WASHINGTON (AP) – Despite the Islamic State group’s loss of territory, the Islamic extremists will continue to pose serious national security problems for the United States and Europe in coming years, the directors of the FBI and CIA said Thursday.
“The threat that I think will dominate the next five years for the FBI will be the impact of the crushing of the caliphate, which will happen,” FBI Director James Comey told a national security conference in Washington. “Through the fingers of that crush are going to come hundreds of hardened killers, who are not going to die on the battlefield. They are going to flow out.”
He predicted that many will head into western Europe and will try to duplicate recent attacks in Paris and Brussels to maintain IS’ credibility in the militant world. Others will try to bring the fight to the United States, making it imperative for the U.S. to help its European allies share intelligence better among themselves and with the United States, Comey said.
Comey also said, however, that as IS loses territory, it also will lose its ability to produce slick propaganda “used to motivate screwed up people to engage in acts of violence.”
CIA Director John Brennan also said that many fighters who don’t die on the battlefield will try to return to their native countries, where they could launch IS-inspired attacks. He said al-Qaida in Iraq had been reduced to several hundred fighters, yet was able to re-emerge.