A former Department of Homeland Security secretary said Monday that groups like ISIS, the violent group based in Syria, is recruiting Americans to participate in terrorist activities in Africa and the Middle East then return home to attack the United States.
“We are in a dangerous place in the world, perhaps more dangerous than at any time in the period in the last 10 years,” said former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who now runs his own consulting firm.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, he said:
“And that’s frankly because of the proliferation of terrorist groups really ranging from parts of Africa to all the way east into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a notable element of what we’ve seen in the past year or so has been the rise of groups like ISIS in Syria and Iraq that deliberately recruit foreign fighters, Westerners, Americans, and Europeans, in order to have them not only trained and participate in terrorist activities in the Middle East or in Africa, but also to prepare people who may come back to the United States or Western Europe at some point and carry out attacks in those locations.”
As proof, he noted that a June attack of a Jewish museum in Belgium was carried out by a Frenchman who was trained by ISIS in Syria.
His warning was backed up by former DHS Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker, who said, “The risk of terrorists coming back from Syria and Iraq has never been more of a concern.”
Both former top DHS officials spoke at an event called to rally support for the Visa Waiver Program, in which 38 nations participate to ease international travel to the United States. There have been some calls in Congress to kill the program over terrorism concerns.
Chertoff and Baker urged continuation of the program, explaining that it actually gives U.S. officials access to international intelligence they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
