They live in New Jersey, Michigan and Washington state — six young men arrested in recent weeks and charged in an alleged ISIS-inspired terror plot.
The suspects, among others, are accused of using encrypted messaging and social media apps “to share extremist and ISIS-related materials that encourage attacks” in the US, including on the LGBTQ+ community in Michigan, according to a criminal complaint.
The Michigan plot, which may have been planned for Halloween, was intended to be possibly on the scale of the 2015 Paris terror attacks before it ultimately was foiled, authorities say.
The arrests illustrate “how people are self-radicalizing, operating in echo chambers online,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner told CNN.
“This isn’t as simple as there is an entity called ISIS that’s operating overseas that’s reaching into our homeland, recruiting and radicalizing people,” Weiner said. “This is a much more nuanced dynamic, where people are finding each other online, doing that mutually reinforcing self-radicalization, finding like-minded people overseas, some of whom may have connections to the actual terrorist organization
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