President Barack Obama will speak to the nation from the Oval Office Sunday night about the San Bernardino, Calif., attack and the war against the Islamic State group, The Hill reports.
The White House said, “He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL [also known as ISIS or the Islamic State] will be destroyed and that the United States must draw upon our values—our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom—to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology.”
His speech comes against the backdrop of the Paris terrorist attacks last month, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility. And last week, a married couple went on a shooting rampage, killing 14 people and injuring dozens in San Bernardino, Calif., which the FBI is now investigating as a possible terrorist attack.
“It is entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror,” the president said on Saturday. “And if so, it would underscore a threat we’ve been focused on for years: the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies.”
Obama reassured the nation before Thanksgiving that his security team knew of no “specific and credible threat” to the U.S.
As the New York Times points out, the president was right. The San Bernardino attack came in under the radar. Homeland Security is now rethinking how to identify homegrown extremists.
Read more at The Hill.