By Glynn Cosker
Managing Editor, In Homeland Security
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has released October’s Terror Threat Snapshot, which outlines the increasing threat to the United States and its Western allies from ISIS and other Islamist terror groups.
“Islamist extremist groups are consolidating their control over crucial terrain and seizing the initiative to expand their global footprint. Destabilizing aggressors, from the Putin regime in Russia to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror in Iran, are filling the void of American withdrawal to disastrous effect. This global surge in radicalism and instability has directly contributed to the elevated threat level here at home. We need decisive American leadership that starts with shoring up our defenses and advancing a credible strategy to stop the threats at the source,” stated Chairman Michael McCaul.
See each month’s Terror Threat Snapshots here.
October’s Terror Threat Snapshot offers some alarming trends. First, efforts designed to prevent Americans and other nationals from leaving their home countries to join jihadist groups overseas have not succeeded and – in fact – the U.S. government has yet to formulate an effective strategy to prevent terrorist travel. McCaul’s terror threat snapshot reports that huge security shortfalls overseas are currently putting the United States in danger.
Another key takeaway from the report is that ISIS has mostly maintained its “core terrorist safe haven, while expanding its global footprint.” That is a troubling assertion, and it should have every American concerned – especially since the U.S. has spent the better part of a year conducting airstrikes on various ISIS targets.
Furthermore, according to the report, ISIS’s ongoing global campaign of attacking Western targets has skyrocketed with the terror group’s orchestration of 61 terror plots including a staggering 17 in the United States alone. There were 41 ISIS-linked terror attack plots against Western targets so far in 2015 – more than doubling the total for all of 2014 (20 plots). Officials are also concerned that ISIS may be taking advantage of the recent refugee crisis by helping would-be terrorists to enter the West undetected.
Other observations from the October Terror Threat Snapshot:
- The homegrown Islamist extremist threat in the United States has escalated dramatically this year.
- There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.
- The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown Islamist extremists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 127 today—more than a three-fold increase in just five years.
See the Committee’s interactive Terror Threat Snapshot map, here, and look out for a synopsis of next month’s snapshot at In Homeland Security.
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