FBI Director James Comey has warned that the militant Islamic State group now poses a bigger terrorist threat to the United States than al-Qaeda, largely due to its extensive recruitment of “troubled souls” across America through social media.Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Comey said: “What worries me most is that ISIS’s investment in social media — which has been blossoming in the last six to eight weeks in particular — will cause a significant increase in the number of incidents that we will see. That’s what I worry about all day long.”
Admitting that “dozens” of US citizens between ages 18 and 62 have travelled to the West Asia to join ISIS or ISIl, Comey said this dreaded organisation has stepped up efforts over the past year in “pushing a message of poison” on social media.ISIS, according to Comey, is urging followers to join the group in Syria and Iraq, and if that’s not possible their message is “to kill somebody where you are — kill somebody in uniform, preferably in the military or law enforcement, but just kill somebody”.
While al-Qaeda followers relied on information on the Internet and e-mail contacts, ISIS is “changing that model entirely”, Comey said, commenting: “What ISIS brings to us is a crowd-sourcing of terrorism using social media in a way that al- Qaeda never imagined.” Using smartphones, the group is pushing its message all day long on Twitter and that message resonates with troubled souls.
Answering questions from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, Comey said the FBI has not determined yet if Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the gunman who killed four US Marines and a Navy sailor in Chattanooga last week, was influenced by ISIs or al-Qaeda.Even while asserting that the FBI has a “reasonable handle” on ISIS activities, Comey admitted that his organisation does not have the access to encrypted communication. In the context of the public support for Internet privacy and at the same demand for public safety, Comey said: “We have to, as a country, figure out how to solve this (dilemma).”Noting that ISIS tweeters in Syria have 21,000 English language followers, Comey said hundreds of them, possibly thousands, are in the US and it is the job of the FBI and its partners in federal and local governments to figure out who they are and what they are up to.