ISIS Terrorists May Already Be Operating in a Mexico Border Town Waiting to Enter the US, Intelligence Sources Say
High-level intelligence officials and federal law enforcement are saying that terrorist attacks might be "imminent" for Texas cities and towns located near the U.S.-Mexico border as it's believed the jihadists are already operating in a Mexican border town.
The unnamed officials told Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, that there's good reason to believe Islamic State terrorists are operating in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, and are planning to use the border to gain entry into the U.S. to carry out their attacks.
Juarez is located just over 8 miles from El Paso, and is a hotbed for violent and narcotic crimes and has been linked to the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah, in previous years. Officials claim that Islamic State jihadists might be setting up shop in Juarez, and plan to attack using car bombs and other vehicle-born improvised explosive devices.
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The Judicial Watch report states: "Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to 'carry out an attack on the border,' according to one JW source. 'It's coming very soon,' according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as 'ISIS and al-Qaeda.'"
According to the report, an official said the threat of an attack is so likely that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army Base in El Paso, is being briefed on security measures.
Fox News reported Friday that Texas Department of Public Safety released a three-page bulletin that warned Islamic State terrorists have studied and are "expressing an increased interest" in crossing over the border to carry out attacks. The Texas Department of Public Safety came to this conclusion through monitoring Twitter accounts that are believed to be linked to Islamic State jihadists.
The bulletin states: "A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending Aug. 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of the U.S., for terror attack."
An anonymous federal law enforcement official told The Blaze that there has been a long-standing concern about terrorist groups taking advantage of the border.
"Chatter has certainly increased and there's a need to be vigilant," the official told The Blaze. "Al-Qaeda and groups like ISIL have been vocal about the southern border. ISIL is making direct threats now and the situation is changed."
During President Barack Obama's press conference Thursday he said the U.S. doesn't have a concrete plan to combat ISIS.
"I think what I've seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of where we're at than what we currently are," Obama asserted.
Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News that it would be naive to think that Islamic State jihadists would not use the U.S. southern border to their advantage to gain an entry point into the country.
"You'd have to be silly not to take an advantage of that opportunity. You can say many things about the Islamists, but silly they are not," Scheuer said. "They may be brutal, but they are not dumb. We are the dumb ones."
As reported by The Christian Post, Texas Governor Rick Perry said last month that it's a "real possibility" Islamic State terrorists have already used the border to cross into the country due to lack of border security.
"Because of the condition of the border from the standpoint of it not being secured and us not knowing who is penetrating across: individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states. And, I think it is a very real possibility that they have already used that," Perry told attendees at a Heritage Foundation panel on border security.
Scheuer added that it's pretty common to see people from Asia and the Middle East use the U.S.-Mexico border to gain access into the country.
"We are confidently sure that every month a number of Arabs or Pakistanis come across the border illegally in the south," Scheuer told Fox News.
