ISIS Reportedly Targets Fort Bliss In Texas

ISIS terrorists reportedly may mount an attack on the Fort Bliss army base in El Paso, Texas.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, Judicial Watch claims that ISIS is using the crime-ridden city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, as a staging area for a car bomb attack on the military installation, which is about 15 minutes from the Mexican border. Fort Bliss is the U.S. Army’s second largest installation. Over Labor Day weekend, for security reasons, Fort Bliss closed off two of its entry gates previously accessible to civilians. Other extra security measures may also be in play at the base.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that it is “unaware of any specific, credible threats to the U.S. homeland” from ISIS, although Judicial Watch claims U.S. law enforcement and counter-terrorism agents have been placed on alert of a potential border attack as the 9/11 anniversary approaches.

Despite the proximity of this large Army post to the Mexican border, the Obama administration has shown no inclination to deploy the National Guard or active duty military assets (and some legal restrictions do exist that limit military involvement domestically) to assist the overwhelmed Border Patrol in sealing off the border from a surge of illegal immigrants from Central America as well as all over the world, including apparently from the Middle East, many of whom are getting into the country undetected.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has suggested that ISIS may already be in the U.S. On his own, Perry has sent about 1,000 Guardsmen to the border to improve security.

Separately, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff has ominously admitted that open borders and immigration provides an opportunity for ISIS terrorists to enter the country.

If the Judicial Watch warnings are accurate, ISIS is allegedly working with drug cartels to penetrate the U.S.

In a follow-up report, Judicial Watch claims that the Obama administration has made an effort “to downplay the bloodshed that has long plagued the southern border and now the imminent threat of Islamic jihadists planning a strike as the 13th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil approaches. Remember that Obama’s first Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, famously proclaimed that the border is as secure as it’s ever been even as organized syndicates took over portions of the region, smuggling drugs, humans, weapons and money into the U.S…. Hundreds of miles across the Lone Star State, geography makes Ft. Bliss an exceptionally big target at the moment, JW’s military experts say. For starters it’s a sensitive compound that sits near a notoriously porous border adjacent to a Mexican city long run by heavily armed drug cartels. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches and ISIS establishes itself in Juarez, there’s no question the El Paso Army base is vulnerable, military experts told JW this week.”

According to one Texas rancher, the Gateway Pundit reports, politicians have not been straight with the American people about how violent drug cartels/narco terrorists have taken over portions of the borderlands. The same rancher also claims that he has personally spoken to Border Patrol agents who have detained individuals trying to enter the U.S. illegally who hail from Somalia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton maintains that “Ft. Bliss, which is perhaps our nation’s most important domestic military base, is now a forward operating base facing a threat from Islamist terrorism as a result of our unsecure southern border. The major media, who were quick to promote the Obama administration’s ‘denial’ of our report detailing the real threat of a terrorist attack on the border, have yet to pick up on the extraordinary security measures taken at Ft. Bliss in recent days.”

An executive with the global security think tank Stratfor told KXAN News in Austin, however, that they “have not seen any evidence of ISIS amassed at the border ready to come into the United States. When you look at groups like ISIS what you are dealing with is a tremendous amount of chatter which is pretty much ‘aspirational.’ This would be you and I discussing what would be good to do, but that doesn’t mean they have the operational capability, the tactical ability to actually go forth with their plans.”

When it comes to an alleged ISIS plot against Fort Bliss, do you think that the federal government — as the proverb goes — is taking the position that ignorance is Bliss, as it were, or is the ISIS domestic terrorist threat not credible at this time?

Added: Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known as America’s toughest (and perhaps most controversial) sheriff, has said it is common sense that ISIS will try to cross the unsecured southern border and that the U.S. military should be stationed at the border because of the ISIS threat.