Federal legislation enforcement had acquired intelligence data indicating the eight males had been contained in the U.S. and had potential ties to ISIS, in response to two sources accustomed to the data. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force opened an investigation into the boys, and investigators monitored their communications, the sources mentioned, together with following their actions on social media like chat rooms and encrypted websites, in response to one of many sources.Â
The FBI found that the people had been involved with dangerous actors with potential ties to ISIS. Investigators obtained a court-authorized FISA warrant and performed surveillance. Officials had been involved that the boys may have been plotting a terrorist assault on U.S. soil, the sources mentioned.Â
The FBI, working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arrested the eight males on immigration expenses in latest weeks in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.
The investigation is ongoing and at this level, the boys should not going through terrorism-related expenses.Â
The sources mentioned there was no proof to recommend {that a} particular focused assault was deliberate. U.S. officers mentioned there isn’t a imminent risk to the homeland.
The Justice Department declined to remark, and the FBI declined to remark past what it mentioned when the arrests had been made.
At the time, the bureau mentioned, the FBI and DHS mentioned in an announcement that, “The arrests had been carried out in shut coordination with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” including that the people who had been arrested had been in ICE custody pending removing proceedings. Â
“As the FBI and DHS have not too long ago described in public and companion bulletins, the U.S. has been in a heightened risk surroundings,” the assertion went on to say. “The FBI and DHS will proceed working across the clock with our companions to establish, examine, and disrupt potential threats to nationwide safety.”
