WASHINGTON, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - Assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division has appealed to the US public to help identify fellow citizens, who might be engaged in terrorist activity in a press release.
“We need the public's assistance in identifying US persons, going to fight overseas with terrorist groups or who are returning home from fighting overseas,” Michael Steinbach said in a statement published by the Bureau on Tuesday.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, several dozen US nationals were engaged in terrorist activities outside of the United States. One of the recent cases include a Chicago man, who traveled to Somalia in 2010 to join al-Shabaab terrorist group. He was sent to prison two years later for his activity.
In 2013, an Albanian man living in Brooklyn, New York, was sentenced to 15 years for attempting to travel to Pakistan to join jihadists.
Another New York man was pleaded guilty in September for traveling to Yemen to support al-Qaeda. On Saturday, a 19-year-old Chicago resident was arrested for allegedly attempting to travel overseas to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
The IS Sunni fundamentalist group has seized vast areas across Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a caliphate. The group is known for mobilizing thousands of jihadist fighters from all over the globe. According to the US Department of State, some 12,000 foreigners from 50 nations were fighting in the ranks of the IS, as of August.
