ISIS momentum has been ‘blunted,’ CIA director says

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been “blunted” inside the two countries where it has based its operations, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Sunday.

“Clearly, ISIS’s momentum inside of Iraq and Syria has been blunted,” Director John Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And it has been stopped.”

“So they are not on the march as they were several months ago. And so our working with the Iraqis and the Iraqis now trying to push back against it, it is having some great, I think, progress.”

But he said that the United States-backed offensive against the militant group needed to continue.

“This is something that clearly is not just restricted to Iraq and Syria,” he said. “So we cannot relent.”

Brennan’s interview aired just days after ISIS took credit for an attack on a Tunisian art museum that killed 23 people — some of them tourists visiting from other countries.

He was pushed on whether the rise of ISIS showed that the administration’s claims that it had pushed back al Qaeda were wrong.

“And when we look at al Qaeda and we look at what has happened to al Qaeda and particularly the core of al Qaeda that is in the area of Afghanistan and Pakistan, they have taken some really big hits,” he said.

The U.S. has been backing airstrikes against the group, and forces have been taking back some territory from the group.

There has been some criticism of the White House’s strategy against the group. One that is frequently raised by conservatives is that the administration has shied away from using the term “Islamic extremism” to describe the group.

“It’s an ideology of violence. That’s what it is. It is not a religious ideology,” Brennan said.

Later, he demurred when he was asked whether he was prepared to call them Islamic extremists.

“I’m prepared to say that they are extremists, they’re violent terrorists who misrepresent what the Islamic religion is about, yes, absolutely.”