Colorado’s U.S. Attorney Walsh says Coloradans responded the right way to recent recruiting efforts by the Islamic State. He was part of President Obama’s gathering in Washington this week on fighting extremism.
In two separate incidents, local, federal and foreign law enforcement agencies prevented Coloradans from joining ISIS. Walsh said the state should be proud of this.
"The couple of incidents that we’ve seen over the course of the past year, we’ve seen a really strong community response and a really healthy dialog between law enforcement at all levels and the broader community," Walsh explained.
But Colorado parents and schools should be vigilant to the online efforts of terrorist groups to recruit young people.
"Much of this radicalization is happening through social media and the Internet. And that means almost any community can be targeted for this. Colorado’s no exception to that," he said.
An Arvada woman was sentenced to four years after pleading guilty to trying to help the Islamic State. And last fall three Aurora teenagers skipped school to fly to the Middle East. The girls were intercepted in Germany.