U.S. officials have identified potential terrorists in this country who may be inspired by the Islamic State (ISIS), Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Thursday.
When asked if officials knew how many people in the United States were actively supporting the Islamic State, McCaul answered, "We do," and added, "It's very sensitive information. We are monitoring this very closely, in terms of the Americans who have been back, both over to Syria and have come back."
McCaul said that officials had made "approximately about a dozen arrests" of people who had attempted to fly to Syria, or who had returned from Syria, though he said none of the arrests involved "active plots."
"While there's no specific threat information, I can tell you the threat environment is very high right now. And that's the biggest concern we have," the Texas Republican said.
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McCaul said the report on Thursday where police in Australia arrested 15 people inspired by radical Islam who were suspected of planning to kidnap and behead random individuals showed "how brutal of a force [the Islamic State is], and what a threat they are to, frankly, the world."
"We're very concerned about the threat, not only to Australia and Europe and the U.K., but also the United States as well," he said.
The Australian incident actually involved two plots, McCaul explained — one to behead individuals, and another to "bomb with IEDs, basically, their FBI headquarters in Australia." He said officials did not know if the suspects had direct ties to ISIS, or were influenced by the terror group.
"We're trying to determine, at this point in time, if this was guided by [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi out of Syria, or whether it was just an inspired event. One of the concerns we have in the United States, obviously, are the radicalized individuals that may be inspired to do something like this, and they get radicalized over the Internet," he said.
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