DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: Threat to US Homeland Emerging from Within Syria

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: Threat to US Homeland Emerging from Within Syria

On Wednesday, Reuters reported the Department of Homeland Security is set to increase security measures at overseas airports that have direct flights to the United States.

Part of the reason for those heightened measures according to the report was a threat related to al Qaeda activity within Syria.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson elaborated on those precautions and the threat to the United States from Syria that prompted the precautions.

“We’ve been looking at Syria for a while,” Johnson said. “In a speech I said –in a speech I gave in February, I said Syria had become a matter of homeland security and we in national security are very concerned about the foreign fighter flow, going into Syria in particular from the United States, from European countries, other countries and we’re tracking that population and very concerned about it because there are extremists within the borders of Syria that would like to indoctrinate these people and send them back to their home countries with their own purpose. So, we’re spending a lot of time tracking these individuals and talking to our foreign allies about the same problem. They are concerned about it as well.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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