TerrorismApril 2017 terrorism: The numbers

Published 12 May 2017

The House Homeland Security Committee has released its April 2017 Terror Threat Snapshot, which details terrorism events and trends in April 2017. The snapshot is a monthly committee assessment of the threat America, the West, and the world face from ISIS and other Islamist terrorists. The document is produced by the Majority Staff of the committee. It is based on information culled from open source materials, including media reports, publicly available government statements, and nongovernmental assessments.

The House Homeland Security Committee has released its April 2017 Terror Threat Snapshot, which details terrorism events and trends in April 2017. The snapshot is a monthly committee assessment of the threat America, the West, and the world face from ISIS and other Islamist terrorists. The document is produced by the Majority Staff of the committee. It is based on information culled from open source materials, including media reports, publicly available government statements, and nongovernmental assessments.

Key points

— The Trump administration authorized an operation against a Syrian military airfield this month, marking the United States’ first military action against Bashar al Assad and his troops since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. The operation was in response to an earlier chemical weapon attack by the Syrian government in northwestern Syria that killed more than 80 people. 

— The U.S. continues its diligent fight against ISIS’ branch in Afghanistan, as it dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on a network of underground tunnels used by ISIS Khorasan this month, killing 36 fighters in the bomb’s first ever combat use. 

— The days before crucial national elections in France were marked by an ISIS-claimed attack and foiled ISIS terror plot. ISIS-took credit for an attack that left a police officer dead in the middle of one of Paris’ most popular tourist attractions, the famous Avenue de Champs Elysees, while a separate terrorist attack was foiled in Marseille.

— Two deadly Palm Sunday attacks against Coptic Christians by ISIS’ Sinai branch marked “the single deadliest day of violence directed against the Middle East’s largest Christiancommunity in decades.”Egypt is no stranger to ISIS and its precursor group, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, but it seems ISIS has turned a strong focus toward the country, investing more time, resources and energy into its fight. 

Homegrown Islamist extremism

— Cases of homegrown Islamist extremism in the United States continue to increase as U.S. Persons radicalize. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, there have been 209 homegrown jihadist cases in the United States, of which 132 of involved ISIS-related arrests (these figures are based on open-source data compiled and analyzed by the Majority Staff of the Homeland Security Committee).