![]() "It's exceptionally difficult to estimate of the number of people who've considered becoming foreign fighters," he said. ![]() Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center. "Where is the threshold of saying this is more than just an avid consumer of propaganda?" asked William Braniff, executive director of a terrorism research center at the University of Maryland and a former instructor at the U.S. The phenomenon poses a challenge for investigators as they sift through countless online communications. Hassan has been prolific on social media in recent months - urging his Twitter followers to carry out acts of violence in the U.S., including beheadings - commending attacks elsewhere, and using protests of police activity in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, to try to recruit others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are not public. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Associated Press that Mujahid Miski is Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, who left the U.S. Social media provides a venue for agitators to exhort each other to action, recruit followers for violence and scout locations for potential attacks.Ī former Minneapolis man who goes by the name Mujahid Miski on Twitter was among those urging an attack on the event in Garland. "It's attractive because it gets just as much attention as a small- to mid-size bomb."Ī public forum like Twitter, with its millions of users, means those who might otherwise have had limited exposure to terrorist ideologies now have ample access to what FBI Director James Comey has described as the "siren song" of the Islamic State. "If you can get your hands on a weapon, how is the state security apparatus supposed to find you?" said Will McCants, a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. One of the men, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, was charged in 2010 after being the focus of a terror investigation investigators are trying to determine the extent of any terror-related ties involving him or his accomplice, Nadir Soofi. ![]() Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said federal authorities are aware of "thousands" of potential extremists living in the U.S., only a small portion of whom are under active surveillance.Ĭoncerns have been intensifying since the rise of the Islamic State group and were heightened this week after two gunmen were shot dead while trying to attack the event in Garland, Texas, that featured cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad. Some experts caution that a limited number of small-scale attacks are likely to continue. ![]() Trying to gauge which individuals in the United States pose such threats - and how vigorously they should be monitored - is a daunting challenge for counterterrorism agencies. NEW YORK (AP) - The attempted attack on a provocative cartoon contest in Texas appears to reflect a scenario that has long troubled national security officials: a do-it-yourself terror plot, inspired by the Islamic State extremist group and facilitated through the ease of social media. ![]()
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