Obama: US will prevail over ‘despicable’ terrorist threats

President Barack Obama says USA intelligence and counterterrorism officials don’t have any specific, credible information suggesting a potential terrorist attack against the US during the holidays.

On Monday, during a rare trip to the Pentagon, Obama said is “confident” the U.S.-led coalition will prevail in its battle against the Islamic State, adding that the militant group is losing ground and its leaders have no place to hide.

Obama went on to discuss three fronts of US counterterrorism efforts, including attacking terrorist groups overseas, increasing security at home through coordinated anti-terror efforts between law enforcement at all levels and calling on American citizens to resist fear.

“At this moment our intelligence and counterterrorism professionals do not have any specific and credible information about an attack on the homeland”, Obama announced today. So I guess one of those harmless women participated in the deadliest terrorist attack in this country since 9/11 in San Bernardino. Critics, though, point out that ISIS has been running more than 60 camps in Syria and Iraq since 2014, and they worry that the camps are not being hit enough.

“I do think you have seen from the Russians that after a couple of months they are not really moving the needle that much”, Obama said. “That said, we have to be vigilant”.

Calling the inter-agency efforts of national, state, and local law enforcement at outposts all over the country, the president called their efforts in intelligence sharing and gathering the “very best” in the world. “They need to know we are strong and resilient and we will not be terrorized”.

The San Bernardino and Paris mass shootings and the knife attack at a London Tube station are but the latest responses to the “Caliphate” siren call. Seven in 10 Americans rate the risk of an attack in the U.S.as at least somewhat high, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll – a sharp increase from the 5 in 10 who said that in January. “That’s the only leverage that they have”.

Even as he defended his own strategy, Obama also took a jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he had predicted that the Russian operation in the war-torn country would not change the shape of the battlefield between Moscow-backed President Bashar al-Assad and his internal foes.

In the survey tracking Americans’ views of the year’s biggest news events, Americans placed far greater importance on the massacres in Paris, San Bernardino and Charleston than the accomplishments Obama himself would rather highlight as the year comes to a close.