Another important reminder that while immigration is an important terror factor, the key problem is ideological. Islam is not a race. You can be born into the Jihad. But you can also join it. The number of terror converts in this country remains statistically significant.
Following an FBI raid of a Virginia home on Friday, new court documents show FBI investigators suspected the man living at the Loudoun County home of supporting ISIS and researching how to conduct an attack.
The suspect is Sean Andrew Duncan, a U.S. citizen from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who had moved to Sterling, Virginia in June 2017.
A relative of Duncan's reportedly told investigators that he had had “converted to Islam, may have been radicalized, and voiced his approval of westerners being beheaded in the Middle East.”
That road led to ISIS.
Documents described how FBI investigators were able to track down Duncan through social media as well as encrypted message programs and apps.
They say Duncan had been using the Twitter handle "@DawlahtullIslaam" which "roughly translates to 'The Islamic State.'"
Investigators also describe Duncan's plans to travel to Turkey with his wife and make their way into Bangladesh. The two were denied entry to Turkey in February 2016, deported to the U.S. and questioned by the FBI upon return.
They say the phone also contained photos of machete knives. There were also searches for the "Black Flag" of ISIS and various assault rifles.
But the story grows more disturbing.
Duncan allegedly had contact with a foreign detained ISIS supporter who told the FBI Duncan had expressed interest in joining ISIS and conducting an attack in the United States. The woman said Duncan gave her instructions on how to construct homemade bombs. Duncan would also share news articles with her from Amaq News, an ISIS news outlet, the documents said. The woman also told the FBI Duncan had asked her to go to Syria and to be his second wife.
In June 2017, Alleghany County, Pennsylvania, police gave the FBI a copy of Duncan's phone and the FBI found hundreds of searches for ISIS-related material, ISIS attacks, weapons, body armor, and surveillance and defense tactics, documents said. Alleghany County police had obtained a copy of his phone while investigating the death of Duncan's infant child. The cause of the child's death was inconclusive, documents said.
Female converts often convert for marriage. Male converts are far more likely to turn violent. Though we have seen a number of female terror converts as well.