The United States is gripped by an “elevated threat” as the Christmas holiday approaches posed by homegrown violent extremists seeking to carry out “stray dog attacks” on behalf of the Islamic State warned a top U.S. national security official.
Robin Taylor also blamed the threat on the “pressure the U.S.-led coalition and their allies are applying on the jihadist organization in the Middle East.”
Kudos to the coalition. Jihadists everywhere are a global menace. The more success they have, the more emboldened they become. This is why appeasement never works with jihadists.
But the US and other allied forces should have long ago anticipated their return and taken aggressive measures to track them and prosecute them. Unfortunately this did not happen.
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau referred to returning Islamic State jihadis as “foreign terrorist travelers” who are traumatized. He plans to give them “reintegration support,” an impossible venture funded by taxpayers. In Britain, ISIS fighters will “be offered taxpayer funded council homes and counselling to stop them attacking the UK,’” thus putting them “to the top of council house waiting lists and offered counselling.”
Western notions of reintegration and counseling for mujahideen are highly unrealistic. They’re proposed by leaders to appear as if something is being done. It was also reported by Jihad Watch that returning Islamic State fighters were planning attacks on Christmas holiday travelers to Trinidad, a country that was reported to have the highest ISIS recruitment in the Western hemisphere. Jihad Watch covered the threat to holiday travelers, which was cited by Minister of National Security, Edmund Dillon, at a recent Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Counter-Terrorism Strategy conference, of twenty Caribbean countries, according to the Trinidad Express.
Trinidad Member of Parliament Rodney Charles levied a criticism to Trinidad’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley that generally applies to Western leaders:
This government has no clue as to who left T&T for Syria, when they left, how many left, what are their connections back home, how they were recruited, who financed their travels, where our jihadists went, which battles they fought, what military skills they now possess, who died, who were captured, when will survivors return, and what we will do with them upon their arrival.
“Where are our plans Dr. Rowley? Stop the blame game and start working,” Charles said.
Western citizens everywhere remain in grave danger from these returning “stray dog jihadists,” and our leaders are at a loss to deal with them.
“Christmas Menace: U.S. Facing ‘Elevated Threat’ from Homegrown ‘Stray Dog’ Jihadists”, Edwin Mora, Breitbart, December 8, 2017:
WASHINGTON, DC — The United States is gripped by an “elevated threat” as the Christmas holiday approaches posed by homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) seeking to carry out “stray dog attacks” on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), warned a top U.S. national security official.
ISIS has been able to retain its ability online to mobilize “HVE lone offenders attacks” against the United States even as its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria “collapses,” Robin Taylor, a top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee during a hearing Wednesday.
Lora Shiao, the acting director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), a component of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), further declared that despite the losses the group has suffered in Iraq and Syria, its social media reach remains “unprecedented.”
On Wednesday, Shiao told the Senate panel while testifying alongside Taylor:
We do not think battlefield losses alone will be sufficient to degrade its terrorism capabilities. As we have seen, the group has launched attacks in periods when it held large swaths of territory and when under significant pressure from the defeat-ISIS campaign.
In addition to its efforts to conduct external attacks from its safe havens in Iraq and Syria, ISIS’s capacity to reach sympathizers around the world through its robust social media capability is unprecedented and gives the group access to large numbers of HVEs.
The online menace posed by ISIS remains persistent, stressed Taylor, the acting deputy undersecretary for intelligence operations at the DHS office of intelligence and analysis, telling lawmakers:
ISIS members continue to attempt to recruit and radicalize to violence Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) through social media. The reach and popularity of social media has enabled HVEs to connect more easily with terrorist organizations, such as ISIS.
We assess there is currently an elevated threat of HVE lone offender attacks by ISIS sympathizers, which is especially concerning because mobilized lone offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt their plots.
Mark Mitchell, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict who also testified, said that ISIS would likely increase its reliance on its online capabilities as it continues to lose on the battlefield.
In his written testimony, Mitchell stated:
As ISIS loses territory in Iraq and Syria, its operations will become more distributed and more reliant on virtual connections. Their terrorist cadres will migrate to other safe havens where they can direct and enable attacks against the United States, our allies and partners, and our global interests.
They will also continue to radicalize vulnerable individuals and inspire them to conduct “lone wolf” (or “stray dog”) attacks. We will continue to see ISIS and al-Qa’ida threats to our homeland, as well as our allies and partners, from locations in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Balkan States, among other locations.
