U.S. At Second-Highest Threat Level For Terrorist Attack As Dangers Increase

American soldiers abroad and U.S. citizens at home face perilously high odds of suffering a terrorist attack caused by the Biden administration's policies, a national security expert has revealed. In his estimation, the American homeland stands at the second-highest level of terrorist alert.

His estimation comes days after U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which oversees 83,000 U.S. soldiers across the continent, raised the threat of a terrorist attack over the next week to "Force Protection Charlie," the second-highest level.

"There are a host of issues that might be at play," said retired Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis on "Washington Watch" Monday. "Certainly, the Olympics come to mind," as they start later this month, as well as possible Russian activity in response to U.S. sponsorship of Ukraine. 

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the Biden administration would give an additional $2.3 billion in taxpayer funding to Ukraine. That comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked President Biden for permission to use U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike deep into the interior of Russia, significantly widening the war.

But, Maginnis warned, the potential to suffer from some form of terrorist attack is far from confined to Americans overseas -- and the primary danger comes from uncontrolled illegal immigration.

"Where would you suspect we are right here in the homeland?" asked guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice.

"Probably Charlie trending to Delta," replied Maginnis.

The force protection levels, from lowest to highest, are: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.

"We are at a very heightened level, even though it's not acknowledged by Homeland Security," said Maginnis, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council and author of the book "Kings of the East: China's Plan to Eliminate America and Impose a Communist World Order."

"The risk is high," he said.

"The southern border has been wide open for a long time. Millions of people have come in" during the Biden administration -- an estimated 10 million illegal border crossings, not including unknown gotaways. That includes "many thousands of military-age communist Chinese, many from the Middle East, many from northern Africa -- where we don't have any real friends -- and then, of course an odd lot from Eastern Europe that we could very well have bad characters in sleeper cells posted around this country near our critical infrastructure."

"As we saw on September 11, 2001, it only takes 19 bad dudes to disrupt the entire United States," said Maginnis.

Potential terrorists continue to swarm over the southern border, a problem that has intensified with each passing month of the Biden administration. Last month, ICE agents arrested eight illegal immigrants from Tajikistan with ties to ISIS in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York City. 

At least two of the potential terrorists had background checks conducted at the southern border by agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but nothing alerted CBP to the men's nefarious connections -- so they were released into the interior of the United States, in accordance with the Biden administration's standard operating procedure. Another of the men used the CBP One App, created by the Biden administration to expedite the importation of illegal aliens into the U.S., to schedule a smooth entry into the U.S.

"The arrest of eight men affiliated with ISIS in the interior of the United States is enough proof to show that terrorist organizations are, in fact, exploiting our border to possibly carry out an attack on American soil," wrote a group of Republican congressmen led by House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.) to the now-impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

"Unfortunately, the unacceptable security failures that have allowed individuals with terrorist ties to enter the United States through the Southwest border have become an alarming pattern under this administration." In addition to the eight Tajikis:

An ISIS-affiliated human smuggling ring reportedly brought 400 illegal immigrants into the United States. Only 150 had been arrested as of last week. The whereabouts of 50 of them remained unknown.

48-year-old Mohammad Kharwin, a native of Afghanistan and a suspected member of the terrorist group Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), illegally entered the United States last March 10 near San Ysidro, California. 

Although he was on the U.S. terrorist watchlist, the information reportedly did not show up on his background check, so agents released him two days later, only to track him down and take him into custody this February.

A 2022 George Washington University report on Hezbollah activity inside the United States identified 128 individuals carrying out Hezbollah -related illegal activity in Michigan (55 cases), California (19 cases), North Carolina (16 cases), and New York (15 cases). Of those, 19 offered operational support for Hezbollah, "including as human smugglers, weapons procurers, pre-operational surveillance, and travelers who sought to join the group."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered 1,703 people on the U.S. terrorist watchlist since the beginning of the 2021 fiscal year (which began in October 2020): 173 in 2021, 478 in 2022, 736 in 2023, and 316 people so far this fiscal year.

Robert Lee, CEO of the energy cybersecurity company Dragos, testified before the Senate last March that it is "a very reasonable assumption" to believe Chinese and Russian sleeper cells have already penetrated the U.S. energy grid in preparation for a future attack. "If they're not already in key parts of it, I don't think they're doing the job very well," said Lee.

The Biden administration's soft-on-crime "prioritization of catch, process, and release" at the southern border "presents a grave danger to national security," the congressmen wrote.

Sleeper cells, which may lay dormant for months or years before engaging in deadly activity, have proven their lethality in every corner of the globe. Last week, a Russian official revealed that "sleeper cells" had carried out the June 23 Islamist terrorist attack on churches and synagogues in Dagestan, which left 22 people dead, including 66-year-old priest Fr. Nikolai Kotelnikov. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the attacks as having "diabolic" origins.

Originally published at The Washington Stand