ISIS is alive and well and not likely to go far away at the moment. It’s stronger than ever because the United States has regularly directed resources away from it. Biden confirmed the New Orleans attacker was connected to the terror group. The president spoke from Camp David praising first responders and federal departments for their work, even if the FBI originally said this wasn’t a terrorist attack.
The FBI refused to recognize ISIS
The agency is under fire for initially insisting the attack wasn’t terrorism. It left at least 10 dead and more than two dozen injured.
Police responded at 3:17 am when the suspect plowed through New Year’s revelers before opening fire on the crowd. The suspect is now deceased. The terrorism pronunciation would have made more sense since the agency actually confirmed the presence of “improvised explosive devices”.
ISIS and confusion
The original FBI statement was, “This is not a terrorist event. What it is right now is there improvised explosive devices that was found, and we are working on confirming if this is a viable device or not. As Chief Kirkpatrick said, we’re asking everyone to stay away from Bourbon Street.”
A former Biden hostage official said we can’t keep sticking our heads in the sand. ISIS is here and if conditions remain the same, it will grow stronger. Senior Vice President for Global Operations at The Soufan Group Christopher O’Leary was Director of Hostage Rescue and Recovery for Biden. He said, “al-Qaeda and ISIS are stronger now than they’ve ever been,” and that we
“have pivoted a lot of our attention and resources and authorities away from it. If we continue to try to just bury our heads in the sand and hope the bogeyman’s going to go away, these are the things that will start happening again.”
MSNBC coverage
MSNBC host Christina Ruffini said,
“[W]e were talking earlier about the state of ISIS, al-Qaeda as a global jihadist movement, and when we talk about associates, whether or not that’s someone these individuals are speaking to directly or whether they’re just taking inspiration. Can you talk us through — I feel like it used to be something we heard about a lot more — are those organizations weakened or are they stronger, and how much impact can they have on somebody who might be inspired to take kind of this action?”
O’Leary explained that people are surprised to find out how strong terrorism is, it’s generational and the United States hasn’t devoted enough energy toward it.
“I think it’ll surprise most people to learn that al-Qaeda and ISIS are stronger now than they’ve ever been, through their affiliates around the world. So, to give people a reference point, al-Qaeda was roughly less than 500 members before September 11, mostly relegated to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda and ISIS — and ISIS grew out of al-Qaeda — and their affiliates are globally dispersed with over about two dozen countries around the world and compose roughly 40,000 members. So, to think that terrorism is behind us is really naive. And, unfortunately, the U.S. government has pivoted a lot of its attention and resources and authorities away from it. If we continue to try to just bury our heads in the sand and hope the bogeyman’s going to go away, these are the things that will start happening again. So, we were told it was a generational fight, we have to commit ourselves to that, number one. And number two, there’s a great Afghan saying that you have the watches, we have the time. Well, people committed to this extremist ideology, they’re not a flash in the pan, they’re intending to come after us when we let our guard down.”
