ISIS Infiltrates U.S. Military: National Guardsman Caught Allegedly Trying To Join Islamic State
ISIS, or the Islamic State, has made the United States its mortal enemy, and now the terrorist group appears to be infiltrating the U.S. military.
That’s at least if you believe the accusations leveled at 22-year-old National Guardsman Hasan Edmonds and 29-year old Jonas Edmonds, a cousin, in Aurora, Illinois.
The pair were attempting to fly to Cairo, Egypt, reportedly to join Muslim extremists. Hasan “planned on using his military background to fight with the Islamic State group,” reports WMC Action News 5.
“The arrests today are the culmination of a successful investigation that involved a great deal of coordination and communication with our law enforcement and military partners,” said Special Agent in Charge Robert Holley in a news release for the Justice Department. “Throughout the course of this investigation, the defendants were closely and carefully monitored to ensure the safety of the public and our service men and women.”
A separate report from CBS News went into a little more detail about how the cousins had plans for an attack on U.S. soil, particularly a military post in northern Illinois.
They were to use Hasan’s military credentials to successfully pull off a deadly attack.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident, as last week U.S. Air Force veteran Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh was indicted on charges of terrorism. He was plotting a trip to join ISIS in Syria.
The frequency with which these cases are starting to turn up have caused some to sound the alarm bells that ISIS is here and has already infiltrated the U.S., and it will only be a matter of time before they can coordinate a successful attack on U.S. military and citizens.
In spite of a few military losses, the group appears to be increasing in power and reach.
“You’ve got motivation mixed with opportunity, ideology and foreign fighters and all of that looks like a very extreme version of Afghanistan in the ’90s, plus what was happening in Iraq after the Iraq war,” said CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. “This is a cauldron of future terrorist threats to the west.”
Zarate believes the U.S. doesn’t know how the group will develop, and that makes them extra dangerous.
“I think the grave threat here is that you have the seeds of a new terrorist movement emerging very aggressively,” Zarate said.
Do you believe that ISIS is close to infiltrating the U.S. in a manner that could prove deadly for the U.S. and its citizens and military? Do you think we’re prepared to prevent it? Sound off in the comments section.
[Image via ShutterStock]
