2015-02-12 07:00
Washington - The US bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria has failed
to slow the pace of foreign fighters flocking to join the Islamic State
and other extremist groups, including at least 3 400 from Western
nations among 20 000 from around the world, US intelligence officials
say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.
Intelligence
agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some
have succeeded in reaching the Syrian war zone, officials told the House
Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were
arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number were still
fighting with extremists.
Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National
Counterterrorism Centre, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to
Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who
went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at
any other point in the past 20 years.
US officials fear that some
of the foreign fighters will return undetected to their homes in Europe
or the US to mount terrorist attacks. At least one of the men
responsible for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris had spent
time with Islamic extremists in Yemen.
Officials
acknowledge it has been hard to track the Americans and Europeans who
have made it to Syria, where the Islamic State group is the dominant
force trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad. The
US Embassy in Syria is closed, and the CIA has no permanent presence on
the ground.
"Once in Syria, it is very difficult to discern what
happens there," Michael Steinbach, the FBI's assistant director for
counterterrorism, told the committee. "This lack of clarity remains
troubling."
The estimate of 20 000 fighters, from 90 countries, is
up from 19 000, Rasmussen said. The number of Americans or US residents
who have gone or tried to go is up to 150 from 50 a year ago and 100 in
the fall.
Representative Michael McCaul, the Republican who
chairs the committee, said the Syrian war had created "the largest
convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history." Sustained bombing
by a US-led coalition has not stopped the inflow, he noted.
McCaul's
committee staff compiled from public sources a list of 18 US citizens
or residents who joined or attempted to join the Islamic State group,
and 18 others who tried to or succeeded in joining other violent Islamic
groups.
The
list includes three Chicago teens and three Denver teens who were
radicalised and recruited online and were arrested after attempting to
travel to Syria to join Islamic State fighters. It also includes Douglas
McAuthur McCain, 33, a Californian who died in August while fighting
with the Islamic State group near Aleppo.
US intelligence
officials do not make public their estimate of how many Americans
currently are fighting in Syria and Iraq. In September, FBI director
James Comey said it was "about a dozen".
Francis X Taylor, who
heads the Homeland Security Department's intelligence office, said
intelligence agencies are "unaware of any specific, credible, imminent
threat to the homeland".
However, he said, officials are concerned
that Americans who join violent extremist groups in Syria "could gain
combat skills, violent extremist connections and possibly become
persuaded to conduct organised or 'lone-wolf' style attacks that target
US and Western interests.
"We also have become increasingly aware
of the possibility that Syria could emerge as a base of operations for
al-Qaeda's international agenda, which could include attacks against the
homeland."
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