The FBI has discovered a makeshift military training camp utilized by radical Islamic terrorists on U.S. soil. Surprisingly, the camp was uncovered in rural Alabama.
WBMA-LD reported that FBI search warrants described the small piece of property, situated a mere few miles from downtown Tuskegee, Alabama as a “makeshift military-style obstacle course.”
The government agency revealed another stunning detail. Federal investigators claimed a connection exists between the Alabama camp and the huge terror compound found in New Mexico last year.
Siraj Wahhaj owns the recently uncovered property. According to TheBlaze, this is the same individual “who reportedly led the small group of terrorists at the New Mexico camp, where the jihadis allegedly trained young children to carry out school shootings.”
The remains of the alleged domestic terrorist’s three-year-old son were found at the New Mexico compound.
TheBlaze reported that “In March, Wahhaj and the four other adults living at the New Mexico compound were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of ‘providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to murder an officer or employee of the United States, kidnapping, possessing a firearm while unlawfully in the United States, and other charges.’”
According to Fox News, the FBI has more than an astounding 850 open probes into domestic terrorism across the nation. Top FBI, Homeland Security, and Justice Department officials relayed the alarming information last week in front of a congressional committee about homegrown hate and violence.
Similar to foreign terrorists, domestic ones are swiftly radicalizing online with few hindrances and a lack of a need to meet face-to-face.
The FBI’s top counterterrorism official, Mike McGarrity, stated, “There’s a lot of hate out there on the internet. Violent extremists around the world have access to our local communities to target and recruit and spread their messages of hate on a global scale, as we saw in the recent attack in Christchurch, New Zealand.”
McGarrity was referencing the mosque attacks carried out by a white supremacist who we will not name so as to not give them fame. The heinous attack killed 51 people.
Just weeks ago, a gunman injured a rabbi, an eight-year-old girl, the child’s uncle and killed a woman at Chabad of Poway, a synagogue in Southern California.
Fox News reported that “McGarrity said there were six deadly domestic terrorism attacks in 2018, and five in 2017. Of the hundreds of open FBI investigations, about half were anti-government cases and around 40% were related to race or religion.”
The FBI’s top counterterrorism official stated that preventing terrorism was his agency’s top priority. McGarrity remarked, “We don’t differentiate between a domestic terrorism attack we’re trying to stop or an international terrorism attack. It’s a terrorism attack we’re looking to stop.”
The U.S. doesn’t have a domestic terrorism statute. According to Fox News, “The Justice Department relies on other statutes to prosecute ideologically motivated violence by people with no international ties.”
The conservative media outlet maintained, “That makes it hard to track how often extremists driven by religious, racial or anti-government bias commit violence in the U.S. It also complicates efforts to develop a universally accepted definition of domestic terror.”
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson commented that he was taken aback by the lack of public information on the important issue and sought better information. According to Fox News, Thompson “criticized the FBI for stopping a monthly briefing to the committee on threats to the nation, including domestic and international terrorist organizations and counterintelligence threats. He said the threat of domestic terror is growing and must be better understood.”
Homeland Security’s deputy undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, Brian Murphy, insisted that officials at the department were engaging in intelligence work more than they ever have in the past.
He revealed his department has developed a 24-hour open source collection team to monitor and share information that might be threatening. Murphy commented, “We continue to refine that and get better at that.”
Americans can only hope Murphy’s statement is indeed true.
