By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Just five days before a bungled New York City subway bombing, Homeland Security warned of the potential for an ISIS terrorist attack, possibly by a lone wolf.
“We assess there is currently an elevated threat of [homegrown] lone offender attacks by ISIS sympathizers, which is especially concerning because mobilized lone offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt their plots,” according to Robin Taylor, acting deputy under secretary for intelligence operations at Homeland Security, the Washington Examiner reports.
The warning, issued during a Senate hearing last week, followed evidence that ISIS and al Qaeda continue to have a strong presence on social media, where so-called lone wolfs are recruited in the U.S.
“We continue to monitor the evolving threat posed by ISIS. ISIS fighters’ battlefield experience in Syria and Iraq have armed it with advanced capabilities that most terrorist groups do not have,” Taylor told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. “Even as the so-called ‘caliphate’ collapses, ISIS fighters retain their toxic ideology and a will to fight. We remain concerned that foreign fighters from the U.S. or elsewhere who have traveled to Syria and Iraq and radicalized to violence will ultimately return to the U.S. or their home country to conduct attacks.”
