A Dallas-based ISIS recruiter gave the green light to Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi, encouraging him to "kill them and show no mercy," according to a report in the Italian news outlet L'Espresso last week. Newsweek also reported the connection earlier this week.
Even more remarkable, U.S. authorities knew about the conversations months in advance of the terror attack and cited them in court document this past March when they charged the ISIS recruiter -- 40-year-old Said Azzam Mohamad Rahim of Richardson, Texas -- for lying to FBI investigators.
We discovered this in August 2016. But rather than stopping a known jihadi, our country went into a spasm of Russian hunting here.
This is shameful. We chase fake threats while real threats kill and plan to kill even more.
