Iraqis wait their turn to register at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registration centre (Photo : Getty Images)
The Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or Daesh, has the capability to make fake passports after it seized government assets such as printing machines and blank passport books. It also has access to government buildings which have valid biographical data and fingerprint information.
State Department spokesman John Kirby cites intelligence reports of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the sources of information on the possible passport-faking activities of the terror organization, reports CNN.
Kirby says the information is something that Washington is taking seriously because it is obviously something that the department is mindful of.
The Daesh captured the city of Deir ez-Zour last summer where there is a passport office with boxes of blank passports and a passport printing machine. The terror organization has also long held Raqqa, another Syrian city which has been ISIS's de facto capital, where another passport office is located, reports ABC.
Raqqa has been in Daesh's hands for 17 months now, creating the possibility that a significant number of fake passports have been issued since then, according to the 17-page Homeland Security Investigations Intelligence Report.
A holder of a fake passport may have entered the U.S. Law enforcement agencies had been warned by ICE of this development. FBI Director James Comey tackled the matter in a testimony this week at Capitol Gill.
In Europe, where a number of ISIS terror attacks have been made the past few weeks, a number of fake Syrian passports have been discovered, including two used by suicide bombers in Paris in November. The two are believed to have joined the hundreds of legitimate Syrian refugees who have fled their war-torn homeland and entered Europe.
The fake Syrian passports are for sale for $200 to $400. For the same amount, backdated passport stamps could be placed on the passport.
