Three months ago, I was lucky enough to have a conversation on terrorism with Georgetown Professor Bruce Hoffman, who has studied “terrorism and insurgency for almost half a century.“
I asked the person who literally wrote the book on the subject whether we should consider the war on terror over. Hoffman cautioned against “declaring victory too soon” and quoted General James Mattis, noting that “the enemy gets a vote too.”
The question about the end of the war on terror was popular then. But just a few months later, few in national security circles are discussing it.
These days, an uneasy calm is hanging over national security circles. The feeling of a looming terrorist attack feels stronger than at any time in the recent past. The threat vectors proliferate, and current insecurity might be the most heightened in a decade or more.
Consider the converging factors.
Although we have rolled back the gains of ISIS and degraded the capabilities of al Qaeda, those groups have never gone away. ISIS still has thousands of fighters in Syria and its ISIS-K branch is, to quote Hoffman, a “vibrant” threat which, at the time of our conversation, had just attacked Moscow’s Crocus theater.
The group has been successful recently in radicalizing desperately poor religious men from Tajikistan and other places in Central Asia. Earlier this month, eight Tajik nationals with connections to ISIS crossed the U.S. border seeking asylum. They were processed and released before officials realized the connection, leading to a scramble to apprehend them. They were ultimately captured and are being prepared for deportation.
Al Qaeda is a stubborn issue in Africa, particularly in West Africa. The threat is augmented by recent coups in the region, which have roiled security cooperation with Western forces. Concern about these political developments in Africa was enough for FBI director Christopher Wray to visit Nigeria and Kenya — the first visit by an FBI director in 15 years — earlier this month.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the region have largely focused their attacks on local targets. But the governance vacuum in these countries, coupled with the withdrawal of Western security advisors, has national security officials on edge about the potential for terrorist safe havens and the opportunity to plan larger attacks.
Then there is a leading global sponsor of terrorism, Iran, which has vowed revenge for the American killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. So far, Iran seems focused on assassinating American officials, but it is not hard to envision the country sponsoring a different kind of attack in the U.S. or on its interests abroad either directly or through its hydra-headed proxies.
Speaking of Iranian proxies, two of its primary terrorist proxies — Hezbollah and Hamas — have of course been extremely active in recent months, attacking Israel with the current war, turning the globe against its response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and inflaming Islamic extremists. What’s different today is the development of sympathy in the West for Hamas — a notorious terrorist group with genocide in its original charter.
It’s hard to underestimate just how dangerous the creation of a fifth column of terrorist supporters in the West actually is. Terrorism’s evolution is taking place before our very eyes. These groups have learned to weaponize free speech and expertly utilize social media to whip up Western audiences into a frenzy of support for jihadist causes.
It has been demonstrated that the Chinese-owned Tik Tok amplifies divisive messages about the Middle East to roil the West. But other sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are also bastions of extremism, often propelled by bots from the likes of Russia and Iran, radicalizing many more.
The college protests against Israel’s defensive war in Gaza have been a boon to terrorist organizations. Examples abound of the flags of these groups being flown, the apparel being worn and the rhetoric being spouted. Beyond shocking spectacles and hateful ranting, the drumbeat in favor of violence keeps growing, from the defacing of homes and businesses to firebombs being thrown at university buildings.
The campus protests have received the endorsement of Hamas, al Qaeda and the Ayatollahs of Iran. It doesn’t take a huge mental leap to believe that many of the same elements increasing their violent activity could potentially support or participate in a more spectacular attack.
Concern about such an attack at the upcoming Paris Olympics this summer is a focus. But in the U.S. in particular, the emphasis should be on Jewish institutions and prominent Jewish individuals as targets.
Jihadist groups would be loath to upset the shocking gains they have made creating sympathy with elements of the American left who would, at least in part, desert them if there was an attack on a non-Jewish entity. While political leaders from the left such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) have recently taken to denouncing antisemitism, we need more leaders to speak up about this growing cancer on the body politic.
In addition to visiting Africa out of rising concern over a terrorist attack, Wray addressed Congress earlier this month as well, voicing concern that there “is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russian concert hall back in March.”
Wray was not there just to lobby for a bigger budget, although the $500 million reduction in the FBI budget, due in part to the demonization of the bureau by the extreme right, is concerning. These visits are carefully coordinated between top levels of the U.S. government so the world should pay attention.
The dysfunction that has led to FBI defunding is part of the broader picture in the U.S. that is making us less safe. The upcoming election is a ripe target for adversaries and political volatility makes it harder to protect the country.
The election could tip toward chaos. We may see that our enemies indeed get a vote as well.
Jeremy Hurewitz is the head of Interfor Academy and the author of the forthcoming book “Sell Like a Spy.”