'Obama Town' is a Terror Target

As Paris grieves for the 129 souls murdered in Friday’s Islamic State terrorist attack and 352 others tend to their wounds, as the French military begins to exact revenge by dropping bombs on ISIS strongholds, other cities cast a wary eye for potential threats.

Count Chicago and the communities of Illinois among them.

Home to iconic skyscrapers and a massive transit infrastructure, host to festivals, stadiums and other public events attended by tens of thousands as well as streets teeming with people busily engaged in lives foreign and abhorrent to the Islamic State, Chicago is so much like Paris, its sister city.

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Once envisioned as “Paris on the Prairie,” Chicago is also very much a target.

And the suburbs are not to be excluded.

In February, the Islamic terror group, al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, levied threats against shopping malls in the United States, including the Fox Valley Mall in Aurora. A military base in Joliet was the target of a planned massacre by ISIS acolytes, according to the FBI. And an Orland Park soldier found his name on an ISIS hit list.

In the wake of Friday’s attack in Paris, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy noted there is no “credible threat or nexus to Chicago.”

Before coming to Chicago, McCarthy was a police commander in New York. He spent five days digging through the rubble at Ground Zero. From that day forward, he knew counter-terrorism would be an integral part of a police force’s responsibility to protect and serve.

But terrorists, former FBI agent Ross Rice told CBS Chicago this year, know Chicago as “Obama Town.”

And even if you believe Obama has been soft on terrorism, there’s no denying he gave the order that ended Osama bin Laden’s life. He’s enabled thousands of drone strikes on terrorist targets, taking the lives of well over 1,000 jihadists. On Thursday, a drone strike in Razza, the Islamic State’s capital, took out ISIS leader Mohammed Emwazi, known widely as “Jihadi John,” the British man responsible for gruesome beheading videos. Northwestern University graduate James Foley died at his hands.

Immediately after the strike that “eviscerated” Emwazi, intelligence agencies warned retaliation could be imminent. That same day, an ISIS bombing in Beirut claimed 43 lives, and Friday morning an ISIS suicide bomber in Baghdad took 18 lives.

And then, Paris.

To spill blood in Chicago’s streets and strike terror in Obama’s hometown would be a coup for the terrorists.

Illinois has been publicly connected to ISIS several times this year already.

ISIS and Islamic State sympathizers maintain a vigorous social media presence, through which they deliver messages and inspire recruits. This summer, a photo of the Old Republic Building at 307 N. Michigan Ave. surfaced on Twitter with the caption “soldiers of the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria will pass from here soon.”

Another tweet with the same photo read “we are in your state/ we are in your cities / we are in your streets.”

Immediately thereafter, the Department of Homeland Security cautioned local police departments to be on “high alert.”

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This spring, the FBI warned Orland Park police that a local serviceman was included on an ISIS “hit list” of 100 names and addresses. “We have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers residing in America can deal with you,” read a message posted on an ISIS website. Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy said undisclosed security measures were taken to protect the family.

In March, the FBI thwarted an alleged plan by an Illinois National Guardsman based in Joliet, 22-year-old Hasan Edmonds, and his cousin to attack a military base in northern Illinois where he was being trained, with AK-47s and grenades. Edmonds also planned to fly to Egypt to join ISIS but was intercepted at Midway Airport by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. He and his cousin, Jonas Edmonds, 29, are charged with one count each of conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

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In October 2014, U.S.-born Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 19, of Bolingbrook, was arrested at O’Hare International Airport before he boarded a jet bound for Austria, en route to Turkey, where he planned to connect with ISIS. The FBI found writings in which he referred to himself as a “lion of war.” A letter left for Khan’s parents stated that he had an “obligation to ‘migrate’ to the ‘Islamic state,’” and reflected his distress at having to pay taxes “that would be used to kill his ’Muslim brothers and sisters,’” according to a federal complaint. Evidence gathered by the FBI also showed Khan researched “suicide bombings.”

A few weeks ago, Khan pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. He’s cooperating with the FBI in exchange for a five-year prison term.

His younger brother and sister were going with him, and together all three would drive from Turkey to Syria after making contact with an ISIS recruiter in Istanbul, Abu Qa’qa.

Khan’s mother, Zarine, told the Washington Post she believes her children were “completely brainwashed” by ISIS. Terrorism experts call this “ideological grooming.”

In 2015, 49 alleged ISIS “supporters” in the United States have been arrested and charged with federal crimes, according to the FBI. 

How many others like Khan and the Edmonds may be out there plotting in the city and suburbs?

The weekend attacks — and the apparent desire of Western leaders to amp up efforts to wipe out ISIS — signal an escalation certain to come.

On Sunday, Chicagoans gathered outside the French Consulate on Michigan Avenue to mourn and show solidarity with the French people. Wrapped in her nation’s blue, white and red flag, Adeline Courrivault stood with them. Courrivalt, a French citizen studying in the United States, shed tears for her country.

“It is just beginning,” Courrivault warned. “And even America has to fear.”

If and when the fight comes to “Obama Town,” may our broad shoulders be ready.