Director Michael Morell said on Monday on CBS This Morning that there was "nothing routine" about the alert issued by The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security about a possible terror attack in the U.S. during the July 4 weekend, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
"These kinds of warnings go out routinely but there is nothing routine about this particular one to me. This one really resonates with me," Morell said, reported The Washington Times.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we're sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States," he said. "That's how serious this is."
Morell said that the recently issued federal terror alert resonated with him for two reasons. One reason for concern is the increasing number of people aligning themselves with terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to CBS News. "There's been about 50 people in the last 12 months who have been arrested in the United States for being radicalized by ISIS, wanting to go fight there or wanting to conduct an attack here," he said.
The former CIA deputy director said he was also worried about the militant group's "call to arms" to carry out terror attacks against its enemies during the holy month of Ramadan.
Since January this year, there have been 24 ISIS-linked attacks against Western targets as opposed to 19 in all of last year. Just last week, three successive terrorist attacks took place in Kuwait, Tunisia and France.
