An intruder armed with a knife who jumped a fence and sprinted across the White House lawn, got much further into the presidential mansion than previously thought, a report said Monday.

The Washington Post said the man rushed in through the front door of the White House and ran into the ceremonial East Room, one floor below the private residence of President Barack Obama and his family.

A White House official on Sunday played down a report that it took the Secret Service days to realize a man shot at the presidential residence in 2011, while President Barack Obama's daughter was at home.

The Washington Post report came amid new scrutiny on the agency tasked with protecting the president, after a series of recent security lapses, including one earlier this month that saw an intruder armed with a knife jump over a security fence and burst into the White House.

President Barack Obama admitted Sunday that the United States had underestimated the opportunity that a collapsing Syria would provide for jihadist militants to regroup and stage a sudden comeback.

Speaking to CBS News, the president said that former Al-Qaida fighters driven from Iraq by U.S. and local forces had been able to gather in Syria to form the newly dangerous Islamic State group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to New York on Sunday, vowing to expose "slander and lies" laid out by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in his UN speech.

In a Friday address to the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a "genocidal crime" in its 50-day war against Gaza militants in which nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed.

American leadership is as strong as ever despite a slew of challenges, from the fight to eradicate Islamic State militants to a deadly Ebola epidemic and efforts to tackle climate change, President Barack Obama said Saturday in his weekly address.

Obama, the reluctant warrior who took office nearly six years ago promising to end costly wars, instead now finds himself launching a new conflict -- against the Islamic State jihadists -- that the White House freely admits will stretch past his departure from office in January 2017.

President Barack Obama paid a deeply personal tribute to his Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, as a man with whom he shares bonds of friendship and race said he would resign.

Holder, the first African American to hold the top law enforcement post, is seen as a champion of civil rights by supporters but reviled as an ideologue by Republicans.

President Barack Obama spoke briefly with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday about the war against the Islamic State group and the U.S.-led coalition which the Turks have yet to join.

Officials said Obama called Erdogan from Air Force One as he returned from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where the Turkish leader met with Vice President Joe Biden.

Barack Obama leaves the annual United Nations meeting Wednesday with his presidency reshaped by a new era of global turbulence and his worldview sharpened by rampant jihadism's "heart of darkness."

A year ago at the United Nations, with his authority and image as a statesman rocked by his eleventh hour decision to call off military strikes on Syria, Obama declared "the world is more stable than it was five years ago."

Iran's president warned the U.S. that air strikes would not destroy jihadists in Syria but appeared upbeat about securing a deal over Tehran's nuclear program, in an interview broadcast Wednesday.

The United States bombed Islamic State-controlled oil refineries in Syria as President Barack Obama rallied the world at the UN General Assembly to fight the jihadist "network of death" in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday slammed Russia's "aggression" in Ukraine but offered to lift sanctions against Moscow if it threw its weight behind an unraveling peace deal with Kiev.

The outstretched hand to Moscow came a day after pro-Russian guerrillas brushed off Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's limited self-rule offer and announced plans to set up their own parliaments in self-organized November 2 polls.