FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress on Wednesday that he’s worried that terrorists have sneaked across the border and may be plotting a terrorist attack like the ISIS raid on a concert hall in Russia this year.
Mr. Wray said he’s “increasingly concerned” about terrorist attacks on what security experts call “soft targets” — places where average Americans gather. He tied that fear to the surge of illegal immigrants at the border in recent years, saying he’s worried about who has entered undetected.
The director said he can’t estimate how many foreign terrorists are in the country, adding that not all of them are border entries.
“We are increasingly concerned about the possibility not just of a foreign terrorist attack, which is very much a concern, but even the potential for a coordinated foreign terrorist attack, perhaps like what we’ve seen against the concert hall in Russia,” Mr. Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.
More than 140 people were slain in March when an affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group attacked the Moscow venue.
Mr. Wray said they’re seeing terrorists shift their focus to soft targets “more and more.”
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Mr. Wray has been warning of terrorist danger related to the border for months, and on Wednesday, he delivered his most pointed assessment.
He said that while much of the focus has been on the number of terror suspects detected trying to sneak across the southern border, he’s more worried about those who make it in unchecked.
Mr. Wray said the FBI is currently investigating al Qaeda, al Shabaab, the Islamic State and Iranian operatives including Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.
He pointed out that prosecutors this year won a sentence against an Iraqi immigrant who had plotted to sneak in a terrorist hit squad to try to assassinate former President George W. Bush.
“I am increasingly concerned that foreign terrorists could seek to exploit vulnerabilities at our southwest border or at other ports of entry or other aspects of our immigration system to facilitate an attack here in the United States,” Mr. Wray said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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