The Islamic State (ISIS) has proven to be extremely successful at rapidly radicalizing lone wolves, according to counter-terrorism officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  As a consequence, the Bureau has shifted its tactics to emphasize “sting” operations.  In these operations, FBI agents pretend to be recruiters or affiliates of ISIS in order to feel out potential recruits.  Once they have gotten the potential recruits to agree to commit crimes, the Bureau swoops in and makes an arrest.

FBI concern may be motivated in part by “kill lists” of Americans that ISIS has been propagating online.  The largest of these has over eight thousand names and addresses.  The quality of the lists is suspect, with some repetitions or partial information.  It is unclear whether anyone has yet conducted an attack based on these lists.  However, the lists have included specific members of police forces and the US Department of State.

ISIS has also shown some success at striking Americans at home.  Attacks such as the mass killing at San Bernardino and the attack on a Mohammed cartoon exhibit in Garland, Texas show that they have the ability to radicalize American citizens.  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he expects a major ISIS attack on American soil this year.  Both he and Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), told Congress that ISIS is exploiting the refugee flow from Syria to move fighters into Western countries.

Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Charles Johnson agreed that the Obama administration’s refugee program represents a risk to America. “We do have to be concerned about the possibility that a terrorist organization may seek to exploit our refugee resettlement process,” Johnson told the press. “This is true of this country, that’s true of every other country that accepts refugees.”

European countries may be seen as especially at risk given their far higher Islamic populations, from whom ISIS principally recruits. However, as we reported here at CounterJihad in the wake of the Brussels attacks, many European nationals can enter the United States without any security process whatsoever.  Under the visa waiver program, all that is necessary is that they have a passport from a country on the waiver list.  As noted by Representative Ron DeSantis, there is essentially no enforcement for those who overstay their legal time in this country once they are here.  ISIS could move European radicals into this country under that program slowly, over time, without concern that anyone would follow up to make sure they left the United States at the appointed day.  They could thus build large teams here without fear of capture.

In spite of these risks, the FBI’s program has come under fire from American liberal organizations. According to the New York Times, “defense lawyers, Muslim leaders and civil liberties advocates say that F.B.I. operatives coax suspects into saying and doing things that they might not otherwise do — the essence of entrapment.”  The FBI says that it has a thousand open cases into homegrown radicals motivated by a foreign terrorist organization.

In the eyes of the organizations cited by the Times, that’s evidence not that the danger is great but that the FBI is overreaching.  Tom Nelson, a Muslim lawyer in Portland, had what they described as a blunt message for fellow Muslims.

“Avoid the F.B.I. like the plague,” he said. “They’re definitely not an ally.”