Federal counterterrorism officials are investigating hundreds of suspected Islamic State [ISIS] recruits in the United States.
As Written By Kevin Johnson for USA Today:
WASHINGTON—The Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for the attacks in Paris has potentially dramatic implications in the U.S., where federal counterterrorism officials are investigating hundreds of suspected Islamic State recruits who they fear have been urged to take their fight to American streets, authorities have said.
Last month, FBI Director James Comey acknowledged an estimated 900 active investigations pending against suspected Islamic State-inspired operatives and other homegrown violent extremists across the country.
The majority of those inquiries involve suspected Islamic State recruits, officials said, who have either been radicalized through the terror group’s aggressive social media campaign or have returned to the U.S. after being trained on battlefields in Syria and Iraq. Islamic State is also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS.
Comey has said that the number of inquiries has slowly climbed, largely due to the group’s successful outreach to young, disaffected Americans.
“(Islamic State) is fueling an unprecedented tempo for law enforcement authorities combating the homegrown Islamist extremist threat,” a House Homeland Security Committee threat assessment stated earlier this month, adding that almost 60 people have been arrested so far this year in ISIL-related cases.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the Homeland Committee’s Republican chairman, last week called the Islamist threat a ….
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