A new urgency on homegrown terror threats

But the administration is also being forced to look inward, acknowledging publicly for the first time that some Americans who joined the Islamic State have returned to the United States.

Along with ratcheting up airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, the Obama administration is sounding the alarm on the dangers of homegrown terrorists — the most coveted recruits for the Islamic State, in part, because of their ability to travel with ease throughout the U.S.

The FBI is actively monitoring an unknown number of American-born Islamic State fighters on U.S. soil, and senior administration officials could place other Americans with connections to the terrorist group on no-fly lists and heighten screening techniques at ports of entry.

National security experts fully expect that given U.S. plans to escalate military action against the Islamic State, Americans sympathetic to the terrorist group would attempt to join their ranks.

“They’re not prepared to run big operations against us,” said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, describing the Islamic State. “Americans can get by the security. That’s why they do need Americans.”

Obama administration officials on Monday estimated that 15,000 people had entered Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State and related groups, including more than 100 Americans and 2,000 Europeans.

Obama in New York this week at the U.N. summit will call for a resolution to put a global travel ban on fighters seeking to join overseas wars, including economic sanctions for countries not meeting the tougher standards.

“[The Islamic State] is doing an international job with all these foreign fighters — they’re using them in droves,” Landis explained. “They’re bringing all these skills that al Qaeda didn’t have.”

The administration is banking that better intelligence sharing, coupled with the U.S.-backed air campaign, the training of Kurdish and Syrian opposition forces and attempts to cut off Islamic State funding sources will begin to eat into the sizable gains made by the terrorist organization in recent months.

And a major part of that effort, White House officials acknowledged Monday, is keeping the Islamic State from getting Americans to travel in and out of the U.S. with intentions to harm the homeland.

“That administration officials felt the need to highlight Americans tied to [the Islamic State] coming home shows how big of a deal this is,” a former Obama counterterrorism adviser told the Washington Examiner. “That is not the type of thing you do lightly. It’s a conversation they probably need to have more — and something the president will need to highlight as he explains to the American public exactly what we’re doing against [the Islamic State].”

Thus far, administration officials have been adamant that they have not seen any active plots by the Islamic State against the homeland. However, in propaganda videos, the terrorist group is increasingly urging the public to wage war against Western nations and has alluded to possible attacks against U.S. cities.

Lawmakers are also promising more action to limit the spread of foreign fighters.

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii and Scott Perry R-Pa., introduced legislation Tuesday to suspend the visa waiver program for countries whose citizens most frequently join terrorist groups, making it more difficult for people in those countries to get into the U.S.

In the wake of Sept. 11 attacks, homegrown terrorists have inflicted major damage on U.S. soil, including at Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon.

And just last week, the Justice Department announced an indictment against a Yemen-born man and naturalized U.S. citizen living in New York who allegedly was trying to recruit Americans for the Islamic State.

“This idea that someone with a U.S. passport could be trained by a well-funded terrorist organization and stage an attack,” said the former Obama adviser, “that’s what keeps the president up at night.”