Success Against ISIS in Syria, Iraq to Blame for Terror Attacks in U.S.?
Former CIA Covert Operations Officer Mike Baker makes the link between mounting success against ISIS in Syria and Iraq and terror attacks such as the ones in San Bernardino and Orlando.
“We’ve been making some headway over there in Syria and Iraq,” Baker told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
Baker says that an unintended consequence of this headway against ISIS in the Middle East is a higher risk of terrorism here in America.
“The sad reality is, the more success we have on the ground in Syria and Iraq in terms of taking back territory, reducing their revenue streams, taking out leadership, the more likely it is we’re going to see similar events such as the shooting in Orlando,” said Baker.
This is a similar pattern to other terror groups such as Al Qaeda, according to Baker.
“We know from dealing with Al Qaeda in the past, and other similar like-minded elements, is that once you get them on the back foot, once you take away the comfort of some territory, then they morph, they adapt, they adjust,” Baker said.
As a result, Bake said ISIS is encouraging its followers to take action in Europe and the U.S.
“So we’ve already been seeing that. I mean the result, I would argue – the attacks in Paris, the attacks in Brussels, Orlando, San Bernardino, these are the sort of things that happen because they get more aggressive in encouraging their followers, their minions, people they can bring to the dark side and they encourage them more aggressively to take action wherever they happen to be,” said Baker.
Despite this, the U.S. should not ease up on its resolve to defeat ISIS, said Baker, but should strengthen its national security efforts to prevent further attacks.
“So we definitely need to take them out on the ground in Syria and Iraq, there’s no question about that. Now we’ve got issues because they’ve been moving resources to Libya and elsewhere but we have to understand, we have to be pragmatic. The more we do that then we have to gird ourselves up, we have to prepare ourselves for the likelihood that they will be more aggressive in trying to attack us in the west,” Baker said.