Self Radicalized, Home Grown Jihadis Demanding Right Of Return

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security 
“Assessing the Threat to the Homeland from Al-Qaeda Operations in Iran and Syria” 

Training Ground

Western radicals could be learning terrorism skills in Syrian conflict

Americans and Europeans have been joining al Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria in increasing numbers,

causing concern that these Western radicals could attempt to carry out terrorist attack on the United States upon returning home, experts told Congress Wednesday.

“Syria is becoming a training ground for foreign fighters,” Seth Jones, a former U.S. Special Operations liaison, told lawmakers during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

“Syria is attracting a cadre of foreign fighters who could return home with the ability and intention” to commit terrorism in America and Europe, said Jones, currently a counterterrorism expert for RAND, a think-tank that provides analysis to the U.S. Armed Forces.