The first 3 factors that increase the risk of terrorist attacks in the homeland

As a former military intelligence officer, serving in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), I tracked foreign threats to the US homeland, identifying the plans, intentions, and capabilities of adversaries that could harm the Americans. I predicted the invasion of Ukraine by Russia more than a year before it happened. In March, in my Fox News Digital article titled “Ignore FBI Director’s Urgent Warning About Terrorist Threats at Your Peril,” I predicted terrorist attacks that would strike the US homeland, the kind that happened on the day of new year in new orleans and las vegas.

Here are three reasons why we will likely face more terrorism in America this year. This time, it will be something we haven’t seen before.

Bureaucratic inertia stifles defense against threats

Bureaucratic inertia prevents government agencies from acting on the threats they themselves identify and warn of. During last year’s annual congressional briefing on the top “worldwide threats” facing the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that terrorist threats have reached “another level” from the already elevated situation. Wray mentioned the “elevated” threat posed by “homegrown violent extremists, who are inspired by jihadists, extremists, domestic violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations and state-sponsored terrorist organizations.”

He also specifically named violent gangs and smugglers with links to ISIS entering the country through the southern border. This was in March 2024.

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New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Wray’s concerns, however, did not translate into an increased security posture that should have been adopted by intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies, and could have avoided the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and saved American lives.

Millions of migrants, mainly males of military age, including criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence agents, continue to pour into our country. The highly dangerous transnational criminal gang from Venezuela, Train Araguahas established operations in 16 states, including New Jersey and New York, since November. They attack Americans, at will.

To this day, the border has not been fully secured, allowing millions of illegal crossings, straining local law enforcement and making communities insecure. The popular free mobile application called CBP One app, continues to be widely available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Aliens of all stripes who want to enter the United States use it to schedule interview appointments, conducted remotely, to qualify for asylum status and entry into our country. This is all courtesy of US 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 after Wray’s March warning? These are legitimate questions for Americans to ask of their government. Especially given that we’ve had two assassination attempts on President-elect Trump, mysterious drone flyovers over our military installations, and rampant crimes committed by members of a transnational criminal gang — all since March.

FBI Director Christopher Wray arrives to testify during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing June 4, 2024, in Washington, DC (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Threats “over-the-horizon” seemingly ignored

There’s a whole new threat looming on the horizon. And it hasn’t even made it to the government’s to-do list. Drone warfare is a prime example of such an emerging threat, which is driven by the democratization of high-tech capabilities such as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). UAS is a general term for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV – aircraft or drone), but includes the entire operating system of the UAV, including a ground control station (hosting the pilot who operates the UAV); communication hardware (link the UAV and the controller); payload (cameras, sensors, explosives, etc.); and flight planning software.

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UAS present easily the most dangerous threat our homeland has ever faced for three reasons. They are commercially available, relatively inexpensive, highly maneuverable, extremely difficult to identify and characterize, and have virtually unlimited payload capacity. You can equip a UAS with a non-kinetic payload, such as a sensor or camera, or with a kinetic or lethal capability, such as an explosive device, a bomb, or a WMD (chemical, biological, radiological).

A masked Islamic State terrorist holds the ISIS flag in 2015. (Story/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Originally employed by our military for surveillance purposes and then later as an anti-terrorist tool to eliminate terrorist leaders, drones are now widely available and used, even by terrorists. Drone warfare is operational and perfected in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and in combat zones in the Middle East.

Drones are perfectly capable of hitting soft targets and crowded places, which the homeland is full of. Here’s what a 2023 study commissioned by the US Department of Homeland Security noted: “The growing use of UAS in both private sector and government operations likely means that more people have access to these systems in the future and the ability to operate them, making the use of UAS for attacks increasingly likely.” The study highlighted the fact that “UAS can also give the operator the ability to act anonymously and a greater chance to avoid detection and capture.” This feature can be very attractive to terrorists as well as state actors who are adversaries of the United States.

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Since 2018, the US government has known about the threat of drones. Kirstjen M. Nielsen, then secretary of Homeland Security, wrote in a Washington Post article, “The United States is not prepared for the growing threat of drones,” and was defenseless against them. She also revealed that “terrorist groups like the Islamic State aspire to use armed drones against our homeland and US interests overseas.”

Yet to this day, we are vulnerable to drone attacks. It has become very obvious to everyone how defenseless we still are to such attacks during the recent mysterious drone incidents. For weeks since November, unidentified drones have been flown over military sites and critical infrastructure facilities in several East Coast states, including New Jersey and New York, and neither federal nor state security agencies have stopped. The White House and the Pentagon also admit to not knowing the origin of those drones.

A Ukrainian Air Intelligence soldier takes a drone in the direction of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 10, 2024. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The politicization of intelligence brings change to the wrong targets

The entire government security apparatus is now political, having changed its focus from foreign threats, such as terrorists, to American dissidents. Instead of identifying and stopping those who are ready to harm Americans, our government agencies have targeted our own citizens who oppose the spread of awakened ideologies in our society. Catholics, whose religious beliefs prevent them from accepting things like transgenderism, and parents, who protest against the brainwashing of their children in left-wing ideologies, such as critical race theory ( CRT), engulfing our public schools, are now viewed by government agencies as domestic threat actors.

This hateful policy comes from the top. President Biden downplayed the terrorist threat to the homeland, including that emanating from ISIS. In June 2021, Biden said: “According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not al Qaeda – white supremacists.” Is it any wonder that the FBI agent in charge initially ruled out any link between the New Orleans attacker and terrorism or ISIS? That despite the fact that the attacker, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar from Texas, had installed an ISIS flag on his Ford pickup, which he intentionally rammed into a group of civilians celebrating the New Year in the French Quarter , killing 14. .

The Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army doctor convicted in the deaths of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. (US Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences via Getty Images)

Similarly, the FBI failed to identify an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who in 2009 shot and killed 13 people and wounded 31 in Fort Hood, Texas, as someone involved in terrorist activities – despite the fact that Hasan was in regular contact with a known terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. In his correspondence, Hasan, an American Muslim, discussed the suicide bombers, and whether it is permissible for “the killing of innocents for a precious purpose.”

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According to a 2012 report of the William Webster Commission on FBI, Counterterrorism, Intelligence and Events at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009, FBI agents in the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task They knew Hasan had contacted al-Awlaki numerous times before the shooting. However, the FBI office in Washington determined that Hasan “was not involved in terrorist activities.” As a result, the FBI has not issued a warning about Hasan’s terrorist ties to the Department of the Army and the Pentagon, both of which have classified the incident as workplace violence and not 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 promised to depoliticize government agencies. Appointing Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, as the Director of National Intelligence as part of a Republican administration is a step in the right direction. Intelligence is supposed to be non-partisan. Intelligence officers should not be afraid to speak truth to power, even if their analytical line contradicts the policies of the president in charge. But eradicating government inertia will be a much taller order. Let’s see if DOGE can compel government bureaucrats to raise defenses against the drone threat and save Americans.

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