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CIA chief warns of Daesh strike on US

CIA Director John Brennan testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to America and its allies, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, February 9, 2016. (AFP)

The director of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has warned of an attack by the Daesh (ISIL) Takfiri terrorist group on the country.

CIA chief John Brennan on Sunday told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that it is “inevitable” that the terror group in Iraq and Syria will try to carry out attacks in the United States.

“I’m expecting them to try to put in place – the operatives, the material or whatever else that they need to do or to incite people to carry out these attacks, clearly,” Brennan said.

“So, I believe that their attempts are inevitable,” he added. “I don’t think their successes necessarily are.”

Brennan said the intelligence agency knew in the days leading up to the November attack in Paris that the terrorist group was planning to strike somewhere.

“We knew just in the days before that ISIL was trying to carry out something,” he said.

Militants are seen in this AFP photo in Jobar, on the eastern edge of the Syrian capital, Damascus, on January 4, 2016.

“But the individuals involved have been able to take advantage of the newly available means of communication that are – that are walled off from law enforcement officials,” he added, referring to encryption technology.

He said US intelligence has prevented “numerous” ISIL attacks from taking place so far.

Critics, however, view Brennan’s comments with a grain of salt, with former US Army psychological warfare officer Scott Bennett describing such remarks as “nothing more than an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Bennett told Press TV on Monday that officials have been trying to throw pressure from domestic issues off using such rhetoric and ISIL mercenaries.

Since August 2014, Washington and some of its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what they call Daesh positions in Iraq.

Some members of the US-led coalition have also been pounding purported ISIL positions inside Syria since September 2014, without any authorization from Damascus or the UN.

The terror group seized swathes of the Iraqi land in June 2014 after wreaking havoc on Syria.

The US-led coalition has done little to stop the ISIL's advances in parts of Syria and in western Iraq.


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