By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Friday, US Representative Mike Rogers (R-Saks) emailed residents of the Third District with his thoughts about the growing threat from ISIS-inspired terror attacks in our country.
Congressman Rogers wrote, “Here in the United States, this past weekend, the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City was rattled by a bomb that sent 29 people to the hospital and undetonated bombs were found by a train stop in New Jersey.”
Rep. Rogers continued, “A young adult of Afghan descent was arrested for this terrorist act as of writing. He was captured carrying a journal praising Osama bin Laden and fantasizing about Jihad. It is unclear how his travels to Afghanistan and Pakistan went unnoticed by intelligence and law enforcement officials.”
Rep. Rogers warned that, “Across the globe, there is unrest in Syria, a continued situation in Ukraine and Kim Jong-un in North Korea testing both nuclear weapons and his neighbors.”
Rogers said that as a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, he attended a full committee hearing this week titled, “Stopping the Next Attack: How to Keep Our City Streets from Becoming the Battleground.”
There Rogers asked state and local law enforcement officers what tools they need to combat the rise of home-grown radical Islamic terrorists.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) is also concerned about domestic terrorism coming from the nation’s growing Muslim community. Sessions said recently, “The Director of the FBI has testified that he cannot certify that every refugee admitted to the United States is not a security threat, and recently compared the FBI’s anti-terrorism mission to ‘looking for needles in a nationwide haystack’ while also figuring out ‘which pieces of hay might someday become needles.’ Regardless, President Obama and his Administration are now pushing their extreme policies even further by stubbornly placing the requests of the United Nations above the safety of the American people by surging refugee admissions to 110,000.”
In addition to the bomb attacks in New York by the Afghan terrorist, a Somali born man attacked several people with a knife in a mall in Minnesota that same weekend and a 20-year-old Turkish immigrant killed five people with a rifle in a mall in Burlington, Washington Friday night. The Somali was gunned down at the scene by an off duty police officer. The other two suspects were captured by law enforcement.
Congressman Rogers is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Strategic Forces subcommittee and is a conferee for the 55th consecutive NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). Congressman Rogers said, “We’ve been working through differences in the House and Senate-passed versions over the past few weeks. It has become abundantly clear that now more than ever we must ensure our men and women in uniform have all of the tools needed to combat the variety of threats we as a country face from the brutal, but sophisticated ISIS to the next generation threats of China and Russia.”
Rep. Rogers said, “Our warfighters must be focused on these fights, not the budget fights in Washington. As a member of the conference committee I’m doing everything I can to make sure they have those resources. I will always put the needs of our brave service members first.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said when the NDAA passed the House, “We need to build a 21st century military capable of confronting the evolving threats we face. However, gaping equipment and funding shortfalls are endangering our troops and making it harder for them to execute their missions. The NDAA will help close this readiness gap by modernizing and fully funding our forces. I hope the Senate will join us in passing this bill and sending it to the president’s desk.”
Congressman Mike Rogers represents Alabama’s Third Congressional District.
