The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency says the United States has not underestimated the threat posed by the Islamic State group.

John Brennan said Monday the success by the United States and its coalition countries in containing the group’s momentum inside Iraq and Syria is “why I think they are looking abroad” to make attacks.

Asked whether the U.S. had underestimated the threat, Brennan said, “I don’t think we are underestimating the capability of ISIL,” using an alternate name for the group.

He told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank , that while it was “inevitable” that the Islamic State will try to carry out such attacks, “to me it is not inevitable that they are going to succeed.”

(AP)