CIA Director John Brennan spoke before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday where he is expected to warn US lawmakers that Islamic State militants are training and preparing to deploy operatives for further attacks on the West and will rely more on guerrilla-style tactics to compensate for their territorial losses.
Per his prepared remarks before the Committee, Brennan said that ISIS has been working to build an apparatus to direct and inspire attacks against its foreign enemies, as in the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels. "ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West."
Most importantly, he said the Islamic State is working to smuggle them into countries, perhaps among refugee flows or through legitimate means of travel.
Brennan also noted the group's call for followers to conduct so-called lone-wolf attacks in their home countries. He called last week's attack in Orlando a "heinous act of wanton violence" and an "assault on the values of openness and tolerance" that define the United States as a nation.
It is unclear just how Brennan's testimony is supposed to comfort Americans that, as Obama has been pleading, the Orlando attack was not the result of an activist of "radicalized Islam." If anything, the CIA director's warning confirms the concerns voiced by Trump that the US is the target for deadly ISIS ambitions.
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