ISIS Supporters are Walking Among the Many in the United States – Report

The radical militant group ISIS has gathered a considerable number of supporters right in the United States, where they try to blend with the many to escape attention.

Suffice to say, the feared lone wolf attacks mentioned in previous reports may not necessarily mean to be acted out by ISIS members who trained in Syria and Iraq per se, but by supporters who believe in what the group supposedly stands for.

In the latest report of Vocativ, a Web site that publishes "news from the deep web," it said it had discovered a gamut of ISIS sympathisers in the U.S., including a radical cleric with a criminal history, a New York City student taking up Chemistry in the Midwest at a Jesuit university, a Texas resident taking an engineering management course in college and a Minnesota woman.

Vocativ's discovery comes after authorities charged two Americans in September for plotting attacks against American targets. Also last month, an Oklahoma man named Alton Nolen with Islamic ties beheaded a co-worker, presumably because he failed to convert the person to Islam.

But what Vocativ found disturbing and concerning is that ISIS supporters in the U.S. move and blend among the many, doing the usual mundane stuff.

"In many ways, they're just like you. They post selfies on Twitter and Facebook, share memes, hang out with friends. They talk about their favourite TV shows, movies, and music," Vocativ said. The ISIS sympathisers also talk about their families, Vocativ added.

The only thing different that sets them apart from the usual Americans is that they pledge support and alliance "to the brutal regime seeking to establish an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East."

Just like the Minnesota woman who said she enjoys movies like "Hunger Games," "Twilight" and "Shrek." But her Facebook account likewise yielded ISIS propaganda videos and photos of a senior al Qaeda operative named Anwar al-Awaki, who was killed in 2011 during a U.S. drone strike.

The New York City student taking up Chemistry has smiling graduation pictures, alongside the ISIS flag which served as profile banner on his Facebook account.

Vocativ said it was able to speak to the student's mother on the phone and gathered their family moved from New York to the Midwest five years ago. She said her son has never left the country, although the family's roots come from East Africa. He has plans to pursue graduate school and is eyeing to work for Proctor & Gamble. But when asked how Vocativ can reach her son, she stressed her son is "never doing anything but studying" and "doesn't have a phone."

Minutes after, the young man's Facebook and Twitter accounts were taken down.