Amid recent string of attacks inspired by Israel-Hamas war, some experts worry counterterrorism not a priority

Yahoo

4 hours ago

Five alleged high-profile terrorist attacks have occurred across the United States in the first six months of 2025, including four that investigators suspect were motivated by the war in Gaza or radicalized by the ISIS terrorist group.
But as law enforcement investigates the violent incidents -- from the New Orleans truck rampage to the Molotov cocktail attack in Boulder -- some counterterrorism experts say they're worried the federal government has taken its eye "off the ball" in preventing terrorism as its priorities shift -- from counterterrorism to mass deportation.
"It's stunning to me that we're making the same mistakes we did in the lead-up to 9/11," said Elizabeth Neumann, a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for counterterrorism during the first Trump administration. "Now that does not mean that we're going to have another 9/11, but it's very alarming to me that we are repeating mistakes."
A DHS senior official said in a statement to ABC News, "Any suggestion that DHS is stepping away from addressing terrorism is simply false."
"Under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security will use every tool and resource available to secure our border, protect the homeland, and get criminal illegal aliens out of our country," the DHS official said. "The safety of American citizens comes first."
The wave of extremist violence has come against a backdrop of a rising number of assaults, vandalism and harassment nationwide linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
The war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Hamas terrorist group staged a widespread ambush in Israel, killing 1,200 people, including children, and taking 251 hostages, with about 20 still held in captivity.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, the death toll in Gaza is nearly 54,000 since the war began.
Federal and state law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly issued bulletins, warning the country is vulnerable to terrorism, especially at large events, as a result of the Gaza war.
The New York City Police Department, responsible for protecting the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel, issued a bulletin last month, saying, "Jewish people and institutions continue to be the target of violent assaults, harassment, intimidation, hate crimes, and threats, especially since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war." On Thursday night, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned of an "elevated threat" facing the Jewish community in the wake of the back-to-back incidents in Washington, D.C., and Boulder.
However, the DHS and FBI did not indicate there are any known threats in a joint intelligence bulletin sent to law enforcement on May 23.
"Violent extremist messaging continues to highlight major sporting and cultural events and venues as potential targets, and threat actors -- including domestic violent extremists (DVEs), homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) inspired by Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), and other mass casualty attackers not motivated by an ideology -- previously have targeted public events with little to no warning," according to the bulletin.
John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security undersecretary of intelligence, said he is concerned that at this time of heightened security, the White House has proposed cutting the FBI's fiscal-year 2026 budget by $545 million dollars, or about 5% of the bureau's budget.
An internal memo from the FBI Chicago office, obtained in March by ABC Chicago station WLS-TV, confirmed that members of the office's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), and terrorism task forces nationwide, will be supporting Homeland Security task forces focused on making immigration arrests.
"So at the very time that we are seeing more and more acts of violence and destructive demonstration activity by people who are being, in some cases, not only inspired but facilitated by foreign threat actors, the concern is that the resources being devoted to addressing that threat are being decreased," said Cohen, an ABC News contributor.
Neumann said it's not just the FBI's counterterrorism departments getting slashed. She said an office she helped establish within the Department of Homeland Security to help communities across the nation prevent hate-fueled attacks is being drastically cut back.
ProPublica reported this week that the office, the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), is currently being spearheaded by a 22-year-old recent college graduate with no previous counterterrorism experience.
"What this office does is it creates capability locally, within a state, to be able to educate bystanders on the signs and indicators of somebody that might be radicalizing ... and then it helps states create the capability for mental health practitioners and other professionals to be able to intervene with individuals," Neumann said. "It was needed because we just have so many people moving into that stage of, 'Well, they might commit an act of violence, but they haven't done anything criminal yet.'"
Neumann, an ABC News contributor, said she has noticed a complacency set in after the U.S. declared victory over ISIS in 2019 and withdrew troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
"We are moving our eye off the ball to focus on things that I don't know are what I would put in the top of my counterterrorism bucket," Neumann said.
In a statement to ABC News, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said concerns that the administration has taken its eye off counterterrorism to focus on its deportation crackdown are unfounded.
"Immigration security IS national security -- look no further than the terrorist, who was in the United States illegally, that firebombed elderly Jewish women," Jackson said, referring to 45-year-old Egyptian citizen Mohamed Soliman accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at a group of marchers advocating for the release of hostages being held in Gaza. "Enforcing our immigration laws and removing illegal aliens is one big way President Trump is Making America Safe Again."
