- The FBI director has issued a stern warning about the increased possibility of a coordinated terrorist attack in the US.
- Christopher Wray told NBC that such an attack “may not be that different from what you saw against the concert hall in Russia.”
- The FBI had 4,000 international terrorism investigations open at the end of fiscal year 2023
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of the growing possibility of a coordinated terrorist attack in the United States.
Wray told NBC News FBI is ‘increasingly concerned’ [about] the potential for some kind of coordinated attack here at home.’
Explaining that such an event “may not be that different from what you saw in the concert hall in Russia a few weeks ago by ISIS-K.”
The attack on a Moscow concert hall on March 22 killed at least 144 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in 20 years.
Wray has previously expressed concern about the elevated terrorist threat, telling a House panel earlier this month that the current terrorist threat is the highest he can remember in his career.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has issued a stark warning about the increased possibility of a coordinated terrorist attack in the United States.
Wray told NBC that such an attack “may not be that different from what you saw against the concert hall in Russia.”
The attack on a Moscow concert hall on March 22 killed at least 144 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in 20 years.
“As I look back on my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many threats to our public and national security were so elevated at the same time,” he told the panel.
The FBI had 4,000 international terrorism investigations open at the end of fiscal year 2023, according to Wray’s testimony.
Wray told NBC that the terrorist threat to the United States has increased following the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
“We thought that even before October 7,” he explained, “the terrorist threat was already high.”
“After October 7, the situation has reached another level.”
Speaking about the increasingly hostile international environment and the potential spillover of terrorism, Wray added: “Whether it’s the threat from China, Russia, Iran, [there are] terrorist threats both foreign terrorist threats and domestic terrorist threats.’
Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, has been campaigning in Congress for more funding for his agency.
The FBI’s fiscal year 2024 budget fell $500 million short of what was needed to maintain its current functions, Reuters reported.
The FBI had 4,000 international terrorism investigations open at the end of fiscal year 2023, according to Wray’s testimony
Wray and the FBI have been the target of former President Trump’s ire, arguing that he has been unfairly targeted in investigations.
Trump recently called on Congress to cut funding to the agency, while calling the FBI and the Justice Department “vicious monsters.”
According to Reuters, the increasingly heated attacks on the office have led to an increase in attacks on its employees and buildings.
“We have seen a substantial increase in threats toward FBI personnel and facilities from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023,” Wray told Congress.
He added: “In fact, we created a unit dedicated to trying to address those problems.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the March attack on Crocus City Hall.
ISIS released shocking images of the terrorists shooting indiscriminately into the crowd of 6,000 people inside the concert hall.
Four suspects were arrested hours after the attack and appeared to have been beaten before appearing in a Russian court.
Footage of brutal interrogation sessions by Russian security forces emerged online with reports that at least one of the suspects suffered electric shocks, the BBC reported.
President Vladimir Putin said that “we know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, followers of an ideology that the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries.”