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Western countries face an unprecedented threat from a terrorist diaspora: FBI


Big News Network.com
28 Sep 2016

WASHINGTON, U.S. - Issuing a grave warning about the violent future that awaits Western countries, the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said that an unprecedented threat from a “terrorist diaspora” awaits.

Issuing the grave warning at a U.S. Congress hearing, Comey said that even though America is closing in on completely destroying the Islamic State militant group’s (ISIS) so-called caliphate, militants would be driven out of the Middle East - only to settle in other countries to carry forward horrific atrocities they have planned.   

Comey was speaking at the hearing on the terror threat 15 years after September 11 and said, “There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before. Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to die on the battlefield.”

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reiterated Comey’s chilling warning at the hearing and further warned that terrorist threats have evolved. He explained that previously attacks had to be directed by terrorists but now they are often simply inspired by terrorist ideology and are carried out by individuals acting alone.

Johnson said, “We now live in a world that includes the threat of terrorist-inspired attacks as individuals who live in the West become self-radicalised and strive to carry out attacks on home soil.”

He further pointed out that the biggest and most complex challenge to security is the terror threats from self-radicalised individuals because they can occur with little or no notice and are difficult to detect.

Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre to testified at the hearing. 

Rasmussen said that the U.S. is defeating ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq - but “the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its allies remains strong.” 

Comey also pointed out that ISIS militants present a much greater threat than al Qaeda.

He said ISIS poses a “10 times” bigger threat than Al Qaeda and said, “This is an order of magnitude greater than anything we’ve seen before.” 

The meeting resulted in the revelation that currently, the FBI is closely monitoring close to 1,000 Americans who are believed to have been radicalised by terrorist propaganda.

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