In last night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama celebrated the fact that "fewer than 15,000" U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq. For Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, however, that is not a cause for optimism.

On Wednesday, al-Abadi appealed to the U.S.-led coalition and the international community to increase their efforts to help his country win the war against ISIS, the terrorist group that today calls itself the "Islamic State" and controls large swaths of land in Iraq's north, according to the Associated Press.

"We are in this almost on our own," he said. "There is a lot being said and spoken, but very little on the ground."

The assistance pledged so far falls short of the Iraq's urgent needs, al-Abadi said as he was leaving for London to take part in a Thursday meeting on the ISIS conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to attend the conference along with the foreign ministers from about 20 countries, including Arab nations.

Obama insisted on Thursday night that "American leadership ... is stopping (ISIS') advance."

"Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group," the president said in his annual address before a joint session of Congress.

While al-Abadi concurs that Iraq does not want foreign boots on the ground, the prime minister said his country desperately needs "an acceleration of the training" and "the delivery of arms."

"We are fighting very hard to find resources to purchase arms," he explained. "We are left almost alone to get these arms and munitions for the army, for our fighters, and we expect much more.

Al-Abadi announced on Tuesday that Iraqi forces wounded ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike near town of Al-Qa'im, the International Business Times reported. Al-Baghdadi's survival was "a miracle," the prime minister said.

While ISIS may no longer directly threaten the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, al-Abadi said, his country's army cannot effectively confront the militants if they continue to recruit thousands of young people from the region, according to the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat.

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