HOMELAND SECURITY: New DHS Chief Cites Syria, “Lone Wolf” Terror Threats

New Boss, New Threats

WASHINGTON – The new head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says foreign jihadists streaming into war-torn Syria and self-radicalized “lone wolf” terrorists in the United States have become a top concern for him.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson
(DHS photo)

DHS Secretary Jeh (PRONOUNCED Jay) Johnson said the department has become “very focused” on foreign fighters heading to Syria, where foreign Islamists have radicalized and complicated the three-year civil war with the Bashar al-Assad regime. The DHS concern is what these fighters will do when they return to their home countries or travel elsewhere, indoctrinated with a violent Islamist mission.

Johnson told a Washington think tank audience Friday (February 7) that Syria was a constant topic of discussion at a recent meeting he attended with European security officials in Poland. “Syria has become a matter of homeland security,” he told the Woodrow Wilson Center in his first major public address since taking charge of the nation’s third largest cabinet-level department in December.

He added that the terrorist threat “is increasingly decentralized” as al Qaeda’s leadership has been killed, captured or driven farther into hiding. But “the threat has evolved” has evolved into al Qaeda offshoots like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa’s al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Johnson, former Pentagon general counsel under Defense Secretaries Robert Gates ands Leon Panetta, said another major concern to U.S. security officials is the so-called “lone wolf,” a home-grown self-radicalized terrorist behind incidents like the Fort Hood shootings and the Boston Marathon bombing. “They may be the hardest to detect,” Johnson said of home grown terrorists, because they have little – if any – connection to international terror groups and may done nothing to drawn the attention of the FBI or local police. “It is the thing I worry about the most,” Johnson said.