Despite its losses on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State remains a grave national security threat, according to the Trump administration and terrorism experts.

That mixed news was brought home just last week. Last Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security extended its warning of homegrown terror threats to the US for the fifth time since December 2015. That was followed on Thursday by a tweet from President Donald Trump touting the reported capture of five top Islamic State commanders in Iraq. Over the weekend, ISIS claimed responsibility for a knife attack in Paris that left one dead and four injured. The perpetrator was killed by police …

“As ISIS loses that propaganda machine, fewer people are going to be radicalized by it because fewer people are going to pay attention to it,” said Jeffrey Ringel, a former FBI special agent and director of The Soufan Group, a security consulting firm …

The returnee risk is far greater in Europe, said Ringel, of the Soufan Group.

“Europe has a bigger problem because it’s easier to travel back into Europe from Syria and Iraq,” said Ringel. “They don’t have the same laws to prosecute these individuals. The government may know that you traveled to that area but they may need definitive proof that you were a fighter or that you had done some acts of violence before they can arrest you. In the United States, we don’t need that because material support to a foreign terrorist organization is enough to get you arrested …”