Yes, US underestimated ISIS: Obama
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama acknowledged that US intelligence agencies underestimated the threat from ISIS militants and overestimated the ability and will of Iraq’s army to fight such extremists.
Obama described the US intelligence assessments in response to a question during a CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, in which he also conceded that the US-led campaign against that group and an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria was helping Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, a man the UN has accused of war crimes.
But Obama said he had no choice but to order US air strikes on Assad’s enemies, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Khorasan Group because, he said, “those folks could kill Americans.”
Meanwhile, Turkey deployed tanks and armoured vehicles to reinforce its border with Syria amid escalating ISIS violence, as parliament is set to consider whether to authorise military action against ISIS jihadists.
In a related development, a British citizen was arrested in Dhaka for suspected links with the ISIS, becoming the sixth person to be detained in past four days as part of an intensified security vigil against the dreaded group. “We have found out that he was trying to set up contact with IS and al-Nusra Front,” a police spokesman said identifying him as Samiul Rahman aka Ibn Hamdan.