Last year saw the deadliest Islamist jihad attacks in America since 9/11 and in Europe since 2004, according to the January Terror Threat Snapshot released by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
“The heinous ISIS-linked attack on a policeman in Philadelphia [earlier this month] is a grim reminder of the Islamist terror threat we face today,” McCaul said in releasing this month’s terror snapshot. “ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists are expanding their networks and carving out sanctuaries abroad, while their supporters and operatives have been plotting terror attacks in the West."
McCaul said Obama’s "strategy to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremists … is out of touch with reality …”
According to the Snapshot, “Islamist terrorists have been attempting to infiltrate the United States as authorities have uncovered jihadists who were resettled in America through the refugee resettlement program. Two refugees from Iraq resettled in the US were recently arrested on terror-related charges linked to ISIS.”
Additionally, the Snapshot stated, “The United States faces an unprecedented terror threat level at home due to the continued failure to destroy ISIS. Law enforcement authorities have arrested nearly 80 individuals in ISIS-related cases in the United States since 2014 – 62 in 2015 alone. There have been 21 ISIS-linked plots to launch attacks in the homeland. Over 80 percent of the post-9/11 homegrown Islamist extremist cases in the United States have occurred or been disrupted since 2009.”
Islamist terrorists returning to the West from Syria are also “a surging threat,” the snapshot added, noting legislation recently signed into law “will enhance the security of the Visa Waiver Program in order to prevent terrorists from entering the United States.”
