Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, speaks as he holds gas receipts from his constituents during a news conference in 2008 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. McCaul headed a House task force that found flaws in the way the United States thwarts foreign fighters. File photo by Patrick D. McDermott/UPI |
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The United States has not been able to stop the tide of Americans traveling overseas to join jihadist groups and lacks a national strategy to combat terrorist travel, a bipartisan congressional task force concluded in a recently released report.
A surge of Americans are seeking connections with violent extremists, straining federal law enforcement resources, the eight-person task force found. With no comprehensive global database of foreign fighter names, the United States, along with other countries, relies on a "patchwork system for swapping extremist identities, increasing the odds foreign fighters will slip through the cracks."
Roughly 250 Americans have joined or tried to join extremists in Syria and Iran, but "we were able to identify only 28 cases in which U.S. authorities apprehended suspects before they departed for the Middle East," the report said.
"A handful of suspects were stopped in other countries, but it appears the majority -- more than 85 percent -- still managed to evade American law enforcement on the way to the conflict zone." the task force said.
"It is clear that our nation faces a grave and growing threat from foreign fighters," said committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas. "Sadly, global efforts have failed to stop the flow of these aspiring jihadists into Syria, and we have already seen 'returnees' from the conflict zone come home to America and Europe and plot acts of terror."
Many of the findings in the report echo concerns previously presented by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, including successful efforts by the Islamic State to find recruits via social media.
The report found "broken travel," or switching planes and destinations to avoid detection by law enforcement, and other evasive tactics have made it harder to track aspiring jihadists.
"Gaping security weaknesses overseas -- especially in Europe -- are putting the U.S. homeland in danger by making it easier for aspiring foreign fighters to migrate to terrorist hotspots and for jihadists to return to the West," the report said.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. State and Treasury departments designated 35 new foreign terrorist fighters. Those include new IS regional groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Caucasus Province and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Khorasan. The federal government also named several individuals as foreign terrorist fighters.
