House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) slammed the Harris-Biden administration on Wednesday for bungling the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and subsequently letting in tens of thousands of migrants – one of whom allegedly planned to carry out an ISIS-inspired Election Day terror attack.
“Following the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, more than 77K Afghans were given humanitarian parole, with little to no vetting and no intent to know their whereabouts,” the House speaker wrote on X. “Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi – the terrorist plotting an election day attack – was one of them.”
Tawhedi, 27, was accused by the Justice Department on Tuesday of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
The Afghan national and Oklahoma City resident entered the US on a Special Immigrant Visa just days after the Harris-Biden administration pulled out of the war-torn country. The SIV granted Afghan refugees two-years of legal status in the US, with the ability to apply for extensions.
While on humanitarian parole, Tawhedi allegedly stockpiled weapons and ammunition, communicated with an ISIS recruiter and began to liquidate his family’s assets in preparation to carry out a mass shooting with a juvenile co-conspirator on Nov. 5.
“Whether it’s their open border policies or failed foreign policy, this administration continues to risk American lives by allowing terrorists, murders, rapists, and other violent criminals into our homeland,” Johnson added.
Former Department of Homeland Security Acting Security Chad Wolf noted on X that the DHS Office of Inspector General determined that during the hasty Afghanistan evacuation process – which came as the Taliban retook control of the country – “some of the information provided by the evacuees was ‘inaccurate, incomplete, or missing.’”
“DHS admitted or paroled evacuees who were ‘not fully vetted’ into the US,” Wolf wrote.
Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) argued that the Harris-Biden administration “should have done its job in 2021” to vet Afghan migrants, like Tawhedi.
“Maybe — just maybe — the federal government should have done its job in 2021 when it paroled roughly 77,000 Afghans into the U.S. and properly vetted those resettling here,” Weber tweeted.
“Once again, Kamala Harris has failed to safeguard our communities, letting dangerous individuals, including potential terrorists, slip right through the cracks,” the congressman added.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) feared that other unvetted SIV recipients could have ISIS sympathies.
“How many more are in our neighborhoods?” Tiffany wrote on X.
The Justice Department’s announcement of Tawhedi’s arrest came on the same day the head of the UK’s domestic spy agency warned that threats from ISIS are what “concerns me most.”
“Today’s Islamic State is not the force it was a decade ago, but after a few years of being pinned well back, they’ve resumed their efforts to export terrorism,” Ken McCallum, the director general of security service MI5, said Tuesday, according to Politico.
On the 2024 campaign trail, former President Donald Trump has often taken credit for decimating ISIS during his presidency.
During his administration, US forces killed then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in a October 2019 raid in Northwestern Syria.
Tawhedi, who allegedly had a photo of al Baghdadi on his phone, faces up to 20 years in prison.
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