The Mexican border city of Juarez has allegedly been occupied by Islamic terrorists who are planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, Judicial Watch stated Friday. Less than two weeks before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, these reports have further raised alarms about both the jihadist threat and national security vulnerability.
After a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border was issued, agents across a number of Homeland Security, justice and defense agencies have been placed on alert and were instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources, high-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have told Judicial Watch.
Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas, has been revealed to be the operating location specifically for the militant group Islamic States of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). With the city being known for its rampant violent crimes, the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there, according to Judicial Watch. The last one was issued just a few days ago.
Recently, intelligence officials have also confirmed an increase of chatter among Islamist terror networks ahead of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, indicating that they are going to "carry out an attack on the border," according to one JW source. "It's coming very soon," according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as "ISIS and Al Qaeda."
An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, another source confirmed. However, the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch about this information.
While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Barack Obama has said that "we don't have a strategy yet" to combat ISIS.
"I don't want to put the cart before the horse," the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. "I think what I've seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we're at than what we currently are."
"The administration has also covered up, or at the very least downplayed, a serious epidemic of crime along the Mexican border even as heavily armed drug cartels have taken over portions of the region," Judicial Watch reported. In fact, the U.S. Border Patrol has actually ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they're "too dangerous" and patrolling them could result in an "international incident" of cross border shooting, JW said.
In the meantime, these new revelations are bound to raise the current debate about the border crisis and immigration policy.
