civil-war-ravaged Syria across the Iraqi border.

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. Officials said the number under consideration is fewer than 300. They would be in addition to the several hundred U.S. troops already in the capital to help protect U.S. facilities and personnel.

—Speeding up the arming of Iraqi and Kurdish forces. The administration has been supplying Iraqi government forces with Hellfire missiles, small arms and ammunition, but critics say the pace has been too slow. The administration has been reluctant to openly arm the Kurds, since their militia, known as the peshmerga, is a semi-autonomous force seen in Baghdad as a threat to central government authority.

—Increasing the number of U.S. military advisers in the region. They could be given more direct roles in assisting the Iraqis on the ground by embedding with Iraqi or Kurdish units in the field or scouting targets for U.S. airstrikes.

—Committing U.S. ground troops in Iraq. Obama has said repeatedly he would not do this. “We’re not the Iraqi military. We’re not even the Iraqi air force,” Obama said Monday. “I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is going to have to ultimately provide for its own security.”

—Extending the Iraq air campaign to Islamic State targets in Syria. Stretches of eastern Syria are a sanctuary for the group, also known by the acronyms ISIL or ISIS. The U.S. has warplanes available in the Middle East and Europe that could vastly increase the number and intensity of strikes in eastern Syria if Obama chose.

Associated Press

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“Can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no,” Dempsey said. “[Islamic State] will only truly be defeated when it’s rejected by the 20 million disenfranchised Sunni that happen to reside between Damascus and Baghdad.”

Appearing with Dempsey at the Pentagon Thursday, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the group poses an “imminent threat” to the U.S. and may take years to defeat.

“They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else,” Hagel said yesterday at a Pentagon news conference. The group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) “is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen,” he said. “They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded.”

The U.S. intelligence community thinks Islamic State has an incentive to conduct a major terrorist strike against U.S. or European targets, in part to further assert itself as the true leader of radical Islam, according to five U.S. intelligence officials who briefed reporters last week on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments.

Neither Hagel nor Dempsey gave any indication of an imminent change in the U.S. military approach in Iraq, which President Barack Obama has said will include further airstrikes but not the introduction of American ground forces.

The Pentagon on Thursday said U.S. warplanes had launched six airstrikes overnight to help solidify Iraqi and Kurdish forces’ efforts to retake and maintain control of the Mosul Dam.

It said the latest strikes destroyed or damaged three Humvees, multiple roadside bombs and another insurgent vehicle. The attacks brought to 90 the number of U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq since Aug. 8. Fifty-seven of the 90 have been in support of Iraqi forces near the Mosul Dam.