The Obama administration has failed to stem the tide of jihadi fighters into Iraq and Syria, and more than 250 Americans have travelled overseas to join the Islamic State since 2011, according to a House Homeland Security report released Tuesday.
The report found that nearly 30,000 people had travelled to Iraq and Syria since 2011, including 4,500 Westerners. Authorities failed to prevent many Americans headed for the Islamic State from reaching their final destination, the report found.
“It is clear that our nation faces a grave and growing threat from foreign fighters,” Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement.
The report found that after fighting abroad, “several dozen” known terrorists returned to America, and several others were identified and arrested as they attempted to return.
“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,” said the report.
“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,” McCaul said. “Even more, those still on the battlefield are radicalizing their peers online and inciting them to launch homegrown attacks.”
The bipartisan committee’s six-month review, the most extensive since the 9/11 Commission’s report, offers several suggestions on how to make the U.S. safe from jihadis returning from war in Iraq and Syria.
The bipartisan report was also an indictment of Obama’s policies, saying “the U.S. government lacks a national strategy for combating terrorist travel and has not produced one in nearly a decade.”
