Aprl 17, 2015

The FBI has huddled with Mexican authorities in Ciudad Juarez to develop a “press strategy” in response to reports of an ISIS presence just across the border in Mexico, according to a Washington watchdog.

Judicial Watch, which has a long history of exposing government misbehavior, has released a new report claiming ISIS activities near America’s southern border.

WND reported earlier this week Judicial Watch’s claim that ISIS is running a camp just a few miles from the Texas border.

“A high-level intelligence source, who must remain anonymous for safety reasons, confirmed that the meeting was convened specifically to address a press strategy to deny Judicial Watch’s accurate reporting and identify who is providing information to JW,” the watchdog now says.

Federal officials, meanwhile, are denying the Judicial Watch report.

But the organization says it has been told “FBI supervisory personnel met with Mexican army officers and Mexican federal police officials.”

“The FBI liaison officers regularly assigned to Mexico were not present at the meeting and conspicuously absent were representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It’s not clear why DHS did not participate,” Judicial Watch said.

“Publicly, U.S. and Mexico have denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in the southern border region,” the organization continued, “but the rapid deployment of FBI brass in the aftermath of JW’s report seems to indicate otherwise.

“A Mexican army field grade officer and a Mexican federal police inspector were among the sources that confirmed to JW that ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. The base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as ‘Anapra’ situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.”

The report from Judicial Watch earlier this week followed other reports from the organization in recent months that Islamic terrorists have been captured in Texas after coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.

The free WND special report “ISIS Rising,” by Middle East expert and former Department of Defense analyst Michael Maloof, will answer your questions about the jihadist army threatening the West.

Judicial Watch said its sources within the Department of Homeland Security said several ISIS terror group members were arrested by federal authorities and the Texas Department of Public Safety in McAllen and Pharr.

The reports conflict with claims by the Department of Homeland Security that there is no imminent danger of ISIS breaching the nation’s southern border.

In its report this week, Judicial Watch said its sources for the information about the ISIS camp were high-level.

The report detailed the terror group in Anapra and said there was more.

“Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm,” Judicial Watch said.

It was during a recent joint operation that “Mexican army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as ‘plans’ of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation,” Judicial Watch said.

The report said the Anapra region is under the influence of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Cartel of drug runners, La Línea, which is the “enforcement arm” of the drug operations, and the Barrio Azteca, which is a gang originally formed in the jails of El Paso.

“According to these same sources, ‘coyotes’ engaged in human smuggling – and working for Juárez Cartel – help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed ‘coyotes’ are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing,” the report said.

Judicial Watch said ISIS “has ‘spotters’ located in the East Potrillo Mountains of New Mexico (largely managed by the Bureau of Land Management) to assist with terrorist border crossing operations.”

Also, reconnaissance is going on at regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, New Mexico; Fort Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, New Mexico.

WND reported in October Judicial Watch sources said four “Islamic terrorists” were captured in Texas in just 36 hours.

It was about that time that Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., confirmed in a TV interview that ISIS jihadists were caught coming into the U.S. from Mexico.

He said his information came from the Border Patrol.

“They were caught at the border … therefore, we know that ISIS is coming across the border,” he said. “If they catch five or 10 of them, we know there are dozens more that did not get caught.”

Judicial Watch said it confirmed its information after Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was interviewed by the Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren.

Hunter said that if the administration really wants to protect Americans from ISIS, it needs to secure the southern border.

“It’s that simple. ISIS doesn’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have nuclear weapons,” he said. “The only way that ISIS is going to harm Americans is by coming in through the southern border – which they already have.”

Watch his interview with Fox News at the time:

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson denied the reports at the time.

He told CNN, “Let’s not unduly create fear and anxiety in the public by passing on speculation and rumor.”

But one Texas sheriff said last fall that he was confident he could handle the threat.

“If there are ISIS fighters that may already be in the United States, or in your area who’ve crossed the border, what’s your message to them?” CNN’s Don Lemon asked Midland County Sheriff, Gary Painter.

“If they rear their ugly heads, we’ll send them to hell,” Painter said.

VIEW VIDEO: http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/fbi-huddles-over-isis-in-mexico/