The domestic threat posed by the Islamic State in the United States is growing, according to FBI Director James Comey.
There are “hundreds, maybe thousands” of people nationwide who are receiving information from the terrorist group, either at the beginning of the recruitment process or to eventually be pushed to carry out attacks on the U.S.
“It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill,”’ Comey told reporters of how the Islamic State uses social media to direct messages to “disturbed people,” urging them to possibly launch attacks on the U.S.
The Islamic State has been heavily using Twitter, Comey said, operating from safe havens in Syria. Then, Islamic State recruiters are “steering” them into encrypted venues so their communications are eventually “lost to us.”
“The haystack is the entire country,” Comey said. “We are looking for the needles, but increasingly the needles are unavailable to us. … This is the ‘going dark’ problem in living color. There are Elton Simpsons out there that I have not found and I cannot see.”
Agents are working hundreds of investigations around the country from all 56 of the FBI’s field divisions involving suspected domestic terrorists, Comey said.
“[Islamic State] is a very popular fad among a lot of disturbed people,” he said.
His comments come on the heels of Sunday’s attempted attack by two Islamic State gunmen at an event in Texas Sunday. The attacks, which the Islamic State claimed credit four, failed — both gunmen were shot and killed before they could seriously injure or kill anyone. It was the first Islamic State attack on the U.S.
(h/t USA Today)
