Obama downplays ISIL threat to US

US President Barack Obama has downplayed the threat posed to the US by Takfiri militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), saying the US has been under “serious threat” throughout his entire presidency.

“I think we have been under serious threat my entire presidency,” said Obama in an interview with ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ on Friday. “And we have been under serious threat predating 9/11 from those who embrace this ideology.”

This comes as Obama’s former ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said earlier this month that “we would be foolish to think” that ISIL militants would not plan attacks against the US.

“This is a more formidable force than Osama bin Laden’s group that brought us 9/11. Its fighters are experienced, completely committed to their cause, well armed and well financed. As many as 2,000 of them hold Western passports, including U.S. ones, so there’s no need for visas,” wrote Crocker in an op-ed for The Washington Post which was published on June 19.

Even Obama himself said earlier this month that the ISIL militants pose a “medium and long-term threat” to the United States but the US president also said that the terrorist group is only one of the groups posing threats against the US and Washington should “be on constant guard.”

On Thursday, the Pentagon said that 500 US military forces were in Baghdad while Obama had authorized the deployment of 300 “military advisers” to Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has revealed that the US Special Operations troops arriving in Iraq are being accompanied by armed US Predator drones flying over Baghdad.

ISIL militants in Iraq, who are allied with loyalists of Iraq’s former Baathist regime, have been wreaking havoc in the country over the past weeks and took control of some cities like Tikrit which is the birthplace of former Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein.

On Saturday, the Iraqi army, backed by thousands of tribal gunmen and volunteer forces, retook full control of Tikrit.

Last week, US Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said the US has been arming the ISIL militants in Syria. “I think we have to understand first how we got here,” Paul said on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’ “We have been arming ISIS in Syria.”