Enemies within our midst

There is no doubt that the election of Donald Trump has brought significant hopes for many Americans. His success at the ballot box reflects, among other things, that many Americans resonate with his declared agenda to end international wars and his emphasis on religious freedom, economic growth, and border security at home.

However, with all of this optimism, there is an indisputable problem: The United States has vicious enemies and evil actors worldwide who seek to harm us at home, requiring our nation to be alert, vigilant, and watchful now more than ever. Yet these enemies are not only around the world but are sometimes in our midst. This is evident in a disturbing report out of Houston. According to CNN, the FBI arrested an extremist Muslim man who reportedly wanted to carry out a 9/11-style attack in the United States.

The man is an ISIS sympathizer named Anas Said, who was born in Houston in 1996 to a Lebanese Muslim family. He was arrested outside of his Houston apartment during the week of the election. Said made his apartment a “safe sanctuary” for ISIS soldiers and “tried several times to travel to join ISIS.” Before his arrest, he allegedly sent a message to an undercover FBI employee, stating that, if he were living alone without his family, he would have tried to execute “an operation like 9/11.” We are witnessing a terrorist in the making who was discussing plans that fit his Islamist agenda.

After his arrest, Said openly explained to FBI agents his efforts to terrorize Americans through violence. According to his detention memo, he wanted to kill particular Americans, as he specifically asked U.S. military personnel—wherever he found them—as to whether they supported Israel or were deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. If they said yes, the memo said that “those are the persons he would kill.”

Thankfully, Said was caught before harming anyone, though it’s troubling if we consider how he was known to U.S. authorities for many years.

According to court documents, Said started to sympathize with ISIS in 2015, a few months after the establishment of the Islamic State group. In 2017, he became known to the FBI as an ISIS supporter because he bought and distributed propaganda stickers promoting the terror group. Not surprisingly, when confronted with these facts, Said completely denied he was supportive of ISIS and was subsequently released. Six years later, the FBI discovered that he was using several social media accounts “to support ISIS and the violent attacks carried out in its name,” according to court documents.

We should be grateful for FBI undercover agents who thwarted Said’s plans, but this story is a textbook example of harmful naïveté on the part of those who decided to trust Said and let him go free despite multiple warning signs of his terrorist sympathies.

Said’s stated motivations reveal that he not only sympathized with a radical Islamic terrorist group but that he also made his Houston home a gathering place for terrorists who explicitly sought to harm Americans. It took authorities at least seven years to arrest him, yet any common sense should have directed them to a specific course of action: Terror sympathizers should be identified and treated more seriously under the law.

If the laws aren’t strict enough, then we should seek to strengthen them. In matters of terrorism, there can be no leniency, as many lives are endangered. We should even consider stripping U.S. citizens of their citizenship when they are convicted of joining Islamic terrorist organizations. If non-U.S. citizens show sympathetic attitudes to radical Islamic ideologies and terrorism, they should be deported immediately with no possible return reentry to the United States. We should start with imams of some mosques who preach anti-Semitism and hate against our nation.

We should be vigilant, especially with the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon, because the world has many Islamist sympathizers who openly seek to harm America and what it stands for, especially as we have a huge vulnerability at our southern border.

Because of the unquestionable vulnerability and uncontrolled illegal crossings at our border with Mexico under the oversight of the Biden administration, evil actors may have already infiltrated our country. They could plan and execute terror, seizing this nation’s vulnerability to create chaos, wounding our society while preventing us from enjoying our days of hope, peace, and tranquility.

Practically, the U.S. government should follow specific steps to prevent Islamic terrorist attacks by enhancing intelligence gathering and sharing information among agencies, because there should be no compromise with terror sympathizers. With the Trump administration coming in, we should seek to improve border control and immigration screening. The government should encourage and support Muslim organizations that can aid in efforts of community-led counter-radicalization programs. But, above all, we should strengthen anti-terrorism laws, practice regular security assessments, and encourage public reporting of suspicious terror-related activities.

We have a country to protect, and we all need to work toward that goal.