TerrorismU.S. thwarted “over 60” ISIS-linked plots, but missed Chattanooga attack: McCaul

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the United States was successful in thwarting “over 60” would-be terrorist attacks by “ISIS followers” in the last year.

Referring to the attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, McCaul said: “What keeps us up at night are really the ones that we don’t know about and I’m afraid that this case really falls into that category.”

The suspect in the Chattanooga shooting is Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen with Palestinian parents. He was shot dead by police.

It was reported on Saturday that shortly before the attack, Abdulazeez sent to a text message to a friend, quoting an Islamic verse concerning a “declaration of war.”

The suspect’s family released a statement, in which they said: “The person who committed this horrible crime was not the son we knew and loved. For many years our son suffered from depression. It grieves us beyond belief to know that his pain found its expression in this heinous act of violence.”

VOA reports that on Sunday, appearing on ABC, McCaul said the FBI was examining Abdulazeez’s computer and cellphone and investigating his trips abroad. Asked why Abdulazeez had been able to buy guns online, guns which were used in the Chattanooga attacks, McCaul said: “Twenty-twenty is hindsight. I commend the FBI for stopping so many terrorist plots in the United States. But we will be examining this case.”

McCaul had called the attack “ISIS-inspired,” but the FBI has not confirmed that it considers the Chattanooga shooting a terrorist act.

McCaul praised FBI successes in stopping plots he said were instigated by “a new generation of terrorists” who followed “Internet directives out of Syria from the cyber command, if you will, to activate people in the United States to attack.

“What they are saying is to attack military installations and attack police officers and what we saw was one of the most deadliest attacks on U.S. soil, against the marines and the American sailor.”

“But this is, again, the new threat that’s out there over the internet that’s very hard to stop,” he added. “We have 200,000 Isis tweets per day that hit the United States. The chatter is so loud and the volume is so high that it’s a problem. It’s very hard to stop and disrupt in this country and it’s something we’ve been warning about this last year.

“Unfortunately we saw it happen in Chattanooga. If it can happen in Chattanooga, it can happen anywhere, anytime, anyplace and that’s our biggest fear.”

McCaul also referred to the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was known to authorities but still managed to carry out, with his younger brother. the Boston Marathon bombing.

McCaul said: “I was one of the biggest critics of how it was handled, and that particular case, we saw it fall through the cracks.”

He added: “We’ll be conducting oversight and discussing what happened. But again, when we stopped the Fourth of July plot, it was imminent to blow up military and Fourth of July parades. We stopped Garland.”

In Garland, Texas, in May, two men opened fire on a convention center which was hosting a “Draw the Prophet Muhammad” competition hosted by a anti-Muslim group. The police killed the two attackers.

McCaul also advocated “taking the war” to what he called “cyber commanders” of terrorist groups overseas.

“I’ve met with the generals who conduct the war on terror,” he said, “and you know what, I think we need to take the war over there a little stronger.

“We need to hit these guys, these cyber commanders who are sending these Internet directives out to attack, attack, attack in the United States. We need to identify them and take them out.”