The DHS official proclaimed that the al-Qaeda (AQ) terrorist threat still grips the United States more than 16 years after America’s war on terror began in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Taylor revealed in his written testimony:
Core AQ and its affiliates remain a major concern for DHS. Despite the deaths of many AQ senior leaders, the group and its affiliates maintain the intent, and, in some cases, the capability to facilitate and conduct attacks against U.S. citizens and facilities. The group and its affiliates have also demonstrated that capability to adjust tactics, techniques and procedures for targeting the West.
Despite the near collapse of the so-called ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the threat posed by the terrorist group is “evolving” as the jihadist organization desperately tries to maintain its strength and influence, noted Taylor, telling Senators:
ISIS fighters’ battlefield experience in Syria and Iraq have armed it with advanced capabilities that most terrorist groups do not have. Even as the so-called “caliphate” collapses, ISIS fighters retain their toxic ideology and a will to fight. We remain concerned that foreign fighters from the U.S. or elsewhere who have traveled to Syria and Iraq and radicalized to violence will ultimately return to the U.S. or their home country to conduct attacks…..
Bodega says
Since ISIS out reach involves social media, shut down the social media source.IF it requires new laws, do it as long as the laws don’t reach into domestic currently extant laws having nothing to do with ISIS.
Shut ISIS down. Anybody screaming alah akbar should be a target, no ands ifs or buts. A target for imprisonment or shooting if directly involved in killing others.
Nuts to coddling.
Abbisid says
Not sure what the USA problem is, just take a leaf out of Canada’s play book. ““This prime minister (Trudeau) is using a broad spectrum that includes poetry and podcasts and all kinds of counselling and group hug sessions.” then the problem just goes away.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Yes, we’re all fine here now, thanks…….how are you?
J D S says
Yes …Junior has given Canada away
Walter Sieruk says
The cruel ,vicious and murderous jihadists thugs who compose ISIS are so very brutal and deadly that they even want to murder people on Christmas The malicious jihadists of that jihad entity, ISIS, are actually putting in to the practice ,with all their ruthless actions, the violence and killing that is part of the teaching of the “holy book” of Islam ,the Koran. Which contain the doctrine of extreme violent force for the advancement of Islam. As seen in the Koran, for example, 2:191,4:89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123. 47:4. So in spite of the strong denials by many, ISIS is an actual Islamic organization. Likewise the malicious, bloodthirsty violence jihadists who make up ISIS are real Muslims. Nevertheless, there are some who might , understandably, wonder and then ask “Just how can those jihadists of ISIS ,being so very religious , also at the time also be so very malice-filled ,unfeeling and deadly ? “ The answer to that question is found in the Bible. For the Bible teaches that there are some people who are extremely heartless, cold, callous and dangerous because they have had “their conscience seared with a hot iron.” First Timothy 4:2. [ K.J.V.] In this case of the members of ISIS this “hot iron” is Islam.
Thomas Kimball says
Christmas means nothing to them except they know it means something to Christians and American businesses who make a major portion of their yearly earnings! We are talking about a race of people that do horrible things to each other so why would they give murdering us a second thought?
Walter Sieruk says
The elevated alert at this time of year because of the jihadist dangers and threats is a reminder that ,as Americans, we should and must remember that for the United States to continue as a great power in the world in spite of the current threats of the Islamic terrorism by jihadist /Muslim terrorists who are operatives of ISIS, Al Qaeda and other jihadists of other similar jihad terror entities. Americans then should have Vigilance, Conviction and, of course, Fortitude. As one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had declared, Thomas Jefferson, “Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.” and “A conviction that we are right accomplishes half the difficulty of correcting wrong.” Likewise, Mr. Jefferson had also stated “Fortitude…teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them.” So in other words we , as Americans ,should have learned keep moving on strongly with Vigilance, Conviction and Fortitude.
Thomas Kimball says
Jefferson was also the first American president to take on the muslims and win when we went in with the newly formed Marine corps to get the barbary pirates!
Undaunted says
If you really want to read a book that matters, something that will help you to be prepared for this ongoing terror, you need something more than the wisdom of Robert Spencer and other authors of his caliber, and you need more than cries to God to help you. There are ways to help yourself, there are ways to protect yourself and those you love. If you choose to do nothing more than read books and pray, then you deserve the fear under which you will live as slaves. If you want to know what to do to spot terrorist attacks before they occur, what to do to stop them and how to survive them if you cannot stop them, then you need to read my book, “6-Actual: Why you need to be in charge – and how to do so – in these very dangerous days”, available at Amazon. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Albert George says
A Neville Chamberlain mentality pervades many in Canada, U.s. and Europe. And what a price that generation paid!