But it would be “Islamophobic” to be concerned about this. So go back to sleep. “Western-raised jihadists pouring into Syria could threaten US in future,” by Catherine Herridge for FoxNews.com, November 13:
Most of the more than 1,000 jihadists who have poured into Syria to fight alongside Al Qaeda carry passports from North America and Europe, raising the possibility that they could easily bring terror back to the west, according to a key lawmaker who receives regular briefings on the issue.
The prospect is especially chilling given that Al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria seem determined to use the embattled nation as a haven from which to launch future attacks beyond the region, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
“The number now exceeds 1,000 western jihadists who have shown up, so they’ll have passports, good passports, allows them to travel around Europe, maybe get to the United States,” Rogers told Fox News. “That’s concerning.”
Middle Eastern wars drawing insurgents from around the globe is not new, but Rogers said there appears to be even greater intensity in Syria, where Muslim militants have joined Syrians in a bid to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
“What we’ve seen to date, a higher rate of foreign insurgents then we did see in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Rogers said. “Which is significant if you think of the time frame and then the height of the Iraq War in about ’06 we saw a huge influx of insurgents from all over the world, jihadists who had a pretty passionate commitment.”
But the outsiders seem to have a different goal than simply ousting Assad.
“The conflict you hear about among Al- Qaeda affiliates is not them fighting for control in Syria, it’s them arguing about: ‘Do we do external operations or do we focus more in Syria for the time being?'” Rogers said. “That is a dangerous trend for us indeed.”
A recently unsealed terrorism case in North Carolina underscored the growing number of Americans accused of travelling to Syria to fight alongside Islamist groups. Basit Javed Sheikh, who was born in Pakistan but is now a legal permanent resident, is accused of hosting a half-dozen Facebook pages praising the operations of Al Qaeda in Syria, known as al-Nusra. The 29-year-old is accused of providing material support to a terrorist organization….