Patel says FBI is 'manhunting' terror suspects around the globe after two high-value captures
FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday that the FBI is "manhunting" terror suspects anywhere they hide after the bureau captured two high-value targets, including an alleged Iran-linked terrorist and a senior member of Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Patel highlighted the complexity of the simultaneous foreign transfers of custody on "Hannity" and warned that the FBI was "manhunting these people around the globe, putting national security first, and making sure their exploits and ties to terrorism are fully unraveled," calling it the bureau's greatest priority.
Jose Enrique Martinez Flores was extradited from Colombia, and Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, an Iraqi terror suspect, was sent to New York on federal terror charges.
Flores, also known as "Chuqui," was allegedly part of TdA's inner circle, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He is the highest-ranking TdA member to face justice in the United States.
He is charged with one count of conspiring to provide material support to TdA in the form of personnel, including himself, and one count of providing material support to the organization.
Patel said Flores is "directly tied as a senior-most member of Tren de Aragua," adding that the FBI is trying to "clean up President Biden's open border policies."
Al-Saadi and his associates allegedly planned and coordinated 18 attacks in the name of Ashab al-Yamin, a pro-Iranian Islamist group that has taken credit for attacks against Jewish schools, synagogues and charities in Europe, as well as American, Israeli and Iranian opposition targets, according to the FBI.
He is running "a campaign of targeted attacks across Europe... And then he had specifically planned at the behest of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian terrorist organization, to conduct a flurry of attacks, terrorist attacks in New York, California and Arizona," Patel said, citing the indictment.
"We're capturing those that were allowed into our country under the corrupt policies of the prior administration and stopping those terror attacks on American soil," he added.
"And we're going to keep looking for every single one of these individuals who wish to do harm to our way of life and invade our country who got here illegally."
Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy, Louis Casiano and Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.