What is left of ISIS is on the run.
The Justice Department has not publicly lodged charges against anyone associated with the Islamic State since February in what analysts said suggests the terrorist organization’s reach is waning in the U.S.
As the number of cases slims, the ages of those charged has been climbing, indicating that the Islamic State’s attraction to younger people in the U.S. is cratering and leaving the movement with fewer recruits for terrorist attacks, an analysis by The Washington Times has found.
The Times analyzed 128 publicly announced prosecutions involving Islamic State from 2014 through 2018 and found that the number of cases against the terrorist organization’s supporters has dropped dramatically from a peak of 62 in 2015 — including 15 in April of that year alone.
So far this year, two indictments were unsealed in January, though both were charged in 2017. A third indictment unsealed in February involved charges lodged in 2016.
In fact, the last person charged at the federal level for an Islamic State-related crime is 26-year-old Everitt Aaron Jameson. He was arrested on Dec. 22 and accused of plotting a Christmas Day terrorist attack at a San Francisco tourist attraction.
“Compared to all the years in the past, we’ve never gone through 4½ months like this,” said Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at the Fordham University School of Law.