FBI Director Worried Hamas Attacks Will Insprify Terror Threats Against The US Since ISIS

FBI Director Christopher Wray. (Wikimedia Commons/Federal Bureau of Investigation)

JAKARTA - The attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel will be the most significant terror threat to the United States since the rise of ISIS nearly a decade ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at Tuesday's Congressional hearing.

Wray said, since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip earlier this month, a number of foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks on the United States and Western countries, thereby increasing the threat posed by violent extremists originating from within the country.

"Hamas' actions and its allies will be an inspiration we have never seen since ISIS launched its caliphate a few years ago," Wray said.

The statement was delivered in a hearing before the US Senate Administration's Domestic Security and Government Affairs Committee focusing on threats to the United States.

The US government itself has seen an increase in threats to Jews, Muslims, and Arab-Americans since the outbreak of fighting in Gaza, officials said.

Wray further said the number of attacks on US military bases abroad by Iran-backed militia groups had increased this month.

A cyberattack on the United States by Iran and non-state actors is likely to worsen if the conflict expands, he said.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas at the meeting said the hatred directed at Jewish students in the United States after the start of the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza had increased antisemitism.

Earlier, the White House expressed concern this week over reports of anti-Jahudi incidents at US universities, as tensions have prompted university officials to tighten security.

Republican Republican Senator Josh Hawley asked Mayorkas why a US asylum officer reportedly made anti-Israeli posts on social media dismissed but not fired, saying the employee was "celebrating genocide."

Mayorkas said the move was "blasted" to state that the post reflected the view of a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee, who stated his own mother was a Holocaust survivor.

Separately, at a summit of ransomware hosted by the White House on Tuesday, Attorney General cost Garland said he had directed the Department of Justice to help Israeli investigators investigate financial flows to Hamas, including those involving cryptocurrencies.