WASHINGTON ¨C President Barack Obama said U.S. intelligence officials failed to appreciate the gains made by Islamic State extremists in Syria during the last few years of that country¡¯s civil war.
¡°I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,¡± Obama said in a taped interview that will air in full Sunday night on CBS¡¯s ¡°60 Minutes¡± program.
¡°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,¡± the president said, Islamic State was ¡°able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos.¡± Obama spoke in an excerpt aired Sunday on the TV network¡¯s ¡°Face the Nation¡± program.
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