PARIS: Several Arab countries have offered to join the United States in airstrikes against Islamic State targets, US officials said on Sunday, indicating a possible widening of the air campaign against militants who have seized parts of Iraq and Syria.

The officials declined to identify which countries had made the offers but said they were under consideration as the US begins to identify roles for each country in its emerging coalition against terrorists.

“I don't want to leave you with the impression that these Arab members haven't offered to do airstrikes because several of them have,” a senior US State Department official told reporters in Paris. The official said the offers were not limited to airstrikes. “Some have indicated for quite a while a willingness to do them elsewhere,” the official said. “We have to sort through all of that because you can't just go and bomb something.”

“We have countries in this region, countries outside of this region, in addition to the US, all of whom are prepared to engage in military assistance, in actual strikes if that is what it requires. And we also have a growing number of people who are prepared to do all the other things,” Kerry said in remarks aired on Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”