--- title: Is ISIS a Threat to Americans at Home? description: Obama makes his case for increasing attacks on the Islamic extremist group canonical: https://time.com/3313613/isis-barack-obama-terrorism-threat/ author: Massimo Calabresi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-10T00:52:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:06:38.051Z article:section: Politics og:title: Is ISIS a Threat to Americans at Home? og:description: Obama makes his case for increasing attacks on the Islamic extremist group og:url: https://time.com/3313613/isis-barack-obama-terrorism-threat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8278f3bd9c73416/6986a29f1eebf77fb53728fe/rtr43j481.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 800 og:image:height: 450 og:image:alt: Resident of Tabqa city touring the streets on a motorcycle waves Islamist flag in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa city og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is ISIS a Threat to Americans at Home? twitter:description: Obama makes his case for increasing attacks on the Islamic extremist group twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8278f3bd9c73416/6986a29f1eebf77fb53728fe/rtr43j481.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Understanding the ISIS Threat to Americans at Home > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=413c71a9-034b-45cc-b447-fb6b8a4c5c77&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Why So Many Foreign Fighters Join ISIS [Watch (HLS stream): Why So Many Foreign Fighters Join ISIS](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xvTQSd5R.m3u8) (2:58)  _Published 2014-09-05. A growing number of foreigners is joining the Islamic militant group - but why?_  by [Massimo Calabresi](https://time.com/author/massimo-calabresi/)  ## Massimo Calabresi Calabresi is TIME’s Washington bureau chief. Sep 10, 2014 12:52 AM UTC  A resident of Tabqa city touring the streets on a motorcycle waves an Islamist flag in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa city, Syria, on Aug. 24, 2014 A resident of Tabqa city touring the streets on a motorcycle waves an Islamist flag in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa city, Syria, on Aug. 24, 2014 Stringer—Reuters  by [Massimo Calabresi](https://time.com/author/massimo-calabresi/)  ## Massimo Calabresi Calabresi is TIME’s Washington bureau chief. Sep 10, 2014 12:52 AM UTC President Barack Obama will tell the country Wednesday why he is stepping up military action against the terrorist group that calls itself the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria”, also known as ISIS or ISIL. His biggest challenge may be reconciling for war weary Americans his administration’s conflicting messages about whether the group poses an immediate homeland threat to the United States. On the one hand, Attorney General Eric Holder has said western fighters joining ISIS and returning home radicalized are the national security danger he worries about most. “We are seeing, I would say, an alarming rise in the number of American and European Union nationals who have been going to Syria to help extremist groups,” Holder told TIME last month. “This represents a grave threat to our security,” he said. But in a thorough presentation on Sept. 3 at the Brookings Institution, outgoing director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, presented a less scary picture. ISIS has no cells in the U.S., Olsen said, “full stop.” Further, Olsen said, “we have no credible information” that the group “is planning to attack the U.S.” ISIS, Olsen said “is not al Qaeda pre-9/11.” So is the group a direct threat to Americans at home, and is Obama right to increase military action against the group? Holder says the danger comes from the combination of westerners joining ISIS and the expert bomb-makers working for the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It is not clear what if any evidence exists of such collaboration yet. On the one hand, AQAP has issued statements in support of ISIS, and both groups are active in Syria and Iraq; on the other, al Qaeda and ISIS split in the last year after a debate over tactics and territory. Several senior administration officials tell TIME they have seen no evidence of direct contact between individual members of AQAP and ISIS. That said, ISIS doesn’t have to threaten Americans at home to warrant military action against them abroad, U.S. officials argue. The group’s military successes in Syria and Iraq threaten U.S. and European interests in the Middle East, Obama says. “We did an assessment on the ground,” Obama told Meet The Press on Sept. 7, and concluded that to protect American personnel and diplomatic facilities the U.S. needed “to launch air strikes to ensure that towns like Erbil were not overrun, critical infrastructure, like the Mosul Dam was protected, and that we were able to engage in key humanitarian assistance programs that have saved thousands of lives.” And the potential threat of ISIS targeting the U.S. in the future is real, administration officials say. More conservative observers like Olsen agree that it is better to go on the offensive against ISIS now than to risk them becoming a bigger threat to Americans later. “ISIL poses a multi-faceted threat to the United States,” Olsen said at Brookings, and it “views the U.S. as a strategic enemy.” He says ISIS, “has the potential to use its safe haven to plan and coordinate attacks in Europe and the U.S.” Foreign fighters joining ISIS, “are likely to gain experience and training and eventually to return to their home countries battle-hardened and further radicalized,” Olsen says. “Allowed to proceed on the path they’re on, in other words, left unchecked, they would turn their sights more to the West and potentially to the United States,” Olsen says. That, presumably, is the case Obama will make to the American people on Wednesday evening. ## Transcript The Islamic state of Iraq and greater Syria is quickly making a name for itself as one of the most ruthless militias in the Middle East. But the extremist group is also making headlines for its successful recruitment of Western volunteers. Hundreds of fighters from at least 50 different countries and known to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to wage war under the ISIS flag. Here's a close look at how the group is recruiting them. And [ UNKNOWN ] says that what gives you life is Jihad. I know by a law that this the land of Jihad. We have brothers from Bangladesh, from Iraq, from Cambodia, Australia, UK. Nothing has has [ INAUDIBLE ] In one video posted on YouTube, new recruits are enticed to respond to the call of jihad by a fighter who's filmed walking down stairs. Of a four star hotel in the town of Kasab in northwestern Syria. [ FOREIGN ] The fighter tells recruits they can sleep there for free. ISIS also tweeted, during the World Cup, with the hashtag WorldCup2014. In an attempt to steer soccer fans to the group's sleekly produced propaganda. ISIS initially portrayed itself as being part of a humanitarian effort to back fellow Sunni Muslims in the Syrian civil war. That promise of a fight to protect Muslim brothers and sisters, is a powerful draw for some Western recruits. But in reality, ISIS has been targeting Sunnis as well as Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities in its campaign to control territory. [ MUSIC ] Isis also accomplished something Al- queda has never been able to achieve. It has declared self styled Islamic palafite in an area that spans parts of Iraq and Syria. And it's apparent ability to create some sort of stability in a war zone has proved attracted to some western Muslims. ISIS makes a particular effort to be welcoming to foreigners. ISIS normally accepts any Muslim into its ranks whereas some other Islamist groups in Syria ask for fighters to align with their specific ideology. For these young, restless foreigners. Isis can appear to offer a sense of mission. 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