U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, fresh off a tour of the Middle East last week conferring with foreign leaders on threats posed by Islamic State, said he considers travel to Europe in general safe, but he’s concerned about the potential for attacks in Turkey.
“You know, the chances of actually being victimized by an Islamic State attack are very, very small,” Lynch said on Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” show yesterday. “That’s not to say they’re not an issue or a concern, but I wouldn’t discourage people unless they were going to an area that has had a lot of activity going on. Like in Istanbul right now, there has been a lot of activity there, and Ankara has had attacks as well. I think Turkey is an area where we’ve had specific, concrete indicia of an impending attack, and I think that’s why they’ve pulled people out of there.”
Lynch said unlike other Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, what makes IS more dangerous is the fact that the terrorist group controls territory, including the Iraqi city of Mosul, parts of Iraq’s Anbar province and territory in eastern Syria.
“They took over a bunch of banks. They took over a bunch of Iraqi national army facilities, so they have some pretty modern equipment, and they have regular taxes that they administer in their area,” Lynch said. “They try to provide services, so this is a much different animal that we’re dealing with.”
Despite this, Lynch noted that in the last year the terrorist group has been under pressure and lost territory, and a year has gone by without the terrorist group managing to expand to any further territory.
“I actually think that between the Kurds, the Syrians, including Bashar al-Assad, and our coalition of partners, we’re shrinking them down,” he said. In his visit to Anbar, he said, “I was in Haditha, which is one of the areas that has resisted. … I met with two of these Sunni sheiks, and they’ve resisted the Islamic State so far, and they’re actually starting to push out. There’s another town called Hit, which is right near Ramadi and Haditha, and it’s going to open up a corridor so that they are trying to squeeze the Islamic State out of that area. So they are taking the lead.”
