CIA Director: ‘ISIL Remains A Formidable Adversary’

‘Our Efforts Have Not Reduced [ISIL’s] Terrorism Capability And Global Reach’

CIA DIRECTOR JOHN BRENNAN: “ISIL, however, is a formidable, resilient, and largely cohesive enemy, and we anticipate that the group will adjust its strategy and tactics in an effort to regain momentum.” (John Brennan, Prepared Remarks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6/16/2016)

• BRENNAN: “Unfortunately . . . our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach. The resources needed for terrorism are very modest, and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses of territory, manpower, and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly.” (John Brennan, Prepared Remarks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6/16/2016)

• BRENNAN: “[A]s the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.” (John Brennan, Prepared Remarks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6/16/2016)

• BRENNAN: “We judge that ISIL is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks. ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West.” (John Brennan, Prepared Remarks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6/16/2016)

• BRENNAN: “Further, as we have seen in Orlando, San Bernardino, and elsewhere, ISIL is attempting to inspire attacks by sympathizers who have no direct links to the group. Last month, for example, a senior ISIL figure publicly urged the group's followers to conduct attacks in their home countries if they were unable to travel to Syria and Iraq.” (John Brennan, Prepared Remarks before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6/16/2016)

ISIL: ‘Lone Wolf Attacks…Dearer to Us’

“One of Isis’s most senior officials has called on the group’s international followers to carry out attacks on civilians during the holy month of Ramadan. Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, a close aide and a possible successor to leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said lone wolf attacks in the US and Europe were ‘dearer to us than the biggest action by us’ in Iraq and Syria.” (“Isis Official Calls For 'Lone Wolf' Attacks In US And Europe During Ramadan,” The [UK] Independent, 5/22/2016)

• “The same morning Omar Mateen killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, he posted on Facebook his allegiance to ISIS, demanded that the U.S. and Russia to ‘stop bombing’ the terrorist group and warned of attacks to come, FBI officials said. ‘You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance,’ Mateen posted early Sunday morning, according to officials in the FBI’s counterterrorism division. ‘In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic State in the usa.’” (“Orlando Shooter on Facebook: Now ‘Taste’ ISIS ‘Vengeance,’” ABC News, 6/15/2016)

“Islamic State on Monday praised the man who carried out the deadliest shooting attack in U.S. history, calling him ‘one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America.’ In a statement broadcast over its Al Bayan radio station, the radical Sunni Muslim group said ‘brother’ Omar Mateen carried out Sunday morning’s deadly assault in a popular gay nightclub in Orlando . . .” (“Islamic State Praises Orlando Shooter,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/13/2016)

• “Across social-media outlets, Islamic State supporters cheered Sunday’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, while calling for more attacks on the West. . . On Twitter and Telegram, a secure messenger application, Islamic State supporters called for more shootings in gay nightclubs across the globe and referenced Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani’s recent appeal for Western followers unable to migrate to the group’s battlefields in the Mideast to instead launch attacks at home.” (“Islamic State Backers Cheer Orlando Attack, Urge New Assaults,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/12/2016)

“ISIS-Inspired Attacker Kills French Police Officer And Streams It On Facebook” (“ISIS-Inspired Attacker Kills French Police Officer And Streams It On Facebook,” The Washington Post, 6/14/2016)

• “He stabbed an off-duty police officer and left him bleeding to death on his own doorstep. He forced his way inside the home and stabbed and killed the officer’s female companion. He then sat down and videotaped himself live on Facebook declaring allegiance to the Islamic State, according to the French law enforcement authorities.” (“Killing Twice for ISIS and Saying So Live on Facebook,” The New York Times, 6/14/2016)

ISIL Continues ‘Reign Of Terror’

“[T]he U.S.-led war against the Islamic State is running into hurdles on and off the battlefield that call into question whether the pace of recent gains can be sustained. Chaos in Baghdad, the fraying of the cease-fire in Syria and political turmoil in Turkey are among some of the potential obstacles that have emerged in recent weeks to complicate the prospects for progress.” (“The War Against The Islamic State Hits Hurdles Just As The U.S. Military Gears Up,” The Washington Post, 5/08/2016)

“The Sunni terror group ISIS says it's behind a series of attacks in Iraq's capital . . . that targeted Shiites and left more than 90 people dead.” (“ISIS Says It's Behind Iraq Blasts That Kill Scores,” CNN, 5/12/2016)

“The Islamic State’s branch in Libya is deepening its reach across a wide area of Africa, attracting new recruits from countries like Senegal that had been largely immune to the jihadist propaganda — and forcing the African authorities and their Western allies to increase efforts to combat the fast-moving threat. (“U.S. Scrambles to Contain Growing ISIS Threat in Libya,” The New York Times, 2/21/2016)

“‘We are part of Daesh,’ they said, using the Arabic-language acronym by which the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State group is known. . . What ensued was a reign of terror of a sort that is becoming increasingly familiar in Afghanistan as Islamic State attempts to expand its presence.” (“When Islamic State showed up in a corner of Afghanistan, ‘Nothing was safe, not even the cows,’” Los Angeles Times, 6/03/2016)

“Since ISIS has taken over swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, countless LGBT and suspected LGBT people have been slaughtered, according to international rights groups -- shot, beheaded, stoned, and thrown from the tops of buildings.” (“Under ISIS: Where Being Gay Is Punished by Death,” ABC News, 6/13/2016)