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STUDENT UNREST
I am a former senior U.S. government counterterrorism official and scholar of national security and terrorism. The wave of recent pro-Palestinian, student-led protests reminds me of another tense era in the U.S. that was also prompted by U.S. engagement in a foreign war – the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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EXTREMISM
After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, YouTube was so criticized for radicalizing users by recommending increasingly extremist and fringe content that it changed its recommendation algorithm. Research four years later found that while extremist content remained on YouTube, subscriptions and external referrals drove disaffected users to extremist content rather than the recommendation algorithm.
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BORDER SECURITY
The northern border largely has been unmanned and understaffed for decades as federal reports issue conflicting conclusions about how much, or how little, operational control exists. All this while a greatest number of terrorist watch list individuals being apprehended at northern border.
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GAZA WAR
The longer the war has dragged on, the more it has highlighted that Israel, which has been under Netanyahu’s almost continuous rule since 2009, has no long-term strategy for living side-by-side with its Palestinian neighbors. Even if a ceasefire could be agreed to, Netanyahu’s government hasn’t articulated a plan for the “day after”. Already, this lack of a plan is creating a dangerous power vacuum in northern Gaza that has been filled by gangs, clans and criminals.
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BORDER SECURITY
The number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) apprehended at the northern border in the first six months of fiscal 2024 continue to outpace those apprehended at the southwest border.
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IMMIGRATION
Politicians and pundits have given rise to a flood of rhetoric about terrorists exploiting border chaos to harm Americans. But exaggerated threats of terrorists crossing the southern border lead to costly, disproportionate policy decisions.
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TERRORISM
Factors of continuity, such as anti-regime grievances, the appeal of religious ideology, and the ability to hurt, are likely to maintain jihadism as a viable resistance ideology. Jihadism is still a powerful force and is making inroads in various regions, and a more modest jihadi strategy with a regional focus is offering jihadis a new path forward, but also suggests that a sustainable jihadi success would require moderation that is simply antithetical to the nature of the ideology.
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IRAN’S THREAT
The death on 2 January 2024 of Saleh Al-Arouri, a leading Hamas financier and military leader, resulted in threats of retribution against Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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PROTECTING SOFT TARGETS
Attacks on soft targets and crowded places (ST-CPs) represent a significant challenge. How can prevention, protection, and response and recovery investments reduce the risk of casualties from attacks on ST-CPs?
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EXTREMISM
Over the weekend of April 5, 2024, anti-Israel activists in the US and around the world marked Al Quds Day (“Jerusalem Day”) with protests and other events against Zionism and the state of Israel. This annual event, originally conceived by the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, serves as a platform for support for terrorism and other violence against Israel and regularly includes virulent antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.
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EXTREMISM
Last week, law students supporting Palestinians in Gaza disrupted a dinner Dean Chemerinsky and his wife were holding in their home for first-year students. The disrupting law students insisted they had First Amendment right to disrupt the dinner.
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TERRORISM
A surge of confidence by supporters of the Islamic State terror group — reflected in a series of online threats against Europe combined with its deadly attack on a concert hall in Russia — is giving security officials in the United States cause for concern.
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TERRORISM
Slowly but surely, the Islamic State terror group seems to be regaining its footing in Syria, launching new and brazen attacks against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Intelligence estimates put the number of Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq at about 2,500 — more than double estimates from late January. And a series of new studies is only adding to the concern.
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EXTREMISTS & CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Nuclear security in the U.S. has historically understood threat as “other,” – for example, foreign states or terrorists — leaving practitioners, facilities, and physical protection systems vulnerable to threats from within. There is a need for an urgent change to the nuclear security norms and understanding of threat to include not only foreign agents, but also domestic violent extremist groups and homegrown violent ideologies, is needed to strengthen the resiliency and effectiveness of the national nuclear security regime.
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FOOD SUPPLY SECURITY
DHS S&T conducts research aiming to ensure that U.S. domestic agriculture systems are resilient against disturbances that could cause food shortages, sickness or injuries, and economic crises.
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TERRORISM
The mass casualty theater attack in Moscow was a reminder that affiliates of the Islamic State have reorganized and infiltrated even powerful states. ISIS has staged over half-a-dozen attacks in Russia since 2016. The movement has long deemed Russia as much of an enemy of the Muslim people as the United States.
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INTELLIGENCE SHARING
Intelligence agencies are secretive, gathering information to bolster national security or help their governments make political decisions. But at times they share information with the intelligence services of an adversary, and when it comes to fighting terrorism, intelligence agencies are surprisingly generous about sharing information. The U.S. said it warned Russia of a potential attack like the one that took place in Moscow on March 22.
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BIORISKS
Amid rapid advances in bioscience and biotechnology that could pose significant global security risks without effective guardrails, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) last month launched the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), a first-of-its-kind organization to strengthen international biosecurity governance. IBBIS, an independent organization to be headquartered in Geneva, provides tools that will allow technological innovation to flourish, safely and responsibly.
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EXTREMISM
The U.S. wing of Hizb Ut Tahrir, an international Islamist organization that seeks to establish an Islamic theocracy, held their annual conference in Villa Park, Illinois. The group, which is banned in the United Kingdom, Germany and several other countries, featured speakers who called for an army to invade and destroy Israel, justified the October 7 Hamas terror attack, suggested men should travel to Gaza to fight Israel, implored followers to “resist“ the “LGBT genderism…agenda driven by the UN,” and, in several cases, espoused overt antisemitic rhetoric.
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TERRORISM
From 9/11 and the Bali bombings, to the rise of ISIL and the threat of issue-motivated violence from the likes of white supremacists, a comprehensive approach is needed, including education, prevention, punishment and rehabilitation.
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The long view
“The Federal Government Is Gone”: Under Trump, the Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up to the States
As President Donald Trump guts the main federal office dedicated to preventing terrorism, states say they’re left to take the lead in spotlighting threats. Some state efforts are robust, others are fledgling, and yet other states are still formalizing strategies for addressing extremism. With the federal government largely retreating from focusing on extremist dangers, prevention advocates say the threat of violent extremism is likely to increase.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”