Suspected terrorists with ties to ISIS arrested in Philly, NYC, and LA

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday that eight Tajikistan nationals with suspected ties to ISIS were recently arrested via coordinated raids in Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles.

Officials have not revealed the identities of the suspects or the circumstances that brought about the raids, but a law enforcement source told the Inquirer that all of the individuals initially came from Tajikistan and crossed in through the U.S.-Mexico border last year.

They were allowed to remain in the country temporarily, pending asylum claims, the article said. Subsequent information indicated that each of those arrested may have had some affiliation with ISIS.

In a release Tuesday, ICE and the FBI said ICE “agents arrested several non-citizens” in coordination with the FBI’s joint terrorism task forces.

“The individuals arrested are detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings” the release reads. “As the FBI and DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the US has been in a heightened threat environment.”

Those detained have not been charged with terrorism-related crimes and are instead being held on immigration violations, authorities said.

“The individuals arrested are in ICE custody pending removal proceedings,” the agencies said in the joint statement.

In March, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that a human smuggling operation with ties to terrorism-affiliated organizations may have been assisting migrants in illegally crossing into the country.

“There is a particular network where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we’re very concerned about and we’ve been spending enormous amounts of effort with our partners investigating,” he said. “Exactly what that network is up to is something that’s, again, the subject of our current investigation.”

Counterterrorism officials continue to warn that ISIS remains a threat to U.S. national security despite its defeat by a global coalition. In its 2024 annual threat assessment, the Department of Homeland Security said, “While sustained counterterrorism pressure has significantly degraded the ability of foreign terrorist organizations to target U.S. interests, foreign terrorist groups like al-Qa’ida and ISIS are seeking to rebuild overseas, and they maintain worldwide networks of supporters that could seek to target the homeland.”

The full story can be found here. 6ABC’s video coverage is below:

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Screengrab: 6ABC