Obama, Italy's Mattarella discuss Libya, IS

U.S. President Barack Obama met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the White House on Monday and discussed with him the joint efforts of combating the Islamic State (IS) group in Libya.

"We discussed the joint efforts of Italy, the United States and other of our partners in helping Libya form a government that will allow us then to help them build out their security capacity and to push back against efforts by ISIL to gain a foothold in that country," Obama said after the meeting, using an alternate acronym of the extremist group.

Obama thanked Mattarella for Italy's "strong contribution" to the efforts to train and advise police to participate in the campaign against the IS in Syria and Iraq.

The leaders also discussed the refugee crisis that has affected many European countries.

"We agreed that we need a very balanced approach -- a humane approach -- in dealing with this matter, because we have to consider issues of security and the rights of the people that are affected," Mattarella said. Endite