ACCUSED DOMESTIC TERRORIST: That’s what Ahmad Khan Rahami is called in this report. If investigators discover Rahami has operational connections to international terrorist organizations will that make him an international terrorist?

The article quotes John D. Cohen, a “professor at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice and former counterterrorism official at the federal Department of Homeland Security”:

In the past, when a tip came in or we conducted a terrorism investigation, one of the elements was to find some operational connection to a terrorist organization…(Now) we have an increasing number of individuals in this country who become inspired by terrorist and extremist ideas based on social media and what they see on the internet.”

If investigators discover –just by chance– that Rahami was influenced by Islamist supremacists who seek to create a global caliphate and proceeded to commit an act of terror in order to help said Islamist supremacists achieve that goal, does that make him an international terrorist? Or a traitor? Or both?

On the internet, ISIS and Al Qaeda provide tactical and operational guidance for conducting “distributed” terror attacks in order to obtain their ideological goals. Immediately after an attack like Rahami’s, ISIS propagandists launch a media blitz in order to magnify its political impact. The ideological encouragement to launch a terror attack, the “how to” guidance for conducting the strike and the terror group’s quick and global use of the strike as war waging propaganda are international connections. However, Barack Obama is very relucant to publicly concede their existence and relevance.

NOTE: Clarified the last paragraph.