During his keynote address for a meeting of Utah-based law enforcement officers yesterday, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated “the primary terrorist threat to the homeland here today, without question, is homegrown violent extremists. That’s what keeps us awake at night.” A homegrown violent extremist, or HVE, is a person based in the U.S. who has become radicalized and inspired by foreign terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State or al Qa’ida. Director Wray indicated the FBI currently has about 5,000 open investigations into terrorist activity, with an estimated 1,000 of those involving HVEs. He added that these individuals are located in all 50 states. His comments come at a time when the leader of the Islamic State has just released a message encouraging supporters worldwide to conduct attacks in their homelands. In his first speech in nearly a year, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sought to motivate followers by equating one attack in the West with a thousand in the Middle East. Additionally, in another item reported in the August 28 Security and Resilience Update, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service identified online-inspired extremists as the country’s “greatest terrorist threat” in a declassified document provided to the media. Deseret News.