Military Commander Fears ISIL Could Enter US Through Mexico

During a Pentagon briefing, General John Kelly, commander of US Southern Command, warned that the roughly 100 Caribbean citizens who went to fight in Syria could reach the United States through their home countries. "A hundred certainly doesn’t seem like a lot, it’s not, but the countries they come from have [a] total inability to deal with it," he said, speaking specifically about Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Surinam, and Venezuela. Kelly argued that since these nations lack the extensive security apparatus necessary to track domestic threats, many radicalized fighters could return to their home countries and then find their way north to the US-Mexico border. Kelly’s principal concern is the trafficking network which already exists along the border as a part of the illegal drug trade. The general says it would be relatively simple for extremists to enter the country through that network. "The network that comes up through the isthmus and Mexico that carries anything and everything on it…the amount of movement is what I think overwhelms our ability – and the sophistication of the network – overwhelms our ability to stop everything," he said...more