Arrests of 8 with suspected ISIS ties in U.S. renew concern of terror attack

washington – O arrests of eight Tajik citizens with alleged links to ISIS have renewed concerns about the terrorist group or its affiliates potentially carrying out an attack in the U.S.

The arrests in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia came at a time when US authorities had been warning for months about the potential for a terrorist attack and the US was on high alert.

“I see flashing lights everywhere I turn” FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in December, telling lawmakers, “I have never seen a time when all threats were so elevated all the time.”

In April, he warned that human smuggling operations in US-Mexico Border they were bringing in people potentially linked to terrorist groups.

On Friday, the State Department announced that the US and Turkey are imposing sanctions on three individuals with ties to ISIS who are involved in trying to facilitate travel to the US.

Republican lawmakers have used the arrests as the latest flashpoint in their call for stricter border measures.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, requesting a confidential briefing for all senators detailing the ISIS threats against the US

“I believe the threat is urgent,” the South Carolina Republican wrote, calling for a meeting before the Senate goes into recess late next week.

A spokesperson for Graham said he had not received a response. Spokespeople for Schumer and McConnell did not immediately return requests for comment.

In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma called on officials to “wake up” and criticized the border screening process.

“We are literally living on borrowed time,” he said. “What actually happens on a day-to-day basis is that individuals who cross our border, we hope that the FBI can gather any information about them after they have already been released into the country.”

The Tajik migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without proper documents and were issued notices to appear in immigration court, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official. Sources familiar with the operation said the individuals were screened by law enforcement upon entering the U.S. and there was no indication they had ties to ISIS at the time.

There was no active terrorist plot, but sources said troubling information came to authorities’ attention, at least in part, through a wiretap after the individuals were in the United States.

“It is only a matter of time before one of these individuals linked to a terrorist group is involved in something devastating on American soil, and this administration will be held accountable. How much longer will we let this madness continue?” Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, the GOP chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement Wednesday.

In an op-ed he co-wrote before the arrests were publicized, former acting CIA director Michael Morell said officials’ warnings should be taken seriously.

“Combined, the stated intentions of terrorist groups, the increasing capabilities they have demonstrated in recent successful and failed attacks around the world, and the fact that several serious plots in the United States have been thwarted point to an uncomfortable but inevitable”. the article published in Foreign Affairs said. “Simply put, the United States faces a serious threat of a terrorist attack in the coming months.

Andres Triay, Robert Legare and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed reporting.