300 American militants fighting for ISIL

There are as many as 300 Americans fighting alongside the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq and Syria, prompting widespread concern in Washington that the militants could pose a direct threat to the homeland once they return.

The US government is currently tracking and gathering intelligence on the American militants who could return to the homeland and commit terrorist attacks with skills obtained abroad, senior US officials said as reported by The Washington Times.

Heightening concerns about Americans joining ISIL were reports Tuesday that a California man who fought side by side with militants in Syria was found dead on the battlefield, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

Douglas McArthur McCain was killed last weekend in a battle between rival terrorist groups in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors the conflict.

According to a senior US official, American militants fighting for ISIL, also known as ISIS or IS, have been shifting back and forth between Iraq and Syria and that the US government is doing its best to keep track of them.

“We know that there are several hundred American passport holders running around with ISIS in Syria or Iraq,” the official said, offering a figure well above widespread reports of about 100 such fighters. “It’s hard to tell whether or not they’re in Syria or moved to Iraq.”

The threat of terrorists returning to the United States is “a new hazard” for the Department of Homeland Security, said retired Army Major Mike Lyons, a senior fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a CBS Radio News analyst.

American officials say the savage militant group is growing in strength and is much more capable than the one US forces faced when the group was called “al Qaeda-Iraq” during the US war in Iraq from 2003-2011.

ISIL controls large parts of Syria’s northern territory. The group sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.

The US military has begun planning for airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria after last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. The US has launched a limited air campaign against the terrorist group in Iraq since August 8.

AHT/HRJ