Even as the Islamic State militants have threatened to behead yet another American hostage in their custody, the US authorities are grappling with the grim reality of at least a dozen Americans fighting for Islamic extremist groups in Syria.
FBI Director James Comey on Sunday acknowledged that roughly a dozen Americans are known to be fighting for the groups and that their number could be more. In his first major TV interview since he took charge of FBI a year ago, Comey told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that his agency knows each of the dozen or so Americans and would closely track them should they try to return to US.
“Ultimately, an American citizen, unless their passport is revoked, is entitled to come back,” Comey said, adding: “So someone who has fought with ISIl with an American passport and wants to come back, we will track them very carefully.”
Fears have been expressed in recent weeks that these men could mount terrorist attacks on US homeland.
Comey, however, maintained that the US was not that vulnerable as the intelligence community is better organized when compared to the time when Al Qaeda was calling the shots, noting: “We’re better organized and equipped at the border. We have relationships with our foreign partners. All of which make us better able to see dots and connect dots. The transformation since before 9/11 is striking.”
But he conceded that both ISIS and Al-Nusra, terrorist groups are “vicious, sort of the inheritors of a lot of the mantle of Al Qaeda and present different threats in a lot of ways”. And the Khorasan Group that was targeted in US military strikes last month could also be plotting against the US.
The Obama administration is also closely watching the developments in the face of the death threat issued by ISIS to another American hostage in its custody — 26-year-old aid worker and former Army ranger Peter Kassig, who changed his name to Abdul Rehman-Kassig in captivity.
The Indiana-based parents of Kassig, who was taken hostage oon October 1 last year in Syria while he was providing relief for refugees of Syria's protracted civil war, have issued an appeal to ISIS to show mercy and free their son. They also released a letter in which their son says: “I am obviously pretty scared to die but the hardest part is not knowing, wondering, hoping, and wondering if I should even hope at all.”
"I am very sad that all this has happened and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need," Kassig has written in the letter, in which he thanked his parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, for their strength and commitment.
The ISIS has beheaded two Americans and two Britons in recent weeks. In a video released last Friday after British aid worker Alan Henning was killed, the group announced that Kassig would be the next to be executed, prompting his parents to issue their appeal.