Six Russian nationals with potential ties to ISIS have reportedly been arrested in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles in a coordinated law enforcement sting.
Two ICE officials told the New York Post that they arrested the suspected terrorist affiliates last week after the FBI raised the alarm.
The suspects are originally from Tajikistan and also hold Russian citizenship, according to the Post.
Anonymous ICE officials revealed that a wiretap caught one of the suspects discussing bombs.
“Remember the Boston marathon [bombing]? I’m afraid something like that might happen again or worse,” one official told The Post.
The suspect in question has had previous encounters with law enforcement and had a court date scheduled for next year, according to the source.
This comes as top law enforcement officials have warned that the threat of a terrorist attack in the US has risen “enormously” over the past few months.
Attorney General Merrick Garland made this admission while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee last Tuesday during a hearing on the department’s politicization.
“I am worried about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the country after October 7,” Attorney General Garland said. “The threat level for us has gone up enormously.”
“Every morning, we worry about this question. We try to track anyone who might be trying to hurt the country,” he continued. “Of course, this is a major priority for the Justice Department.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray also noted, “We have seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole other level” after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.
“We have seen a rogues’ gallery of foreign terrorist organizations call for attacks against Americans and our allies,” Wray said.
“Just in the time I have been FBI director, we have disrupted multiple terror attacks around U.S. cities.”
“I would be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at the same time.”
Wray added that threats against Jewish Americans have been particularly acute.
“We’ve seen an elevated threat to the Jewish community in the United States.”
Though Jewish communities were targeted before the October 7 attack, since then the threats “went up dramatically.”
“Religiously motivated hate crimes, close to 60 percent of them, are targeted at the Jewish community,” Wray testified, noting how the community makes up only two percent of the U.S. population.
“Increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike an attack we saw in the Russia theater,” he added, referring to the Crocus City Hall concert shooting in March.
