Washington, June 23, (RHC), – US President Barack Obama says the Takfiri militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS, pose a “medium and long-term threat” to the United States.

In an interview with CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ aired on Sunday, Obama said that the ISIL is one of the terrorist groups that pose a threat to the US as he called the threat posed by these groups a “global challenge.”

“I think it's important for us to recognize that ISIS is just one of a number of organizations that we have to stay focused on. al-Qaeda in Yemen is still very active and we're staying focused on that. In North Africa, you're seeing organizations including Boko Haram that kidnapped all those young women,” Obama added.

His remarks come as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said on a Sunday interview on CNN that the US has been arming the ISIL militants in Syria.

Over the recent days, the ISIL militants in Iraq, who are allied with loyalists of Iraq’s former Baathist regime, have been wreaking havoc in the country and committing atrocities against people.

The militants overran large swathes of land in northern Iraq, including the cities of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, and Tikrit, the birthplace of former Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein, in just two weeks.

The US says its military is ready for air strikes against ISIL militants in Iraq and Obama said on Thursday that Washington would send 300 “military advisers” to Iraq. The decision has been met with great opposition from antiwar protesters in a number of US cities, who say that sending military advisers can be a prelude to a large-scale war.