Obama calls for removal of Syrian president Assad

US President Barack Obama has once again called for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in order for the country to have peace and stability.

"I think that Assad is going to have to leave in order for the country to stop the blood, for all the parties involved to be able to move forward in a nonsectarian way," Obama said during an end-of-the-year news conference Friday afternoon at the White House.

He called the Assad government illegitimate, saying bringing peace to the war-torn country is impossible “unless the government is considered legitimate by a majority of Syrians."

His remarks come as some 20 foreign ministers gathered on Friday in New York to discuss ending the Syrian conflict and push forward the peace process.

The ministers were meeting for the third time to push forward an earlier agreement to implement cease-fire agreement and start political talks on January 1, 2016.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. Also, Daesh (ISIL) terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large parts of the country.

The United States and its allies have been targeting Daesh militants in Syria since September 2014, but they have not coordinated their raids with the Damascus government.

Also, the US and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have been supporting the terrorists in Syria since the beginning of the crisis.

Obama vows to close Guantanamo

Obama said on Friday that the United States is working systematically to reduce the number of inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison and ultimately work with Congress to close the facility.

"We will continue to steadily chip away at the population," Obama said, adding, he will put forward a plan to Congress about closing the facility.

"I'm not going to automatically assume that Congress says no," Obama said, adding, "I think we can make a very strong argument that it doesn't make sense for us to be spending an extra $500 billion to have a secure setting for 70 people."

Obama also said that his administration expects the prison population to decrease to below 100 by early 2016.

However, the White House has reportedly rejected the Pentagon’s proposed plan to close the prison and build a replacement in the United States.

The Department of Defense’s cost estimate for shutting down the notorious detention facility came as high as $600 million and was rejected by the White House as too expensive, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The US currently holds 107 prisoners at Guantanamo-- down from 775 detainees arrested in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Obama calls on Americans to remain vigilant against homegrown threats

Obama on Friday called on American citizens to remain vigilant against the potential threat of homegrown Daesh militants because of the difficulty of tracking "lone wolf" attackers like those who conducted a mass shooting in California.

On December 2, Tashfeen Malik, 29, and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, stormed a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing at least 14 people and injuring 21 in the deadliest mass shooting in the US in three years. Hours later, the couple died in a fire exchange with police.

"All of us can do our part by staying vigilant, by saying something if we see something that is suspicious, by refusing to be terrorized and by staying united as one American family," Obama said during the news conference Friday.

He warned Americans against the terrorists only one day after he said there is no current credible terrorists threat in the country.

He said that US law enforcement officials are constantly reviewing social media postings by potential militant suspects, but admitted that private communications are a great deal more difficult to track.

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