US worried about ‘lone wolf’ attacks: Attorney General

News, US January 11, 2015 , by IRIA No Comments

US Attorney General Eric Himpton Holder says he is concerned about so-called lone wolf attacks on the US soil in the wake of Paris attacks.

Holder said on Sunday that the possibility of small-scale terror attacks on US by groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda keeps “him up at night”.

“It’s something that frankly keeps me up at night. Worrying about the lone wolf or a group of people, a very small group of people, who decide to get arms on their own and do what we saw in France this week,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“I think the possibility of such attacks exists in the United States.”

Holder met with his European counterparts in Paris on Sunday to discuss ways to prevent violent extremism, after three French national linked to ISIS Takfiri militants killed 17 people in several attacks in the French capital.

Holder however added that the core Al-Qaida has destroyed so much so that the group is no longer able to carry out a 9/11-style attack in the US.

He confirmed that some 150 Americans had gone or attempted to travel to Syria or Iraq to fight with extremist militants there, and that some 12 of them are there now.

French officials have said the Paris attackers were under the surveillance of the country’s security forces for some time but they stopped monitoring the brothers months before the attacks.

Critics of the West policies in the Middle East, blame the US and France’s support for extremist militants in Libya and Syria for the Paris attacks.

Press TV