FBI head warns of ‘terrorist diaspora’ as IS ‘crushed’

Senior US national security officials on Thursday warned about a possible rise in extremist violence with the spread of a “terrorist diaspora” once the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria is defeated.

“We all know there will be a terrorist diaspora out of the caliphate as military forces crush the caliphate,” FBI Director James Comey tells a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Thousands of fighters will spread worldwide “and our job is to spot them and stop them before they come to the United States to harm innocent people,” he adds.

The IS group’s defeat in Iraq and Syria will make it “desperate to demonstrate its continued vitality, and that is likely to take the form of more asymmetric attacks, of more efforts at terrorism,” Comey says.

— AFP