DANGER FROM SYRIA – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  There are a number of stories like this showing up – warnings that what is happening in Syria can produce a terrible by-product in the United States.  From WaPo: 

The chamber of horrors of the Syrian civil war has spawned a terrorist group so extreme that it has been rejected even by al-Qaeda — and this toxic group is now establishing a safe haven in the city of Raqqah in northern Syria that could soon be used to attack foreign targets.

The hyper-militant terrorist group is known in the West as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Its efforts to establish a Muslim caliphate that spans the two countries, and to absorb another al-Qaeda offshoot known as the al-Nusra Front, brought a rebuke a year ago from al-Qaeda’s chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

And...

In the view of these officials, ISIS could attempt an attack outside the Middle East soon, and several plots have already been disrupted. But analysts believe that the group is focused now mostly on battles within Syria and Iraq.

The group has established a secure haven in Raqqah, a city of about 220,000. Its fighters control the roads in and out. They sell the region’s oil and natural gas resources to finance their operations, supplementing revenues from kidnapping and other criminal activities. U.S. officials believe ISIS is now self-financing and no longer needs donations from wealthy supporters in the Gulf.

And...

A nightmare for U.S. counterterrorism analysts is that these al-Qaeda offshoots could recruit new followers among the millions of desperate Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Syria itself.

One veteran U.S. official views the terrorist threat coming out of Syria and Iraq as potentially the most worrying development in the Middle East since the late 1970s. The United States may be less focused on the jihadists than it was a decade ago, but they remain very much interested in the United States.

COMMENT:  Look what a handful of terrorists did to us on September 11, 2001.  And these new groups are far more radical. 

I won't blame it all on Obama and Kerry, but their mishandling of the Syrian crisis made the growth of these groups far more likely.  Not too many apologies forthcoming.  What difference does it make?

May 15, 2014