America's over decade-long fight to dismantle al Qaeda and other Islamic militant offshoots will continue to be a fact of life of U.S. national security for decades to come, a top Pentagon official told Congress. 

The Obama administration is ramping up its sanctions against the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.

Four senior Syrian government officials, an airline and a private television station will be frozen out of the American financial system.

The Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it was adding Assad's government ministers of defense, health, industry and justice to its list of individuals sanctioned for their role in the mounting violence in the country.

Lawmakers claim the Obama administration's wide-ranging authority to target terror groups worldwide gives the White House a legal loophole to wage war without congressional consent. 

President Obama said Thursday Congress should stop arguing over the Benghazi, Libya, attack and instead become a “partner” in making American diplomats safe.

The president said his administration has spent the past several months adopting the recommendations of last year's audit of the attack, including better training for diplomats; improved intelligence and warning capabilities; and getting the military to respond “lightning-quick in times of crisis.” Now, the president said in thinly veiled criticism of congressional Republicans, it's up to lawmakers to do their part.

“I want to say to members of Congress in both parties: We need to come together and truly honor the sacrifice of those four courageous Americans and better secure our diplomatic posts around the world,” Obama said during a White House press conference. “That's how we learn the lessons of Benghazi. That's how we keep faith with the men and women who we send overseas to represent America. And that's where I will stay focused on as commander in chief.”

President Obama on Thursday expressed measured optimism about the joint U.S.-Russian call for Syrian peace talks, saying it “may yield results.”

“I do think the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians and [Syrian] representatives about a serious political transition that all the parties buy into may yield results,” Obama said at a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“In the mean time, we’re going to continue helping the opposition and the humanitarian situation,” he added.

Sen. Robert Menendez said Republicans should embrace his bill instead of making “politically driven” attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Republicans lied to the media when they said the Obama administration engaged in a cover-up on the Benghazi attack.

“For months my Republican colleagues have argued that the Obama administration has engaged in a cover-up surrounding an attack in Benghazi,” Reid said Thursday. “The emails prove there was simply no cover-up.”

The top Democrat on the House Oversight panel on Thursday joined the authors of the State Department's Benghazi review in demanding they be allowed to testify publicly.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) called on Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to let the leaders of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) testify before the committee after Republicans questioned their report on State's handling of the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

Retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen wrote to Issa on Thursday refusing his request that they sit down for a transcribed interview with his staff before they can testify at a public hearing.

“House Republicans have politicized this investigation from the beginning, and they have recklessly accused Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen of being complicit in a cover-up,” Cummings said in a statement. 

“It is time for the Chairman to honor his commitment to hold a hearing to allow these officials to respond to these reckless accusations, instead of imposing new conditions to keep them from testifying. Members of Congress and the American people should hear directly from these officials — in public — and the Chairman’s efforts to keep them behind closed doors undermines the Committee’s credibility and does a disservice to the truth.”

Pickering and Mullen say the closed-door meeting is an "inappropriate precondition" to their testimony.