An ABC News investigation has unveiled that the United States accidentally welcomed al Qaeda terrorists into its borders as part of a refugee program.
The report begins with the apprehension of two terrorists living in Bowling Green, Ky., who eventually admitted that they had attacked American soldiers in Iraq. The discovery spurred an “around-the-clock effort” to archive roughly 100,000 improvised explosive devices from the Middle East by the FBI.
House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul believes that there although two members of the terrorist organization have been identified, there are probably more.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many more than that,” he said. “And these are trained terrorists in the art of bomb-making that are inside the United States; and quite frankly, from a homeland security perspective, that really concerns me.”
Waad Ramadan Alwan, 32, entered the U.S. in 2009, but an investigation turned up his fingerprints on crime scene evidence collected in Bayji, Iraq, in 2005. Additionally, in 2006 he confessed in Kirkuk, Iraq, on video that he was an insurgent.
While living in Kentucky, the FBI taped Alwan bragging to an informant that he had U.S. soldiers “for lunch and dinner,” meaning he had killed them.
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The other terrorist found in Kentucky, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 26, was detained during the Iraq war by Iraqi authorities, according to federal prosecutors, ABC News reports.
“How do you have somebody that we now know was a known actor in terrorism overseas, how does that person get into the United States? How do they get into our community?” said Bowling Green Police Chief Doug Hawkins.
The investigation estimates that “several dozen” terrorists may have entered the United States as refugees.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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