More than 250 Americans are going overseas to join the Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria and other terrorist groups and the United States has
largely failed to stop most of them, in part, because it lacks a
national strategy, the House Homeland Security Committee said in a new
bipartisan report released Sept. 29.
"Of the hundreds of Americans who have sought to travel to the
conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, authorities have only interdicted a
fraction of them," the report (pdf) said. "Several dozen have also managed to make it back into America."
The report listed a number of findings that lawmakers have warned
about previously such as the tactic of "broken travel" in which foreign
fighters travel to the Middle East through different routes rather than
directly flying there. Lawmakers also have lamented about the lack of
information sharing from other countries, especially in Europe,
regarding terrorist suspects.
Foreign fighters have become a worldwide issue with the Islamic
State's rise to power. The report said more than 25,000 foreign
fighters, including 4,500 Westerners, from more than 100 countries have
traveled or attempted to travel to the battlefields in Syria and Iraq
where the terrorist group, also known as ISIS, has declared the
establishment of a caliphate. The report said these foreign fighters
pose a serious threat to the U.S. and others.
"Even if they do not return home to plot attacks, foreign fighters
have taken the lead in recruiting a new generation of terrorists and are
seeking to radicalize Westerners online to spread terror back home,"
the report noted.
Appointed by House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul
(R-Texas) and Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), an eight-member
task force issued 32 key findings, in all, with accompanying
recommendations in the report about countering foreign fighters and
jihadist recruiters.
One of the report's major findings was that the federal government
lacks a national strategy to address terrorist travel. More
specifically, it said that a 2006 strategy developed as a result of 9/11
Commission recommendation is "woefully outdated."
"While [the 2006 strategy] provided a thorough overview of U.S.
efforts to keep extremists from crossing borders, some of those programs
have changed or are now defunct, and new ones have been created," the
committee report said. "The evolving threat environment has also made
the document obsolete. For instance, the strategy makes no mention
of foreign fighters or the challenges associated with extremists' social
media recruiting."
Task force members also said they were repeatedly told about the
"unprecedented speed" of Americans being radicalized – from "the time
between an individual's first encounter with extremist propaganda to
when they are prepared to act on it." The scope and magnitude of this
terrorist recruitment effort, the report said, is straining law
enforcement worldwide, but also here in the United States.
"While the circumstance are not quite as dire here, the threat
environment certainly has put strain on U.S. authorities, especially at
the FBI. The FBI director now says the agency is investigating ISIS
supporters in all 50 states," the report said.
It recommended that federal authorities rely more on state and local
agencies to help them manage the increasing amount of counterterrorism
cases.
Another problem that the report highlighted was the use of secure
websites and apps that jihadist recruiters use to securely communicate
with Americans, making it more difficult for authorities to disrupt
plots. U.S. officials and terrorist experts have said that the Islamic
State has deftly used social media like Twitter and other electronic
means to create and disperse messages that are especially attractive to
younger individuals.
The report said it was "especially concerning" that terrorists use
freely available encrypted messaging tools to hide illegal activities
and hatch plots to kill Americans.
It also said some 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.
FBI Director James Comey has been vocal that this encryption would
severely hamper investigations into criminal and terrorist activities.
"We are not satisfied these challenges have been discussed as
thoroughly and openly as they should be," the report said. "Law
enforcement and technology companies seem to be talking past each other,
and no sustained dialogue has been established on the subject between
key parties, including Congress, law enforcement, and private industry."
Several other points raised by the report include developing
initiatives across the country to raise the awareness of foreign-fighter
recruitment and implementing community strategies to help spot and
prevent individuals from becoming radicalized.
http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.com/story/new-report-recommends-us-strategy-prevent-americans-traveling-overseas-figh/2015-10-01?utm_campaign=SocialMedia
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