James Comey, director of the FBI, warned at an Aspen Security Forum the current breed of ISIS is "not your parents' al-Qaida," and Americans need to be on alert: The terror group's recruiting in all 50 states.
"[This] is not your parents' al-Qaida," he said, at the Wednesday evening event reported by the Aspen Times. "It's a very different model. ... What worries me most is that ISIL's investment in social media, which has been blossoming in the last six to eight weeks in particular, will cause a significant increase in the number of incidents that we will see. That's what I worry about all day long."
Comey said al-Qaida followers used to have to search the social media sites to get news of the terror group's goings-on. But ISIS has changed that modus operandi, he said.
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"ISIL is changing that model entirely because ISIL is buzzing on your hip," Comey said, referencing smart phones, the Aspen Times reported. "If you want to talk to a terrorist, they're right there on Twitter Direct Messaging for you to communicate with. ... The FBI's job is to locate the people in the 50 states that are receptive to the ISIL message and stop them from committing domestic terrorism."
Comey also said "dozens" of Americans between the ages of 18 and 62 have traveled to Mideast regions to join the terror group.
"What ISIL brings to us is a crowd-sourcing of terrorism using social media in a way that al-Qaida never imagined," he said, Fox 13 Salt Lake City reported.
He said they're expert at reaching the "troubled souls" and enticing them to join the group, and have spread their messages of terror through every state in the nation.
"Their message," he said, Fox 13 reported, "is travel to the Caliphate, their so-called Islamic wonder world. Join us here in Iraq or Syria, and if you can't travel, kill somebody where you are. Kill somebody in uniform, preferably in the military or law enforcement, but just kill somebody."