Americas...:FBI Director: Worried American Militants Returni...

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FBI Director: Worried American Militants Returning From Syria

Local Editor

The director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), James B. Comey, said Thursday he is worried that Americans going to Syria to fight against the Syrian government would be radicalized after returning to the US.

He noted that "tracking Americans who have returned from Syria had become one of the bureau's highest counterterrorism priorities."

"People, including Americans, can go to Syria and learn about dangerous techniques, and it's easy to get in and get out," James Comey told reporters during a question-and-answer session.

"My concern is that people can go to Syria, develop new relationships, learn new techniques and become far more dangerous, and then flow back" to the US, the official added.

"We know al-Qaeda is using Syria to identify individuals they can recruit, provide them additional indoctrination so they're further radicalized, and leverage them into future soldiers, possibly in the US," said another senior counterterrorism official, who, like half a dozen other top intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic officials interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing delicate national security issues.

According to The New York Times, at least 70 Americans have either gone to Syria or tried to go there in order to fight alongside insurgents against the Syrian government.

Moreover, European officials are sharing the same worries as analysts say at least 1,200 Europeans have gone to Syria to fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

According to US officials, most of the Americans who have gone to Syria are still there while a few have been killed.
33-year-old Nicole Lynn Mansfield of Flint, Michigan, was killed last May while fighting alongside insurgents in Idlib Province.

A former US Army soldier from Phoenix, Eric G. Harroun, who was accused of fighting alongside an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria, was also indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia last year.

Last February, he bragged about his role, posting a photo on his Facebook page saying, "Downed a Syrian Helicopter then Looted all Intel and Weapons!"
At a Senate homeland security committee hearing in November 2013, Sen. Thomas Carper said: "We know that American citizens as well as Canadian and European nationals have taken up arms in Syria, in Yemen and in Somalia. The threat that these individuals could return home to carry out attacks is real and troubling."

Also, in August, outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller told ABC News that he was concerned about Americans fighting in Syria, specifically "the associations they will make and, secondly, the expertise they will develop, and whether or not they will utilize those associations, utilize that expertise, to undertake an attack on the homeland."

Source: NY Times, edited by website team