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Islamic State attempted to enter the United States

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ISIS,United State border,border,southern border,islamic stateThe extremely disturbing fact about attempts of Islamic State (ISIS) of entering the US soil and create economic chaos has been recently exposed by Anne Speckhard and Ardian Shajkovci in the Homeland Security on June 3, 2019.

In this report they wrote, “The vulnerability of the U.S. borders to possible exploitation by terrorists – particularly in light of the heavy migration flow toward our southern border, either by those claiming asylum or relying on smugglers to cross into the country undetected – has been a border enforcement and policy concern since at least 9/11. While the administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Obama took a series of executive immigration and border enforcement actions to respond to the flaws of our immigration and border enforcement system, such as placing emphasis on deporting individuals considered national security risks, gang members, and other dangerous felons, a huge controversy erupted, especially among Democrats, in response to the Trump administration introducing a number of more restrictive immigration measures, namely the prospect of building a wall along the border with Mexico and instituting a travel ban against countries from which terrorists might arrive”.

Regarding attempt of ISIS and other jihadist forces of entering Europe, the writers said, “In the past, terrorists have managed to infiltrate Europe through irregular immigration routes, such as in the case of the November 2015 Paris and 2016 Brussels airport and metro attacks. The nature and the extent of such threats in the United States, including measures put in place to address them, remains a point of contention for many. For instance, in January, the White House said 4,000 “known or suspected terrorists” were prevented from crossing into the United States via the U.S.-Mexican border in 2018. A later report disputed such claims, noting that they were based on 2017 data, that the number refers to the total security stops made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and that these were primarily made at airports versus at the southern U.S. border. While figures remain speculative, we have learned in our in-depth research interviews with over 160 ISIS defectors, returnees and imprisoned ISIS cadres to date about multiple individuals who knew of, or were themselves offered, or pressured by the ISIS Emni (intelligence) to return to Europe to mount attacks at home. We have not, however, found in our research interviews, until now, any instance of ISIS cadres who were prepared to be sent by ISIS to attack inside the U.S. This may be because there were so few Americans who made it all the way to Syria and Iraq, many being stopped by the FBI before departing the country, or because we simply had not run across those with such knowledge”.

Commenting on this very important scoop, Todd Bensman, who is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies and who had previously led counterterrorism-related intelligence efforts for the Texas Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division (ICD) for nearly a decade said, “As I have often documented, too, (also here and here), the capacity for ISIS operatives to travel from Syria to the southern border is well-established. Smuggling organizations routinely bridge the Atlantic Ocean to link Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Iraq to the U.S. southern border through as many as a dozen Latin America countries. Numerous reputed Islamist terrorists have made the journey, such as a Somali who crossed into California and went on to conduct a 2017 vehicle-ramming attack in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.”

Bensman further said, “Whatever becomes of the inevitable investigation or Abu Henricki, the published report about what he said should serve as a wake-up call to American decision-makers and voters, regardless of partisan sentiment, to look at the border crisis as about much more than Central Americans with children”.

This revelation is extremely crucial as the United States is going to go into electing the next president as well as members of the Congress, especially when all of us are aware of disturbing activities of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib who openly are making frantic bids in compelling the US administration in opening borders to the immigrants. We also are aware of similar attempts by the members of the Democratic Party and of course Nancy Pelosi.

It may be mentioned here that, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even has crossed all the limits by condemning President Donald Trump’s actions against Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro or even her extreme attraction towards the illegal immigrants.

It is beyond my understanding as to how these elected representatives are openly voicing in favour of the illegal immigrants, who pose a grave threat to the national security of the US. Such statements certainly cannot be accepted simply as the right to freedom of expression. Rather, these are clear cases of sedition and high treason. In the name of applying their right under the 10th Amendment clearly is an abuse of this privilege. In today’s world, no one has the right to doing anything that would ultimately go in favour of ISIS and other jihadist outfits or place the lives of the American people vulnerable to these notorious outfits.

With my understanding of the jihadist entities as well as activities of terror-patron nations like Iran and Qatar and billions of Qatari money flowing into the media outlets, politicians and think-tanks, I would definitely question whether these American politicians are under the payroll of Iran or Qatar.

ICSVE Director and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine Anne Speckhard and ICSVE Research Director Ardian Shajkovci interviewed the operative on May 12 in Syria as part of a four-year ongoing project for which ICSVE has already recorded conversations with 169 ISIS defectors, returnees, and imprisoned cadres. They paused long enough from their work to write the article.

Among intelligence community agencies, ICSVE’s reporting would fall under a category known as “raw information”, meaning it is by nature unevaluated and uncorroborated when presented just as it was heard. But make no mistake: Raw information is highly coveted. That’s because professional intelligence practitioners, through the collection and investigative techniques over time, can develop raw unevaluated leads to learn about real threats and to thwart real plots. It’s doubtful that enough time has elapsed for Speckhard’s raw information to be verified and that its relative validity would ever be made public once it was since intelligence is rarely used to publicly corroborate research findings as suggested in an editor’s note only a couple of weeks later. Therefore, the observation that the report should be disregarded because it is “uncorroborated by intelligence sources” is invalid on its face.


(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of AFTERNOON VOICE and AFTERNOON VOICE does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)

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Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is a multi award winning anti militancy journalist and editor of Blitz.
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