Tuesday, September 23, 2014

White House: "Some" American ISIL Recruits Are Back in U.S.

9/23/2014

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration believes that some of the roughly 100 Americans who may have traveled to the Middle East to join the ranks of the Islamic State have returned to the United States, a top White House official said Monday.

The U.S. administration calculates that 2,000 Europeans are among the 15,000 foreign combatants in IS ranks, said the official, who asked for anonymity, in a briefing for reporters.

The figure of 100 Americans “includes those who’ve gone, those who’ve tried to go, some who’ve come back and who are under active – the FBI is looking at them,” said the source, according to TIME magazine’s online edition.

The United States and Europe are concerned about the possibility that those foreign combatants are using their passports – once they return to their countries of origin – to travel and organize attacks in the West.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama will head a special meeting of the heads of state and government at the UN Security Council that will focus on the threat posed by those individuals.

The United States has already circulated, with an eye toward that gathering, a draft resolution including measures designed to contain the flow of foreign combatants and the White House forecasts that it will be unanimously approved.


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