A recently published House Homeland Security Committee report highlighted the scope of ISIS external operations against Western countries, as well as other terrorist incidents inspired by the group.
The Committee has been tracking terrorist activity linked to ISIS since the group’s formation, noting the report was produced by the majority staff, providing high-level examination of ISIS-linked plots and attacks targeting Western countries, including the United States, along with a summary of each incident.
“With the widespread use of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit and radicalize vulnerable persons of all ages in the United States either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said during Senate testimony in May. “Through the Internet, terrorists overseas now have access into our local communities to target and recruit our citizens and spread the message of radicalization to violence faster than we imagined just a few years ago.”
Through the end of July, ISIS has been tied to at least 243 terrorist plots or attacks against the West since 2014. The report is based on open-source data that includes information from press articles, publicly available government documents, reports from non-governmental organizations and related materials.
The report determined that, despite ISIS’ battlefield losses, the entity remains a potent threat in large part due to the viral success of its online propaganda and how-to efforts.