A year after President Obama announced a campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) terrorist organization, NBC's Richard Engel reported Sunday that IS is doing anything but shrink.
Despite recent developments with Turkey allowing the U.S. to conduct strikes from their bases, the radical Islamic caliphate is showing strong resistance, and their numbers continue to multiply.
"To quote one U.S. official, ISIS’s international branches are growing like crazy," Engel said on Meet the Press. "ISIS has spread rapidly across north and west Africa, Arabia, Afghanistan, even into the far east. ISIS has expanded far more quickly and extensively than al Qaeda ever did."
Engel noted the struggles of training the Iraqi army, training Syrian rebels and the inability of air strikes to make a significant dent in IS numbers.
Obama originally referred to the group as the "JV team" and downplayed their threat to Americans. He also admitted last August that he did not have a strategy yet to battle the brutal organization.
Over the course of the year, dozens of Americans have been arrested for their affiliation with the terrorist group.
Obama has altered his tone over the year with the terrorist group's growth. The president now says the problem will exist past his presidency.