Islamic State Group-Inspired New Orleans Attack Revives Familiar Fears

IS additionally claimed a November 2017 truck ramming attack in New York that killed at least eight people, in which police officials said the attacker followed IS instructions on vehicle attacks “almost exactly to a T.”

Even as the IS terror group retreated from counterterrorism pressure in places like Syria and Afghanistan, its leaders never abandoned the quest to inspire attacks around the world.

“In Afghanistan … ISIS-Khorasan, continues to harbor intent to conduct external operations and maintains English‑language media releases that aim to globalize the group’s local grievances among Western audiences,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned in written congressional testimony in October 2023.

Even the most recent Homeland Security threat assessment, issued in September, cautioned that IS, with other terror groups such as al-Qaida, “maintain the enduring intent to conduct or inspire attacks in the Homeland,” rating the threat level as “high.”

The September assessment further warned that IS online media groups also sought to capitalize on the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East “to inspire more violent action.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray has also said repeatedly that the bureau’s domestic terrorism caseload remains high, with about 1,000 IS-related investigations each year spanning all 50 U.S. states.

According to data compiled by Seamus Hughes, a senior researcher faculty member at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, or NCITE, more than 250 individuals have been charged with IS-related activities since 2014.

Most of those cases, according to Hughes, have resulted in guilty pleas or convictions; Justice Department prosecutors have only lost one case that went to trial.

Meanwhile, the FBI has had success in disrupting IS-linked or inspired terror plots.

In October, for example, agents arrested a 27-year-old Afghan national in Oklahoma City, charging him and a juvenile co-conspirator with attempting to carry out a mass shooting on Election Day.

IS has so far yet to claim the New Orleans terror attack as its own, but the Washington Institute’s Aaron Zelin said the attack is already generating excitement among IS supporters on social media.

Some U.S. counterterrorism officials worry that excitement will play to the terror group’s advantage.

“From their view, it’s less important that an attack kills large numbers of people than it simply garners a lot of media attention,” Brett Holmgren, the acting director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center told a Washington audience in November.

Some counterterrorism officials and experts, however, say they worry the attacks could become deadlier.

The NCTC has warned IS has been benefiting from improved finances and even set up an external planning unit in Syria, with a focus on carrying out attacks against the U.S.

“All of last year that there was an uptick in the tempo of Islamic State plots and attacks,” Zelin told VOA. “We saw five attack plots in the United States last year, whereas in 2023 there were none.”

That activity may not be limited to America, with some analysts pointing to deadly IS attacks last year in Kerman, Iran, and Moscow. [[

“It falls in line to a broader trend that we’ve seen in the U.S., but also in other parts of the world where, you know, we saw more plots and attacks in Europe, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia,” Zelin said.

Jeff Seldin is VOA national security reporter. The article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA).