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Of the dozens of Americans who traveled to war-torn Syria or Iraq and then returned home, only a small group of them fought with a terrorist group and might be inclined to launch an attack back in the U.S., federal counterterrorism officials have determined.

Putting potentially dangerous returnees like that behind bars, however, has been a slow and painstaking process.

In the past 16 months, not a single returnee has been arrested even secretly on charges of allegedly supporting terrorists or committing any other direct form of terrorism overseas, though a couple have been quietly implicated in lesser offenses such as lying on travel forms, a federal source told ABC News.

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By contrast, in that time, the FBI and Justice Department have arrested at least nine people in the United States who allegedly tried to join terrorists in Syria or Iraq, where more than 12,000 foreign fighters have converged.

And just last month, an upstate New York man was nabbed for allegedly trying to recruit two more Americans to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, the Iraq-based group that has been wreaking havoc in the region and inspiring attacks around the world.

People arent saying, Hey, I just got back from fighting with ISIL, heres my ticket [proving it], a federal source quipped about the challenges in bringing cases against returnees.

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Few Arrests of Americans Who Fought In Syria or Iraq