EXTREMISMIslamist Terror Incidents Targeting U.S. Increase in 2024

Islamist terror incidents targeting the United States increased in 2024 after several years of reduced activity, with federal and state authorities arresting individuals in seven different incidents on charges related to five unsuccessful plots and two actual attacks. Incidents included both homegrown Islamist extremists purportedly inspired to commit a violent act in the United States and people who attempted to enter the U.S. allegedly to commit a terrorist attack.

While Islamist terror incidents were common in the United States—and sometimes quite deadly—in the 2010s, due in large part to the rise of the terrorist organization ISIS (the Islamic State or IS) and its efforts to recruit fighters to its ranks in Syria and Iraq and spread violence in other countries, they decreased considerably by the end of the decade. This was due to successful military action by the U.S. and other countries that greatly degraded ISIS. Between 2021 and 2023, the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) tracked only six Islamist-related terror incidents in the U.S., compared to 30 incidents with far-right perpetrators and five incidents with far-left or other perpetrators within that same timeframe.

During these years, U.S. authorities still regularly made arrests linked to Islamist extremism, but most of these involved people providing material support, such as money, to terrorist groups abroad, or attempting to travel outside the U.S. to join such groups. Such arrests continue today; in November 2024, for example, Anas Said, a Houston man, was indicted for providing material support and resources to ISIS because of his alleged involvement in the creation of numerous ISIS propaganda videos and images. According to authorities, Said also unsuccessfully tried several times to travel abroad to join Islamist terror groups and even considered the possibility of conducting a violent act in the U.S., going so far at one point as to research local military recruiting facilities and Jewish targets, though he did not actually plot an attack.

Other people were also purportedly motivated by Islamist extremism to plot or commit violence in 2024. So far this year, COE has tracked seven different terror incidents seemingly connected to Islamist extremism, compared to only six incidents tied to far-right extremism and four incidents related to far-left or other extremism.