"Americans in ISIS: Some 300 Tried To Join, 12 Have Returned to U.S."

Greg Myre of "npr" wrote on February 5, 2018 and article about America's relations to ISIS. There is an estimated 300 Americans who have attempted to join the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups in the areas of Iraq and Syria. While 300 Americans doesn't seem like it would make a huge impact because they only make up about 1% of the 30,000 foreign fighters who joined ISIS it is still something that shouldn't be happening. So far out of the 300 Americans 12 of them have returned home without carrying out any attacks on U.S. soil. While all this has been going on the U.S. has been working with local partners to battle ISIS and while it has managed to make a positive impact on the territory they once held there is still more work to be done. 

Around 50 Americans were arrested when trying to leave the country, but they never managed to make it out of the U.S. and were stopped in their tracks, but 64 individuals later on where able to reach either Syria or Iraq. It is important that they were able to stop some of the Americans because this let them get a look inside of their minds and investigate their reasoning for leaving. One of the people captured was Zulfi Hoxha, a New Jersey resident of Albanian decent. He was stated to be, "a bit of a loner. High school friends would describe him as kind of a geek." His capture was important because he actually took part in ISIS propaganda videos, including one where he beheads a prisoner, and he was described to be a senior ISIS commander. Overall, there have been many recent cases of Americans being associated with the Islamic terrorist group, ISIS. The U.S. is continuing their fight in stopping them along with the Iraqi government. 

I believe if we can all work together as a country we can help stop or at least prevent any more attacks from ISIS. The better we are at finding out who these Americans are who are trying to leave the better we will be at investigating their motives  and ending it. 

Link to article: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/02/05/583407221/americans-in-isis-some-300-tried-to-join-12-have-returned-to-u-s