Michael McCaul Quotes

The phenomena here is the foreign fighter threat, the revolving door from Europe to the region in Iraq and Syria and back through Turkey, back into Europe. And that's what happened in the Paris attackers.

Some of the people involved in ISIS are going to Iraq, and some of our young people are being radicalised through the Internet.

We can put a stake through the heart of Islamic State as an army. We can put a stake through the heart of its leaders. You can take away its territory. But you can't put a stake through the heart of the ideas, of the ideology, that sadly, tragically, still has some attraction for some small numbers in the Islamic faith.

One of the scariest things about ISIS is their ability to leverage social media to inspire individuals who have never been to Syria and Iraq.

For many foreign fighters, the jihad in Iraq and Syria is a commuter war.

No matter how many plots we uncover and disrupt, no matter how many terrorist organizations we degrade or destroy, another individual or group will rise to take their place.

It is true that jihadists are often middle class. But that’s because terrorist groups are like other employers: they accept the best candidates who apply.

How did ISIL grow? It's real simple: social media.

I think we should be very worried because, with technology, Boko Haram and other terrorists have become very mobile in all continents, not only in Africa but also in Europe, America, and Asia.

ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

There's a conspiracy going on online every day between these top U.K. individuals within ISIS leadership out of Syria.

Syria is hosting the most dangerous terrorist organizations.

We have about 200,000 ISIS tweets per day that hit the United States. The chatter is so loud and the volume is so high that it's a problem that's very hard to stop and disrupt in this country.

When ISIS and al Qaeda have attacked or plotted attacks in the West in the past decade or so, they have invariably used hydrogen peroxide-based bombs because acquiring military-grade explosives or dynamite is nearly impossible for would-be terrorists in Western countries.

ISIL is inspiring groups that already exist to rebrand themselves, but in rebranding themselves into a more radical ideology. That's what makes it dangerous.

ISIL is saying to a disenfranchised population, 'Come join us. Fight the good fight.' I think we're actually playing into it when they hear Trump's rhetoric. And I think it's dangerous and hurtful as a matter of national policy.

ISIL particularly is very slick, very sophisticated, proselytizing and recruiting, and they are very astute users of social media.

The threat here focuses primarily on troubled souls in America who are being inspired or enabled online to do something violent for ISIL.

We know that in the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. They recruit people from poor areas and turn them into terrorists.

Terrorists in ungoverned spaces - both physical and cyber - readily disseminate propaganda and training materials to attract easily influenced individuals around the world to their cause. They motivate these individuals to act at home or encourage them to travel.

ISIS uses traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its ideology. With the broad distribution of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize vulnerable persons of all ages in the U.S. either to travel to foreign lands or to conduct an attack on the homeland.

When you say that terrorism, particularly ISIS, radicals or terrorists being contained, that are the jayvee team, we don't have to worry about them anymore and then people are being killed in Nice, in Berlin, certainly in Orlando at the nightclub, in San Bernardino, in Paris, in Brussels, it doesn't ring true to anybody that they're not advancing. It doesn't ring true to anybody.

ISIS is a threat to all civilized nations. America's intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We're not going to allow them to do so. We're going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.

I think Americans have every reason to be worried about ISIS and the network of terrorist groups, because they have proven to be sophisticated and effective in wreaking violence and murder in many parts of the world, including in San Bernardino with their somehow connected radicalization of that couple there.

We know that ISIL and other terrorist groups are actively encouraging people, around the world and in our country, to commit terrible acts of violence, oftentimes as lone-wolf actors.