US President Barack Obama has made a rare Oval Office address after the San Bernardino shootings that left 14 dead.

He said the killings were “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people,” the BBC report.

But “freedom is more powerful than fear,” said President Obama, warning that falling prey to divisiveness in American society would play into the hands of extremists.

He also said the US must make it harder for potential attackers to obtain guns.

Mr Obama vowed that the US would overcome the evolving threat of terrorism, but warned that Americans “cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam”.