U.S.-led airstrikes continued in Syria overnight, with attacks launched across four provinces in the northern and eastern regions of the country. Appearing on 60 Minutes last night, President Obama told Steve Kroft, "[Director of National Intelligence] Jim Clappper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," pointing to instability in the country caused by civil war as the opening the militants needed to gain their foothold.

"Essentially what happened with ISIL was that you had al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a vicious group, but our Marines were able to quash with the help of Sunni tribes," Obama said. "They went back underground, but over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you had huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the Associated Press that Conoco (in Deir el-Zour province), the largest gas plant in Syria, and a grain silo in the town of Manbij were among last night's airstrike targets. The Observatory told the Associated Press that gas plant itself was not damaged in the attack.

From the Associated Press:

More strikes Monday morning hit the town of Tel Abyad on the Syria-Turkey border, according to a resident on the Turkish side on the frontier.

Mehmet Ozer told The Associated Press by telephone that the raids hit an abandoned military base and an empty school, sending pillars of smoke and dust into the air. He said Islamic State fighters cleared out of the military about three or four months ago.

"They (the coalition) must not have fresh intelligence," Ozer said.

While death counts are still being confirmed, Rami Abdulrahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters that the attack on the grain silo in Manbij "appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters."

The attacks on the gas plant and grain silo appear to be in step with the military strategy Obama discussed on 60 Minutes last night.

"That's why it's so important for us to recognize part of the solution here is gonna be military," Obama said. "We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fueling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters."

[Video via CBS]