The FBI is growing increasingly worried about a “coordinated attack” in the U.S. similar to the recent massacre in Russia at a Moscow concert hall, the bureau’s director warned Congress on Thursday.
Speaking to the House Appropriations Committee, Christopher Wray encouraged lawmakers to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the U.S. government to spy on foreigners overseas. “As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” he said.
Wray went on to explain how the situation had intensified in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, as a “rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations” have called for attacks against the U.S. and its allies.
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“Given those calls for action, our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw some kind of twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home,” Wray said. “But now, increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall just a couple weeks ago.”
The attack at the Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow on March 22 left 145 people dead and hundreds more injured.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre and released footage of the slaughter recorded by one of its fighters, with U.S. officials specifically blaming the Afghanistan-based ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K). Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have nevertheless suggested that Ukraine had some kind of role in the attack—an accusation Kyiv vehemently denies.
