Three factors that increase the risk of homegrown terrorist attacks

As a former military intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), I tracked foreign threats to the U.S. homeland, identifying adversaries’ plans, intentions, and capabilities that could harm Americans. I predicted this more than a year before Russia invaded Ukraine. In March of this year, in an article I published on Fox News Digital titled “Ignore FBI Director’s Urgent Warnings About Terrorist Threats at Our Peril,” I predicted that there would be a terrorist attack on American soil, just like on New Year’s Day. Orleans is what happens in Vegas.

Here are three reasons why the United States may face more terrorism this year. This time, it’s going to be something we’ve never seen before.

Bureaucratic inertia inhibits defense against threats

Bureaucratic inertia prevents government agencies from taking action on threats they themselves identify and warn about. During last year’s annual congressional briefing on “global threats” facing the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the terrorist threat had reached a “whole new level” from an already serious situation. Wray cited the “serious” threat posed by “homegrown violent extremists, that is, jihadist-inspired extremists, domestic violent extremists, foreign terrorist groups and state-sponsored terrorist groups.”

He also specifically called on violent Islamic State-linked gangs and smugglers to enter the country through the southern border. That’s March 2024.

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However, Wray’s concerns did not translate into the enhanced security posture that intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies should have adopted, which could have prevented the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas and saved American lives.

Millions of immigrants, primarily men of military age, including criminals, terrorists, and foreign intelligence agents, continue to flow into our country. As of November, Tren de Aragua, a highly dangerous transnational criminal gang originating from Venezuela, was operating in 16 states, including New Jersey and New York. They attack Americans at will.

To date, the border has not been fully secure, allowing millions of people to cross illegally, straining local law enforcement and making communities unsafe. The infamous free mobile app CBP One app continues to be widely available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Foreign nationals of all types wishing to enter the United States can use it to schedule remote interview appointments to obtain asylum status and eligibility to enter our country. All of this is provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Has the FBI implemented any of the 18 recommendations made by the 2012 William Webster Commission to improve and detect terrorist threats? What actions, if any, were taken following Wray’s March warning? For Americans, these are legitimate questions to ask their government. Especially considering that since March we have had two assassination attempts on President-elect Trump, mysterious drones flying over our military installations, and rampant crime committed by members of transnational criminal gangs.

FBI Director Christopher Wray arrives in Washington, D.C., to testify at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on June 4, 2024 (Samuel Colum/Getty Images)

‘Beyond visual range’ threats seem to be ignored

A new threat is looming. It’s not even on the government’s to-do list. Drone warfare is a prime example of this emerging threat, driven by the democratization of high-tech capabilities such as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). UAS is the general term for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV – aircraft or drones), but it covers the entire operating system of the drone, including the ground control station (hosting the pilot who operates the drone); communication hardware (connecting the drone) aircraft and controller); payload (cameras, sensors, explosives, etc.); and flight planning software.

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Unmanned aerial vehicle systems are easily the most dangerous threat our country faces for three reasons. They are commercial, relatively cheap, highly maneuverable, extremely difficult to identify and characterize, and have virtually unlimited payload capacity. You can equip a drone with non-kinetic payloads, such as sensors or cameras, or with kinetic or lethal capabilities, such as explosive devices, bombs, or weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, radiological).

A masked Islamic State terrorist holds an Islamic State flag in 2015. (History/Universal Image Group, Getty Images)

Drones were initially used by our military for surveillance purposes and later as counter-terrorism tools to eliminate terrorist leaders and are now used and used extensively, including by terrorists. Drone warfare is being used and refined in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Middle Eastern war zones.

Drones have the perfect capability to strike soft targets and crowded places, which are commonplace in the country. A 2023 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security states: “The increasing use of unmanned aerial systems in private sector and government operations may mean that more people will have access to these systems and the expertise to operate them in the future. , making the use of drones for attacks increasingly possible. The study highlights the fact that “drone systems can also enable operators to operate anonymously and have a greater chance of avoiding detection and capture.” “This feature is very attractive to terrorists and state actors adversaries of the United States.

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As early as 2018, the U.S. government was aware of the drone threat. Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen wrote in a Washington Post article that “the United States is unprepared for the growing threat from drones” and that Man and machine are defenseless. She even revealed that “terrorist groups like ISIS are eager to use armed drones to violate our homeland and U.S. interests abroad.”

Yet, to this day, we remain vulnerable to drone attacks. In the recent case of mysterious drones, it became clear to everyone that we remain defenseless against such attacks. In the weeks since November, unidentified drones have reportedly been flying over military sites and critical infrastructure in several East Coast states, including New Jersey and New York, with federal and state security agencies failing to stop them. kind of behavior. The White House and Pentagon have even admitted not knowing the origin of the drones.

On May 10, 2024, a Ukrainian Air Force intelligence soldier carried a drone in the direction of Bakmut, Ukraine. (Diego Herrera Cacedo/Anadolu, Getty Images)

Politicization of intelligence leads to steering towards wrong targets

The entire government security apparatus has now become politicized, with its focus shifting from foreign threats such as terrorists to American dissidents. Instead of identifying and stopping those bent on harming Americans, our government agencies are targeting our own citizens who oppose the spread of woke ideologies in our society. Catholics’ religious beliefs prevent them from accepting things like transgenderism, while parents protest the brainwashing of their children with left-wing ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) that have swept our public schools and are now considered domestic threatening behavior by government agencies who.

This outrageous politicization comes from the top. President Biden has been minimizing terrorist threats to his homeland, including from the Islamic State. In June 2021, Biden said: “According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the deadliest threat to our homeland today. Not ISIS, not Al Qaeda — white supremacists.” FBI Is it any wonder that those in charge initially ruled out any connection between the New Orleans attackers and terrorism or ISIS? Although the attacker, 42-year-old Shamsuddin Jabbar from Texas, had an ISIS flag mounted on his Ford pickup truck, he deliberately rammed into a group of civilians celebrating the New Year in the French Quarter, killing 14 people.

U.S. Army medic Major Nidal Malik Hasan was convicted of the November 5, 2009, shooting death of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

Likewise, the FBI failed to identify Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded 31 in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, as being involved in terrorist activities. people, despite Hassan’s frequent contacts with terrorists. In the letter, Hassan, an American-born Muslim, discusses suicide bombers and whether “the killing of innocents for a worthy target” is allowed.

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According to the 2012 report of the William Webster Commission on the FBI, Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and the November 5, 2009 Incident at Fort Hood, Texas, FBI agents with the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force knew that Ha San has been contacted – Awlaki was seen several times before the shooting. Nonetheless, the FBI’s Washington office determined that Hassan “did not engage in terrorist activity.” As a result, the FBI did not issue a warning about Hassan’s terrorist ties to the Army Department and the Pentagon, both of which classified the incident as workplace violence rather than an act of terrorism. The 2012 report made 18 formal recommendations to the FBI to improve and detect terrorist threats.

The incoming Trump administration has pledged to depoliticize government agencies. Nominating former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence as part of a Republican administration is a step in the right direction. Intelligence should be nonpartisan. Intelligence officials should not be afraid to speak truth to power, even if their line of analysis contradicts the policies of a sitting president. But eliminating government inertia will be a difficult task. Let’s see if DOGE can force government bureaucrats to step up defenses against drone threats and save Americans.

Click here to read more from Rebekah Koffler