Mike Rogers: ‘Hundreds’ of Americans with ISIL connections

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says hundreds of Americans are known to have associated with the Islamic militant group fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said on “Fox News Sunday” that it’s hard to track all Americans who have traveled to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant but that the intelligence community is following everyone it can identify.

“The problem is there is no sure number,” he said. “It’s in the hundreds that we believe have at least [at] one time traveled and participated and trained with them.”

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Rogers said the United States does have good legal tools to hinder citizens who are known associates of the group.

“We have a law on the books; we should use it, and we should be aggressive in using it,” he said, referring to the material support of terrorism statute.

As ISIL grows in Syria and Iraq, Western nations have become increasingly concerned that citizens who train with the jihadist group will use their passports to return home and recruit or carry out an attack. British Prime Minister David Cameron announced increased security measures for his country Friday and said he would propose measures to make it easier to revoke passports for British citizens with ties to terrorist groups.

Rogers called on President Barack Obama to take stronger action against ISIL to make sure it can’t recruit Americans and get its members into the United States.

“ISIL would like to have a Western-style attack to continue this notion that they are the leading jihadist group in the world,” Rogers said.