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Police are on high alert in the Washington, DC area and Northern Virginia after an apparent threat of attack from The Islamic State.
“We have increased our police presence throughout the county to include major thoroughfares, transit hubs, shopping plazas and shopping malls,” Fairfax County police chief Kevin Davis said to CBS News on Friday.
“It’s just our responsibility to have a greater presence, to be more aware and to ask the community to have their eyes and ears peeled for suspicious activities,” he said.
Police said the increased law enforcement presence will be in place through the Halloween weekend and ahead of Virginia’s gubernatorial election. Law enforcement officials said they are acting out of an abundance of caution, and as they learn more about the threat, the increased law enforcement presence could be extended through Tuesday’s election.
ISIS has been more active since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August. Officials say threats from the international terrorist group and al Qaeda are accelerating.
The Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence chief John Cohen said this week that the terror groups want individuals to act on their own — so-called lone wolf attacks — overseas and at home.
“Right now we’re seeing a dramatic increase — or an increase — in online activity by media operations associated with different al Qaeda elements and Islamic State,” he warned.
“BREAKING: Two US officials tell @HumanEvents that the ISIS threat alert in Northern VA / DC region is related to Afghan refugees,” Human Events editor Jack Posobiec said.
BREAKING: Two US officials tell @HumanEvents that the ISIS threat alert in Northern VA / DC region is related to Afghan refugees
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 30, 2021
“#ISIS threat in #WashingtonDC suburbs. Police are increasing their presence around shopping malls and high-volume roads and transit areas in response to a purported threat from ISIS this #Halloween weekend,” journalist Rohit Sharma said.
#ISIS threat in #WashingtonDC suburbs. Police are increasing their presence around shopping malls and high-volume roads and transit areas in response to a purported threat from ISIS this #Halloween weekend.
.@FairfaxCountyPD #Virginia #TerrorThreat pic.twitter.com/6UJzrkTJUZ— Rohit Sharma (@DcWalaDesi) October 30, 2021
Just this week a top Defense Department official said to members of Congress that ISIS-K, the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, could be able to attack the United States within “6 or 12 months,” The New York Post reported.
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Jack Reed questioned Pentagon undersecretary for policy Colin Kahl about Gen. Mark Milley saying that “there may be a resurgence of international terrorism emanating from the region within 12 to 36 months.”
“I think the assessment depends on which group we’re talking about,” he said.
“I think the intelligence community currently assesses that both ISIS-K and Al Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the United States, but neither currently has the capability to do so,” he said.
“We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere between 6 or 12 months,” he argued. “I think the current assessments by the intelligence community is that Al Qaeda would take a year or two to reconstitute that capability, and … we have to remain vigilant against that possibility.”
Kahl’s fellow witness, Joint Staff Director of Operations Lt. Gen. James Mingus, told Reed he concurred with Milley’s assessment of the terror threat, but made no mention of Kahl’s statement.
ISIS-K was behind the Aug. 26 suicide bombing outside Kabul’s international airport, which killed 13 US service members and 169 Afghans during the botched American military evacuation of that war-torn country.
Earlier this month, officials revealed that the suicide bomber who carried out the airport attack had been released from an Afghan prison by the Taliban during their August offensive that toppled the Western-backed Kabul government.
A June report by the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team suggests that ISIS-K has a hardened core of about 1,500 to 2,200 fighters based in small areas of Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, east of Kabul.
In recent weeks, ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly mosque bombings targeting Afghanistan’s minority Shiite Muslims.
