(CNSNews.com) – The “Terror Threat Snapshot” for August 2015, released by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, states the terror threat level in America is high and “getting steadily worse,” and that there have been “more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”
The “Terror Threat Snapshot” also reported that the Islamic State “is fueling the Islamist terror” globally; that Islamist terrorists “are intent on killing law enforcement” officers and U.S. troops, as well as civilians; and that 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State.
In addition, more than 250 Americans have traveled, or attempted to travel, to Syria to fight with the Islamists.
“The terror threat level in the U.S. homeland is high, and the situation is getting steadily worse,” said the report. “There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”
In 2015 so far, there have been 30 U.S.-based jihadist cases, the committee informed CNSNews.com. In 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, there were only two U.S.-based jihadist cases uncovered that year, the committee said.
One of those cases involved Jose Padilla, also known as Abudullah al-Muhajir, a U.S. citizen convicted on multiple counts of criminal conspiracy related to jihadist terrorism; the second case was the Portland Seven, a group of American Muslims who were attempting to join Al Qaeda but were thwarted by the FBI.
For the August 2015 “Terror Threat Snapshot,” the majority staff of the Homeland Security Committee reported that, “In July alone, a terrorist murdered U.S. service members in Chattanooga, and authorities arrested extremists seeking to live-stream a terrorist attack on a college campus and planning to kill U.S. vacationers on the beaches of Florida.”
“The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 122 today—a three-fold increase in just five years,” reads the Snapshot.
For those 122 cases, 80 percent of them “have occurred or been disrupted since 2009,” said the report. “Authorities have arrested or charged at least 48 individuals in the United States this year – 63 since 2014 – in ISIS-related cases. The cases involve individuals: plotting attacks; attempting to travel to join ISIS overseas; sending money, equipment and weapons to terrorists; falsifying statements to federal authorities; and failing to report a felony.”
On July 29, for instance, Arafat Nagi was arrested after he attempted to travel from New York to join the Islamic State.
On July 16, Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn., and killed four Marines and a Navy sailor.
The Snapshot further reported that since early 2014, “there have been 55 planned or executed ISIS-linked terror plots against Western targets, including 14 inside in the United States.”
In addition, “[t]here have been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked plots against Western targets in the first seven months of this year (35) than in all of 2014,” reported the committee.
The “Terror Threat Snapshot” can be read in its entirety here.
