FBI Chief Says Hamas's Attack on Israel Could Inspire ‘A Whole Nother Level’ of Terror Threat in US

thank you good morning chairman Peters ranking member Paul members of the committee discussions about uh the most pressing National Security threats that what we face and and what we're doing to tackle them are always important but it seems especially well timed this year with the dangerous implications the very fluid situation in the Middle East has for our homeland security the reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023 but but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole another level since the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas against innocent people in Israel a few weeks ago we've been working around the clock to support our partners there and to protect Americans here at home we assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the like of which we haven't seen since Isis launched its so-called caliphate several years ago in just the past few weeks multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West Al-Qaeda issued its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years Isis urged its followers to Target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe Hezbollah has publicly expressed its support for Hamas and threatened to attack us interests in the Middle East and we've seen an increase in attacks on US military bases overseas carried out by militia groups backed by Iran here in the United States our most immediate concern is that violent extremists individuals or small groups will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives that includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities we've already seen that with the individual we arrested last week in Houston who'd been studying how to build bombs and posted online about his support for killing Jews and with the tragic killing of a six-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois and what we're investigating as a federal hate crime but as I said a few moments ago on top of the Homegrown violent extremists and domestic violent extremist threat we also cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization May exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here on our own soil we have kept our sites on Hamas and have multiple ongoing investigations into individuals affiliated with that foreign terrorist organization and while historically our Hamas cases have identified individuals located here who are facilitating and financing hamas's terrorism overseas we continuing to scrutinize our intelligence to assess how the threat may be evolving but it's not just Hamas as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism the Iranians for instance have directly or by hiring criminals mounted assassination attempts against dissidents and high-ranking current and former US government officials including right here on American soil and along those lines hollah Iran's primary strategic partner has a history of seeding operatives and infrastructure obtaining money and weapons and spying in this country going back years given that disturbing history we are keeping a close eye on what impact recent events May have on those groups intentions here in the United States and how those intentions might evolve for example the Cyber targeting of American interests and critical infrastructure that we already see conducted by Iran and non-state actors alike we can expect to get worse if the conflict expands as will the threat of kinetic attacks but across the country in each and every one of the FBI's 56 field offices we are addressing these threats with a sense of urgency among other things that means working closely with our federal state and local Partners through our FBI joint terrorism task forces to ensure that together we stay laser focused on mitigating threats taking an even closer look at existing investigations and canvasing our sources to improve our intelligence and then sharing that information with our partners and doing all we can working with our partners to protect all houses of worship and people of all faiths here in the US bottom line we're going to continue to do everything in our power to protect the American people and support our partners in Israel