US Intelligence Underestimated Islamic State Threat in Syria, Says Obama

President Obama accepted Sunday that the U.S. intelligence agencies underestimated the capacity of the Islamic State in Syria, in an interview to CBS's "60 Minutes"  

He agreed with the director of national intelligence Jim Clapper's view that  U.S. underestimated the situation in Syria  and overestimated the ability of Iraq's army to fight the militants.

Obama also talked about the contradictions and conundrums of the U.S. military campaign in the region. He admitted that the U.S. air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria were helping Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

"I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance," Obama said." "We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad," whose government has committed "terrible atrocities," Obama said.

"On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group - those folks could kill Americans," he said, reports theAssociated Press.

Obama said that Islamic militants went into hiding when US forces defeated al Qaeda in Iraq with the help of Sunni tribes.

"But over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos," Obama said in an interview.

"And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world," he said, reports Reuters.

Obama said that a political solution was required in establishing peace in Iraq and Syria.

However, this will take time as young men in the region now were more concerned about divisions like Shia and Sunni instead of focusing on getting a good education or a good job, according to him.