“I'm very concerned because we don't know every single person that has an American passport that has gone and trained and learned how to fight,” said Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican lawmaker that heads the House Intelligence Committee, in Sunday remarks.
Rogers noted that these American citizens have at least once traveled, participated and trained with the terrorists and that US intelligence service is currently tracking them.
If these Americans have helped ISIL, they should be charged under laws that prohibit US citizens from assisting terrorists, he opined.
“ISIL would like to have a Western-style attack to continue this notion that they are the leading jihadist group in the world," Rogers added.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said in a statement Thursday that his administration lacked a strategy to address the growing threat of ISIL terrorism. Obama said he was not planning to significantly expand US military action against ISIL anytime soon, despite repeated recent pledges suggesting such moves.
His remarks were greeted with intense criticism on Capitol Hill.
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee says Obama has been “too cautious” in dealing with the ISIL terrorist group.
Also, in a New York Times op-ed published Friday, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham dismissed Obama's limited airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq as "tactical and reactive half-measures."
This is while the Obama administration as well as his Republican critics in the US Congress have all been major proponents of supporting the foreign-backed insurgency war against the Syrian government and have therefore been instrumental in cultivating various terrorist groups in Syria and neighboring Arab countries.
MB/MB