“It appears the majority, more than 85 percent, still managed to evade American law enforcement on the way to the conflict zone”, the report said. Lawmakers also have lamented about the lack of information sharing from other countries, especially in Europe, regarding terrorist suspects.
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The fighters pose “a triple threat”, the group wrote in a summary of its findings: “they strengthen terrorist groups, incite others back home to conduct attacks, and can return themselves to launch acts of terror”.
Roughly 250 Americans have either tried to go or succeeded in getting to Syria to engage in violent jihad, the report said.
More than 25,000 foreigners have flocked to war-torn Syria and Iraq since 2011 to fight with Islamist terrorist groups including ISIS, according to US government estimates noted in the report.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul warned that the United States faced a grave and growing threat from foreign fighters.
While most of the recruits are from Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, a significant number of Western youth have also joined the terror cult, after turning victim to their online propaganda. More specifically, it said that a 2006 strategy developed as a result of 9/11 Commission recommendation is “woefully outdated”.
“As a general rule, our observation of ISIS [recruits] is that they tend to be pretty tactically proficient”, one US official told VOA on the condition of anonymity. “For instance, the strategy makes no mention of foreign fighters or the challenges associated with extremists’ social media recruiting”.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations summit on how to counter ISIS and the threat of extremism worldwide, Obama touted the work of the U.S.-led coalition in making gains against ISIS as well as the work of countries to strengthen laws “to disrupt the flow of foreign terrorist fighters”. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation director now says the agency is investigating ISIS supporters in all 50 states”, the report said.
Hundreds of jihadis are leaving Islamic State for other extremist organisations after being forced to take a pay cut of nearly £200 by chiefs, it was claimed last night.
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It also said a few companies can’t even comply with lawful warrants to access communications because of built-in security and encryption, an allusion to Apple and Google that have said their smartphones, by default, would be encrypted and could only be unlocked by their owners. They don’t screen passengers the way we do.
