FBI boss warns of terrorist diaspora

Comey visits LR offices of agency

FBI Director James Comey, surrounded by law enforcement officers from around the state and agents at the Little Rock offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, talks Tuesday about terrorism and the threat it poses to the United States.

FBI Director James Comey, surrounded by law enforcement officers from around the state and agents at the Little Rock offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, talks Tuesday about terrorism and the threat it poses to the United States.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

FBI Director James B. Comey said Tuesday that terrorism remains the country's main threat, particularly Islamic extremists abroad and "home-grown" terrorists who plot jihad from their basements.

Comey made the remarks at the Little Rock field office during his first official visit as director since taking the job last year.

During an afternoon news conference, Comey said the FBI is closely monitoring sectarian violence in Iraq and fighting in Syria, where he said swaths of those countries have become breeding ground for terrorist groups that pose a threat to Europe and the United States.

As fighting in those countries continues, the FBI is preparing for a "diaspora" of fighters that Comey said is similar to the outflow of militants who cut their teeth fighting against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Many of those militants in Afghanistan later became leaders of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida that targeted the United States.

"We are determined not to let history repeat itself with the diaspora that will come out of Iraq and Syria," Comey said.

Comey said that while the FBI is monitoring international terror threats, agents in field offices such as Little Rock and others across the country will play a large role in identifying and arresting "home-grown, violent extremists," some of whom watch online videos by terrorists and "work themselves up in their own basements."

"It is the home-grown extremists that remains a focus of this office," Comey said of the Little Rock field office.

Comey's remarks on terrorism came after he spent Tuesday meeting with local agents, including FBI Special Agent in Charge David Resch and other federal agents based in Arkansas.

The director also spent about 30 minutes answering questions from Arkansas State Police and representatives of several sheriff's offices and police departments, including Little Rock, Texarkana and North Little Rock.

Part of that discussion involved the prevalence of methamphetamine use across Arkansas as well as a "wave of heroin" from Mexico in the near future.

"That's good to hear that this is what's happening in this location and coming soon to a theater near you kind of thing," said North Little Rock Police Chief Mike Davis, who was among those who met with Comey.

Davis said Comey was interested in how agencies in Arkansas work together with federal authorities and what the FBI could do to "plug in where local law enforcement need them."

"Whenever we need help, we pick up the phone and we get it," Davis said. "And a lot of that is the new director."

Davis said his officers often work closely with federal authorities on task forces, including two officers who took part in a child sex-trafficking investigation known as Operation Cross Country VIII, which Comey highlighted in his remarks to reporters.

The operation, announced this week, resulted in the recovery of 168 children and the arrest of 281 people.

Comey said that 54 field offices, including the Little Rock office, took part in the operation that "rescued kids who have been enslaved in sex trafficking and hammered the pimps that have been enslaving them."

"We're talking about people who are crushing the souls of children," he added.

Comey also said that the FBI will remain focused on public corruption in Arkansas.

Agents from the field office spearheaded the investigation of former state Treasurer Martha Shoffner, who was arrested last year and accused of taking bribes, some of which were concealed in pie boxes. Shoffner was convicted of extortion and bribery earlier this year. She is scheduled to go to trial on additional charges in December.

Arkansas FBI agents also led a public corruption and drug-trafficking investigation in 2011, known as Operation Delta Blues, that netted five law enforcement officers who were convicted or pleaded guilty to various corrupt activities.

Comey, an attorney, was sworn in as the FBI's seventh director on Sept. 4, after spending some time in the private sector and teaching at Columbia University's law school.

Comey has also served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and as deputy attorney general under former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Metro on 06/25/2014