New York City police Commissioner Bill Bratton wants 400 police officers focused on fighting the terrorism threat from ISIS, and now, in Bergen County, New Jersey (right outside of New York), the FBI is going to high schools warning students about the threat posed by the Islamic State’s online recruitment strategy.
The FBI has targeted Bergen County, New Jersey to stopIslamic State militants from getting a stronghold there – and agents have been going to high school with a message.
Christine Sloan was there when agents visited a Bergen County school on Tuesday. An FBI intelligence analyst who did not wish to be identified spoke at the Bergen Arts and Science Charter School in Hackensack.
He warned students about a new threat – a sophisticated recruitment video trying to lure them into joining the terrorist group ISIS.
“There’s a role for everybody. Every person can contribute to the Islamic State,” a young Canadian man tells viewers in the recruitment video. “You can even come here and rebuild.”
“”It definitely was eye-opening,” said high school senior Zoey Zibor. “You know, you learn that it’s in your own backyard. It’s Americans citizens wanting to join these terrorist groups.”
The school in Bergen County was certainly not the only one visited by the FBI, which worries about the potential for young Americans to become susceptible to the group’s propaganda. The law enforcement agency will also be warning other students at schools in the Tri-State area.
Commissioner Bratton specifically identified the threat ISIS poses via social media when he spoke about the need for more police dedicated to counterterrorism on the John Catsimatidis radio show.
“We need to be very concerned about terrorism … The significantly increased threat from ISIS using social media to recruit people not only to go to Syria to fight, but encouraging people … to attack police, to attack government officials, to basically brainwash them under their screwed-up ideology. That threat has expanded significantly in the now 16 months I’ve been police commissioner,” he said.
According to the FBI, more than 150 Americans have traveled overseas to join the Islamic State—some of whom have been teenagers.