US intelligence agencies underestimated the threat posed by the Islamic State extremist group, Barack Obama has said.
The President also said that, conversely, the US overestimated the ability of the Iraqi army to fight the militants.
Speaking on a 60 Minutes interview on CBS, he said that militants took advantage of the “chaos of the Syrian civil war”.
“And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world.”
Asked if the rapid rise of the group came as a surprise, Mr Obama responded: “I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”
The President last week expanded US-led airstrikes, which began in Iraq in August, to Syria and he has been seeking to build a wider coalition effort to weaken IS.
The group has killed thousands and beheaded at least two US journalists and a Briton while seizing parts of Syria and northwestern Iraq.
Mr Obama outlined the military goal against IS, which is also known as ISIL or ISIS.
“We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fuelling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters.”
Mr Obama said the chances of success are greater in Iraq than they are in Syria.
“I think that right now, we’ve got a campaign plan that has a strong chance for success in Iraq. I think Syria is a more challenging situation,” he said.
In Syria, the US also faces the risk of inadvertently helping Bashar al Assad as it battles IS.
“I recognise the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance,” Mr Obama said.
“We are not going to stabilise Syria under the rule of Assad,” whose government has committed “terrible atrocities”, he said.
Obama Admits US ‘Underestimated’ IS Threat
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Obama Admits US 'Underestimated' IS Threat
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