Obama Says US Had No ‘Specific’ Intelligence on Paris Attacks

U.S. President Barack Obama (C) holds a multilateral meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (L-R), Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius alongside the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, November 16, 2015. “There will be an intensification of the strategy we have put forward, but the strategy we have put forward is the strategy that will ultimately work” though it will take time.

The Islamic State’s increasing focus on wider targets has raised questions about whether Obama underestimated the group. On Thursday, the group claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing that killed more than 40 people in Beirut.

The president said most of his critics are simply “talking as if they’re tough” and offering no real ideas. But he’s vowed to avoid the kind of large-scale ground combat that US troops engaged in for years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama dismissed the suggestion that he failed to comprehend the Islamic State’s strength, but said there were challenges in defeating a group whose fighters have a “willingness to die”. “When we send troops in, those troops get injured”.

He then hit back at Republican presidential candidates who have said the USA should only allow Syrian Christians to enter.

Trump, on CNBC, said: “We have no idea who these people are…” The president’s approach centers largely on airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, as well as programs to train and equip moderate opposition forces. He’s also sent more than 3,000 troops to Iraq to assist that country’s security forces and recently announced plans to send up to 50 Americans into Syria.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Bush said there should be a thorough screening of refugees coming into the United States and that there should be a focus on creating safe havens for refugees in Syria.

France has ramped up its involvement following the attacks on Friday that killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds.

He said the agreement will allow intelligence personnel to “pass threat information, including on ISIL, to our French partners more quickly and more often” and could help prevent further attacks. In its heaviest strikes yet, the French military bombarded Raqqa, the Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria, in hopes of killing Islamic State organizers and trainees. He once referred to the extremists as a “JV team” and said shortly before the Paris attack that their capacity in Iraq and Syria had been contained.

Obama conceded that the attacks in France marked a “terrible and sickening setback” in the anti-Islamic State campaign. Obama said those behind the attack are “killers with fantasies of glory” who are savvy with social media.

The Obama administration is considering ways to form a closer partnership with Russian Federation against the Islamic State terrorist group, including intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation, in the wake of the Paris attacks, US officials said on Monday.

“I’m not aware of anything that was specific”, he said. Though Assad claims to be fighting terrorists in his country’s civil war, his regime is reported to have been a participant in the Islamic State’s oil trade, a lucrative venture that enables the terrorist group to earn millions every year from seized oil fields. But he added, “We are very clear eyed about the very, very hard road ahead”.