In a press conference at the White House East Room on Friday, President Obama said that the “core” of Al Qaeda was on its heels but that the terrorist group had “metastasized” into a different sort of threat.
“They have the capacity,” he said, “to go after our embassies… to go after our businesses… to be destabilizing and disruptive in countries where the security apparatus is weak.”
Obama said that it was consistent to believe that this “tightly organized” Al Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11 has been “broken apart” and is “very weak,” while simultaneously claiming that the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula could still pose a serious threat.
Obama stated, “We’ve got to continue to be vigilant and to go after known terrorists…This is an ongoing process. We are not going to completely eliminate terrorism. What we can do is to weaken it and strengthen our partnerships” so that there is not another 9/11.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).