By Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet
Published Aug. 8, 2024, 10:15 p.m. ET
It’s no surprise that the two Austrian teens who were arrested for plotting a terror attack at a Taylor Swift concert were radicalized by ISIS and al Qaeda online.
Radical Islamic groups have grown largely unchecked throughout the Biden-Harris administration — and now are actively coming for our youth.
ISIS isn’t just looking for passive supporters.
They are looking for young foot soldiers — and in Vienna, they found two of them who were willing to use bombs, chemicals, machetes and hunting knives to kill as many young Swift fans as possible.
For months now, FBI Director Christopher Wray has been warning of domestic terrorist attacks similar to the ISIS-K attack in March at the Crocus City Hall music venue in Moscow, where 133 people were killed.
This week’s narrow escape at Swift’s concert is a reminder that Wray’s fears are very real — and that Americans are in the crosshairs.
Open borders have long been the Achilles’ heel for Homeland Security in terms of terrorists infiltrating the US.
Now, so too are the online gateways to our nation’s youth as Middle Eastern terrorist groups attempt to radicalize them.
USCENTCOM reported in July that there had been 153 ISIS attacks alone in the first half of 2024 — more than twice those of 2023.
CENTCOM estimates there are 2,500 ISIS fighters operating in Iraq and Syria alone.
Some 9,500 other ISIS fighters remain in US custody awaiting repatriation, according to the State Department.
This hydra-like threat is not going away — and ISIS is rapidly morphing so as to survive and fight another day.
ISIS is no longer capable of militarily establishing a land-based caliphate as it did in Iraq and Syria at its height in 2015.
Yet it is building a new online caliphate whose territorial reach is far greater.
The average ages of ISIS’ online targets?
Kids between the ages of 13 and 19.
Europol data uncovered that of the 27 ISIS plots in Europe discovered since Oct. 7, 38 of 58 suspects were children.
We need to wake up to the magnitude of this growing social media threat.
It isn’t just China or Russia attempting to influence our youth.
TikTok, Twitch and other social media popular with European and American children are being turned into ISIS and al Qaeda recruiting tools.
Ominously, they are succeeding beyond our darkest expectations.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.
