As a followup to last week's warning from DHS and the FBI regarding threats to the homeland, this week FBI Director Chris Wray delivered an expanded warning to Congress that Hamas' terror attacks on Israel could motivate similar threats here in the U.S..
The following is a portion of Director Wray's opening statement
to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:
"Discussions about the most-pressing national security threats and what we’re doing to tackle them are always important, but this year’s hearing is especially well-timed given the dangerous implications the very fluid situation in the Middle East has for our homeland security. The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level."
[...]
"We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago. In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West. Al-Qaeda issued its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe. Hizballah has publicly expressed its support for Hamas and threatened to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East. And we’ve seen an increase in attacks on U.S. military bases overseas carried out by militia groups backed by Iran."
"Here in the United States, our most immediate concern is that violent extremists—individuals or small groups—will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives. That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities. We’ve seen that already with the individual we arrested last week in Houston, who’d been studying how to build bombs and posted online about his support for killing Jews. And with the tragic killing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois in what we’re investigating as a federal hate crime."
"But as I said a few moments ago, on top of the HVE (homegrown violent extremist) and DVE (domestic violent extremist) threat, we also cannot—and do not—discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here on our own soil. We’ve kept our sights on Hamas and have multiple ongoing investigations into individuals affiliated with that foreign terrorist organization."
View Director Wray's full testimony HERE.
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