While the Islamic State continues to lose ground in Iraq under an assault by Iraqi and Western forces, the global terror organization is continuing to recruit extremists to carry out its radical mission across the world, according to leading lawmakers and former U.S. officials.
ISIS has lost upwards of 50 percent of the major territories it once controlled in Iraq, but this is not preventing the group from recruiting a large cadre of followers in European countries and the United States, posing a terror risk that is not likely to abate soon, according to testimony Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
With sectarian wars and other turmoil roiling the Middle East, senators warned that the United States will continue to grapple with terror attacks such as the one that took place in Ohio earlier this week.
“We’re at war and sometimes we don’t approach it that way,” said Sen. David Perdue (R., Ga.), a member of the committee. “I believe our homeland’s been invaded. When you see the rise of homegrown terrorists, the lone wolf and so forth who have been radicalized through social media and the internet, I believe our borders have been breached. I think that we are at war and that we’ve got to face up to that reality.”
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