Situation Report: ISIS threat to northern Virginia shopping malls

Law enforcement in the northern Virginia county of Fairfax is on an alert status this Halloween weekend following reports of a potential terror threat targeting local area shopping malls.

Numerous individuals reported receiving text messages and “security alerts” regarding a threat from 2 ISIS operatives targeting shopping malls in the Alexandria or Woodbridge areas of Northern Virginia.

Shortly after these reports began to spread on social media Fairfax County Police chief Kevin Davis spoke at a press conference saying they received “information concerning potential public safety impacts” to the malls and encouraged public vigilance as they deployed extra law enforcement to deal with the potential threat.

CBS News’ Catherine Herridge reported that sources claimed the threat originated with the terrorist group Islamic State. Local News outlet WUSA9’s Mike Valerio tweeted that federal and local law enforcement sources claimed, “an elevated highly specific threat against Northern Virginia Malls this Halloween weekend.”

Fairfax County has been a location for significant numbers of Afghan evacuees being kept, leading some to question whether the incident may be related to potential terrorists mixing in with evacuation flights following the Biden Administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan. While those concerns remain unconfirmed at this time, the risk has been front and center on the minds of many terrorism analysts.

The U.S., U.K, and France have all reported detecting individuals with terrorist ties among Afghan evacuees.

On October 26^th, Senator Josh Hawley claimed to have received information from an American official showing President Biden had directly ordered the Afghan Ambassador to “err on the side of excess” and to bring any individuals “plausibly fall into the categories we will evacuate.”

This Situation Report is about a breaking news situation and will be updated as the situation develops.