FBI Director Christopher Wray will warn Congress on Thursday that the United States is at risk of insider terrorist attacks engineered by ISIS.
He will say that the “greatest terrorist threat” to the United States is “posed by lone actors or small cells of individuals who are typically radicalized through online violence.”
The number of domestic terrorism investigations over the past four years has “more than doubled,” primarily into racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE) and anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists (AGAAVE), Wray will tell Congress.
At the end of fiscal year 2023, the FBI was conducting 2,700 investigations within its domestic terrorism program and 4,000 investigations with its international program.
FBI Director Christopher Wray will warn Congress on Thursday that the United States is at risk of insider terrorist attacks engineered by ISIS.
Wray, who led the FBI during the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations, will be on Capitol Hill making his proposal for an $11.6 billion budget in 2025. Republican leadership in its recently approved 2024 budget touted “deep cuts” to FBI about six percent. , bringing the budget to $10.7 billion.
‘Over the past year, the threats facing our nation have increased. These threats emanate from countless sources: nation-states, hostile foreign intelligence services and criminals,” Wray will warn the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.
“They range from homegrown violent extremists (HVE) to sophisticated cyberattacks, from Internet-facilitated sexual exploitation of children to human trafficking, from violent gangs and criminal organizations to public corruption and corporate fraud.”
Wray will say the FBI “remains concerned about the intent of FTOs, such as ISIS and Al Qaeda and their affiliates, to carry out or inspire large-scale attacks in the United States.”
In the midst of the war in Gaza, Wray warned in a speech earlier this week: ‘The ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack on Americans inside the United States to a ‘completely different level.’
The FBI appears to have shifted its focus abroad from Hamas to ISIS-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K.
Wray, whose agency focused heavily on the Hamas threat after the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, will now tell Congress that “we have no information indicating that Hamas has the intention or ability to conduct operations inside of the United States, even though we can’t, and we do. No, rule out that possibility.’
But after an ISIS-K attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russia, where 134 people were killed, nations around the world are on high alert.
The terrorist attack during a concert at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow left more than 140 dead and more than a hundred injured
Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, suspect in the shooting attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall
Members of Congress have been Demanding classified briefings. on the ISIS-K threat and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has raised concerns about the United States’ ability to conduct “beyond the horizon counterterrorism operations” in Afghanistan to thwart the group’s future operations .
ISIS-K, the deadly Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State group, is now centralized in Asia and the Caucasus region and has brought in surviving al-Qaeda fighters.
United Nations experts believe ISIS-K has between 4,000 and 6,000 fighters.
Wray noted that ISIS has worn thin in the Middle East, that it is “successful” on social media and messaging, and that it attracts followers within the US.
Last month, Gen. Michael ‘Erik’ Kurilla, head of Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that ISIS-K ‘retains the ability and willingness to attack American and Western interests abroad in as few as six months with little or no warning.’
Wray continues: ‘Despite its loss of physical territory in Iraq and Syria, ISIS remains relentless in its campaign of violence against the United States and its partners, here at home and abroad. “ISIS and its supporters continue to aggressively promote their hate-fueled rhetoric and attract like-minded violent extremists willing to carry out attacks against the United States and our interests abroad.”
ISIS’s successful use of social media and messaging apps to attract individuals is of continued concern to us. Like other foreign terrorist groups, ISIS advocates attacks by lone criminals in the United States and Western countries through videos and other English-language propaganda that has specifically advocated attacks against civilians, military, law enforcement, and community personnel. intelligence.
Wray will also raise threats from North Korea, Iran and China, telling Congress that “the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s ideas, innovation and economic security comes from foreign intelligence and economic espionage by the Republic.” “People’s China”.
“The People’s Republic of China aims to reshape the rules-based international system to its advantage, often without regard to international norms and laws.”