WASHINGTON – A Pentagon-led plan to defeat Islamic State, due in draft form by Monday, will look beyond Iraq and Syria to include the threat from jihadists around the world fuelling the conflict, America’s top general said yesterday.

The remarks by Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggest the preliminary plan will be far broader in scope than initially thought and might initially omit more tactical details, like specific troop requests.

“This is not about Syria and Iraq. It’s about trans-regional threat,” General Dunford told a think tank event in Washington, citing other jihadist groups such as al-Qaida.

“So, when we go to the president with options, it will be in the context of the trans-regional threat.”

General Dunford noted US military estimates that Islamic State had drawn 45,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 nations around the world.

“Our plan, to be successful, needs to, number one, cut the connective tissue between regional groups that now form a trans-regional threat,” he said.

The US military-led review includes input from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as from the Treasury Department and the US intelligence community.

General Dunford said it would also address Islamic State’s resources and a narrative that allowed it to declare a self-styled caliphate.

The review of US strategy comes at a decisive moment in the US-led coalition effort against IS in both Iraq and Syria, and could lead to relaxing some of the former Obama administration’s policy restrictions, like limits on troop numbers.