President Barack Obama insisted on Thursday his decision to deploy special forces to the Middle East in the fight against the terror organization ISIS does not mean the United States would embark on any operation similar to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The president said he believed his assertion there would be "no boots on the ground" was not as ambiguous as his critics have claimed, Politico reported.

"You know, when I said, 'No boots on the ground,' I think the American people understood generally that we're not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert," Obama said.

His comments came after Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the anti-ISIS coalition, announced the United States would send about 100 special operators to Iraq and Syria in order to carry out small strike missions, according to The New York Post.

At the same time, the commander-in-chief insisted the United States and its allies remained committed to defeating ISIS, which controls large swaths of territory across Iraq and Syria and has claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attacks that killed 129 people.

"What I've been very clear about is that we are going to systematically squeeze and ultimately destroy ISIL," the president said, employing an alternative acronym for the jihadi group. "And that requires us having a military component to that, and the 65-country coalition that we put together has been striking ISIL mercilessly."

Meanwhile, a decision by the United Kingdom to join the U.S.-led airstrikes on ISIS in Syria will provide a boost to the Obama administration's efforts to prop up the campaign against the organization, the Guardian reported.

"Since the beginning of the counter-ISIS campaign, the United Kingdom has been one of our most valued partners in fighting ISIS," the president said.

"We look forward to having British forces flying with the coalition over Syria, and will work to integrate them into our 'coalition air tasking orders' as quickly as possible."