Counterterrorism is backsliding under U.S. ‘weakness’

The U.S. intelligence community and military report growing terror threats over the last four years, as law enforcement targets actors allegedly motivated by Islamic extremism and white supremacy. Biden’s political opponents have repeatedly blamed the resurgence in extremism on the Biden administration’s “weakness.”

Each year, the U.S. intelligence community publishes the Annual Threat Assessment (ATA), which “reflects the collective insights” of the nation’s intelligence agencies.

The 2024 ATA began with a dire warning: “the United States faces an increasingly fragile global order.”

Threats to the global order, the ATA highlights, include non-state actors like the terrorist group Hamas, which launched a lethal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Ten days after the Hamas terror attack, former President Donald Trump penned an op-ed in Newsweek criticizing Biden’s “three years of breathtaking weakness and appeasement” that Trump believed allowed the attack.

“The tens of billions of dollars that Biden allowed Iran to accumulate are now being used by Iran to finance this mayhem and murder,” Trump wrote.

The same day, Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., echoed Trump’s concerns in a conversation with Just The News‘ John Solomon. “You know with Joe Biden, his foreign policy, very weak globally,” Blackburn told Solomon.

The Biden administration did not respond to Just The News‘ questions about its counterterrorism efforts or the criticisms discussed here.

The success of Hamas has inspired other terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, which “have directed their supporters to conduct attacks against Israeli and U.S. interests,” the ATA reports.

The impact of Hamas’s attack extends beyond Islamic extremism. One neo-Nazi group “publicly praised the attack, illustrating the conflict’s appeal to a range of threat actors.”

While Al-Qaeda and ISIS have faced continued losses in the Middle East, recent reports suggest a resurgence of the latter. The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, has reported an increase in ISIS attacks.

The increase means “ISIS is on pace to more than double the total number of attacks they claimed in 2023.”

CENTCOM believes the increase in attacks suggests “ISIS is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.”

The Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA), issued annually by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “focuses on the most direct, pressing threats to our Homeland during the next year.”

The 2024 HTA paints a similar picture. Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the report claims, are trying to rebuild their operations. These rebuilding efforts come amid the decline of a U.S. military presence in the region.

U.S. military presence has declined considerably in the Middle East since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the end of combat operations in Iraq in 2021. Some threat actors, including Iran, have sought an increased footprint in the U.S.

The FBI, as part of its domestic counterterrorism efforts, is seeking an Iranian intelligence officer, Majid Dastjani Farahani. The FBI seeks Farahani “for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States.”

Farahani’s alleged objective is vengeance “for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani.” Farahani also allegedly “recruited individuals for surveillance activities focused on religious sites, businesses, and other facilities in the United States.”

The FBI believes “Farahani acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.”

Racialized extremism presents a continued and possibly growing threat. “The transnational racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE) movement” poses a global threat, according to the 2024 ATA.

These groups, often “motivated by white supremacy, will continue to foment violence across Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand inspiring the lone actor or small-cell attacks that pose a significant threat to U.S. persons.”

The FBI purportedly uncovered such a plot targeting New York City.

A grand jury recently indicted a Georgian national for allegedly planning mass casualty attacks in the United States aimed at Jewish and minority children.