TERRORISMThe FBI’s Counterterrorism Division Turns 25

November 21 marks the 25th anniversary of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, or CTD. In the time since its creation, the division has worked to counter the constantly evolving threat of terrorism at home and abroad.

“I think the 25 years has given us a very strong base to be extremely proficient—both here at Headquarters in the Counterterrorism Division and the JTTFs in the field,” said FBI Assistant Director David J. Scott, a special agent who spent most of his career working counterterrorism violations before being tapped to lead CTD in August 2024. “Thanks to our people, we’re extremely good at what we do. We’ve advanced over the years, but we’ve become very proficient at what we do, and therefore, we’re able to stop these types of attacks from occurring.”

How CTD Came to Be
An influx in terrorist activity around the world in the early 1980s inspired then-Director William Webster to name counterterrorism as the Bureau’s fourth-highest priority. “And that was an increase from where it had been,” Scott said.

That trend continued in the next decade with the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. 

But August 1998—when a pair of truck-bomb attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania claimed hundreds of lives, including those of American citizens—proved to be a turning point for the FBI. 

“Those years leading up to the establishment of CTD witness the globalization of terrorism, and there was a willingness by both the domestic and international terrorists to use weapons of mass destruction to inflict large numbers of civilian casualties,” Scott said.

Thus, on November 21, 1999, the Counterterrorism Division was formally created, consolidating “many of the anti-terrorism efforts and capabilities for the first time in 20 years,” Scott said.

_____________________________________

“I think the 25 years has given us a very strong base to be extremely proficient—both here at Headquarters in the Counterterrorism Division and the JTTFs in the field.”

— FBI Assistant Director David J. Scott

_____________________________________

After the ISIS caliphate collapsed in the late 2010s, a perception arose that terrorist threats were on a decline. To some, the threat posed by foreign terrorist organizations had diminished to the point where counterterrorism didn’t need to be the Bureau’s top priority.