Everyday Americans may think the specter of ISIS died on a battlefield in the Middle East, but newly disclosed intelligence reveals the terrorist network plotted to breach the U.S. southern border.
Recent reports highlight the fact that the remnants of ISIS fighters who fled the U.S. coalition onslaught in Iraq and Syria have gone back to the early days of covert terrors cells. Following news reports of infighting between the Trump Administration and open borders Democrats, radical Muslim extremists planned to exploit the border that has been overrun by migrant caravans.
The ISIS plot reportedly included the use of English-speaking extremists that planned to locate gaps in border security at a time when record numbers of migrants are overwhelming the U.S. Border Patrol. Their mission was reported to be American financial institutions and infrastructure. But once they penetrated the southern border, the murderous ISIS terrorists would have free rein to target civil gatherings as well.
A recent confession extracted from a former ISIS insurgent, Abu Henricki al Canadi, provided critical details that may have helped thwart the plot.
“They were going to move me to the Mexican side (of the US southern border) via Puerto Rico. This was mastermind by a guy in America. Where he is, I do not know,” Henricki confessed. “I was going to take a boat (from Puerto Rico) into Mexico. He was going to smuggle me in.”
Henricki had been enlisted by ISIS to work in its intelligence group due to his dual Canadian-Trinidadian citizenship, knowledge of the region, and ability to speak fluent English. Although he claims to have declined to participate in the U.S. infiltration and attack, he told members of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism that ISIS was hard at work targeting the U.S.-Mexico border.
“What they wanted to do, basically, is they wanted to do financial attacks. Financial attacks to cripple the (U.S.) economy,” Henricki explained. “They have their system of doing it…it wasn’t me alone. They were sending you to Puerto Rico and from Puerto Rico (to Mexico).”
Reports have been confirmed that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other Trump Administration officials alerted Mexico that ISIS members were secretly making their way toward their southern border. The Mexican Federal Police went on high alert searching for three radical Muslim extremists, one from Iraq and two from Egypt. The terrorists made their way through Panama and into Costa Rico in May. According to a document that surfaced from the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations’ Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program, the men planned to make their way to Mexico by early June.
Although the Trump Administration alerted Mexican authorities about the impending breach, what is particularly troubling is that this may be just one of many covert operations by ISIS. Henricki was apparently only privy to portions of ISIS plots and out of the information loop once he declined to carry out a strike on American soil.
“I was asked to leave (ISIS) to go to America because I’m from that area. Cause they wanted, planned to do something and I refused. That is why also I’m put into (ISIS) prison and been tortured,” he added. “They beat me a lot, suspended from the back, standing on my toes, given no food for a few days, waterboarded — while blindfolded, and they put a bag over your head.
If his confessions are true, sleeper cells are at work within the U.S. and continue to make efforts to bring in violent extremists.
“That information, the plan came from someone from the New Jersey state from America,” Henricki said. “I was going to take a boat [from Puerto Rico] into Mexico. He was going to smuggle me in. I don’t know where I’d end up.”
The former ISIS fighter tells a story that highlights that President Donald Trump’s policies have been dead right. Henricki reportedly said that the travel ban impeded ISIS’ ability to move extremists from Syria toward the U.S. They have been forced to persuade lesser-known foreigners who joined the so-called caliphate to infiltrate America. The Trump Administration has roundly rejected the notion ISIS members should be allowed to return to the U.S. The White House’s position is that joining ISIS revokes citizenship.
Although ISIS has been defeated on the battlefield, plots to make attacks on American soil remain a constant threat and the U.S. southern border is the weak link.
