Congressional report: Minnesota top US spot for ISIS recruiting

“Pervasive overseas security gaps make it easier for aspiring foreign fighters to travel to terrorist hotspots – and increase the odds that trained jihadists will be able to travel to America undetected”, the report said.

“This threat is getting worse not better, and we are losing in the struggle to keep Americans from the battlefield”, said Michael McCaul, R-TX, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.

Additionally, law enforcement tools haven’t kept pace with technological shifts, as jihadist recruiters increasingly use secure websites and apps to communicate with Americans – making it harder for law enforcement to disrupt plots and terrorist travel.

“We share more information and we are strengthening border controls. So it’s much more more hard to determine if someone is actually going over to Turkey or Syria to join the fight“.

And while Russian Federation and Iran did not attend the forum, Obama reiterated at the meeting that “we are prepared to work with all countries, including Russian Federation and Iran, to find a political mechanism” to transition Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power.

Targets near Hawija bore the brunt of the barrage in Iraq, with eight strikes hitting a tactical unit and destroying a staging area, 45 Islamic State fighting positions and buildings and vehicles, the Combined Joint Task Force said in the statement released on Wednesday.

“Americans who make it to the conflict zone are reaching back to recruit others”, the report states. “The ones who are being radicalized over the Internet from Syria social media operatives; the case like Chattanooga that we didn’t know about”.

The group also pointed to gaps in worldwide intelligence sharing efforts, noting that “there is now no comprehensive global database of foreign fighter names”.

Of that number, more than 250 Americans have joined or tried to fight with IS jihadists. For instance, the report says 5,000 fighters have left Tunisia to join ISIS, and 1,550 recruits have come from France and 700 from the UK.

ISIS militants were allegedly being paid £260 a month until the terror group faced financial shortages which forced their salaries down to £65 – and at least 200 gunmen have since quit.

Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, called the threat of foreign fighters “clear and alarming” and said the task force’s report would help focus attention on the foreign fighter issue.