Islamic State crisis: Obama says US underestimated threat
September 29, 2014
President Barack Obama has acknowledged that US agencies underestimated the threat posed by the Islamist insurgency in Syria. In a frank TV interview, he said that al-Qaeda had been beaten in Iraq by US forces working with Sunni tribes. But they took advantage of the power vacuum in neighbouring Syria to emerge as Isis, later called Islamic State.
In an interview with the CBS TV programme 60 Minutes, Mr Obama said Syria had become a “ground zero” for militants who had been able to take advantage of the chaos there. He reiterated that only part of the solution to defeating them would be military and that a political solution was also necessary.