Washington: US President Barack Obama admitted on Sunday that the United States had underestimated the opportunity that a collapsing Syria would provide for jihadist militants to regroup and stage a sudden comeback.
Speaking to CBS News, the president said that former al-Qaeda fighters driven from Iraq by US and local forces had been able to gather in Syria to form the dangerous Islamic State.
“I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” he said, referring to his director of national intelligence.
Asked whether Washington has also overestimated the ability or will of Iraq’s US-trained military to fight the jihadists on its own, Mr Obama said, “That’s true. That’s absolutely true.”
Mr Obama said IS propagandists had become “very savvy” with social media and lured new recruits “who believed in their jihadist nonsense” from Europe, America and Australia.
