President Barack Oba-ma on Sunday laid out the most sweeping defence yet of his strategy to defeat ISIS, but he offered no US policy shift to confront what he called a “new phase” in the terrorist thr
President Barack Oba-ma on Sunday laid out the most sweeping defence yet of his strategy to defeat ISIS, but he offered no US policy shift to confront what he called a “new phase” in the terrorist threat after a mass shooting in California.
In a rare Oval Office address, Mr Obama so-ught to calm a US public increasingly jittery about the fight against Islamist militancy that once appeared to be waged overseas.
Speaking in a measured tone, Mr Obama used his 14-minute nat-ionally-televised appearance to draw a careful line about what he would and would not do. He pledged, for example, to “hunt down terrorist plotters” anywhere they are. But he insisted: “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria.”
Mr Obama spoke just four days after US-born Syed Rizwan Farook (28) and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik (29) opened fire on a holiday party for civil servants in San Bern-ardino, California, killing 14 people. Mr Obama condemned the California attack as “an act of terrorism de-signed to kill innocent people.” But he also said this incident sho-wed that “the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase” as ISIS used the Internet to “poison the minds” of potential assailants.
Mr Obama also made a connection between national security and the need for gun control following Americ-a’s latest mass shooting.
President Obama, whose restraint contrasted with French President Francois Ho-llande’s impassioned words after the Paris attacks when he vowed a “merciless” response, said there was no evidence the California assault was directed by a militant group overseas or part of a broader conspiracy at home. Nevertheless, Mr Oba-ma sought to show his administration was on top of the crisis, desp-ite new questions rais-ed about the country’s defenses against homegrown extremism.
Mr Obama called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communication-s to plan and promote violence, setting up re-newed debate over personal privacy online. He also made the case again for US gun control, something he has done to little avail beca-use of stiff Republican resistance, following numerous shooting sprees during his presidency. “We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino,” President Obama said. “What we can do, and must do, is make it harder for them to kill.”
Meanwhile, a White House offcial said that Mr Obama has asked the US department of homeland security an-d the state department to review the K-1 fiance visa programme that was used by a couple responsible for a mass shooting in California.