Soliman entered the U.S. in 2022 on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023, according to DHS. A senior official told ABC News he was then granted a work permit that expired in March 28, 2025.
Answering critics questioning the administration's preparedness for protecting the homeland in the wake of the string of recent terror attacks, Jackson said, "But the President can walk and chew gum at the same time -- we're holding all criminals accountable, whether they're illegal aliens or American citizens. That's why nationwide murder rates have plummeted, fugitives from the FBI's most wanted list have been captured, and police officers are empowered to do their jobs, unlike under the Biden Administration's soft-on-crime regime."
According to the Department Justice and annual FBI violent crime statistics, that nation's murder rate has fallen for the past three consecutive years.
The White House also pointed to President Donald Trump's proclamation on Wednesday banning travel from 12 countries -- including Afghanistan, Iran and Libya -- and imposing travel restrictions on seven other countries as evidence the administration has not lost its focus on national security concerns.
Egypt, where the suspect in the Boulder attack is from, was not included in the list of countries.
Ben Williamson, the FBI's assistant director for public affairs, told ABC News in a statement that while the bureau does not comment on specific personnel decisions, "our agents and support staff are dedicated professionals working around the clock to defend the homeland and crush violent crime -- a mission which certainly overlaps with the consequences of the previous administration's open border policies for four years."
Williamson added, "We are proud to work with our interagency partners to keep the American people safe."
Cohen, the former DHS intelligence official, said neither the Trump administration nor the Biden administration have done enough to prevent terrorism, while foreign actors and terrorist groups like ISIS have upped their game on the internet to radicalize converts within the U.S.
"We're continuing to see efforts to not just inspire but instruct those individuals who are angry, who are certain, who are looking for the justification to engage in violence, to express that anger," Cohen said. "So content is developing and introduced online that's intended to inspire them to commit violence, but also providing instructions on just how to do it. We've seen videos talking about vehicle ramming. We've seen videos talking about how to construct explosive devices. We've seen video online encouraging mass shootings at the same time."
In August 2024, two Austrian teenagers were arrested and accused of plotting to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna. Authorities said both suspects appeared to have been inspired by ISIS and al-Qaeda, and one of them had researched bomb-making techniques and uploaded to the internet an oath of allegiance to the current leader of the Islamic State.
"Law enforcement analysts over the last several months have seen online content posted by al-Qaeda-related and Hamas and Iranian-linked groups advocating violence as a way for people to respond to their concerns about what's going on in Gaza," Cohen said.
Neumann said the pandemic opened the door for terrorist groups to manipulate people during a time of extreme vulnerability. "COVID is a huge reason why it's more complicated," said Neumann, adding that the usual modus operandi of terrorist groups is "offering a certainty in an uncertain world."
"It's offering this black-and-white answer of why the bad thing happened to them," Neumann said. "When you look at why people mobilize to violence or radicalize, it is not the ideology. The ideology is kind of the bow that comes on top after all of these other factors have kind of gotten into play for an individual."
She added, "We, largely as a field, understand those that commit acts of violence have underlying psychosocial factors that have led them to this place where they are willing to be convinced that violence is the right solution for their problems."
Neumann pointed to a 2023 poll by University of California, Davis Violence Prevention Research Program that found 32.8% of respondents considered violence to be usually or always justified to advance some political objectives. "And then you add to it, COVID, Oct. 7, social media, it's just a perfect cauldron for a lot of people to be led astray," Neumann said.
In three of the alleged U.S. terrorist attacks that have occurred since mid-April, investigators said the suspects were motivated by the war to commit violence on American soil.
The suspect in the April 13 firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor's residence allegedly targeted Gov. Shapiro, who is Jewish, "based upon perceived injustices to the people of Palestine," according to a criminal complaint. The man who allegedly gunned down two Israeli embassy staff members on May 21 outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., was captured on video shouting "Free Palestine" following the shooting. Neither suspect has entered a plea.
In Boulder, Colorado, on June 1, authorities say Soliman, shouting "free Palestine" and wielding a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, targeted demonstrators, injuring 15.
Soliman has been charged in both state and federal court. He is also charged with hate crimes in the federal case. He has yet to enter a plea to any of the charges.
The year started off with the New Year's Day truck-ramming on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that left 14 people dead. The suspect, who was killed in a gunfight with police, had pledged support for ISIS, according to investigators. In a Facebook video the suspect posted as he drove to commit the attack, he said he "originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the 'war between the believers and the disbelievers.'"
Cohen said, "Regional conflicts in the past were isolated events occurring in foreign lands. But because of the internet, they are now taking place in communities across America."
A fifth terrorist attack, that was apparently unrelated to the Middle East war, occurred on May 17 in Palm Springs, California, where a car packed with large quantities of ammonium nitrate was detonated, allegedly by a 25-year-old man who investigators said died in the blast and lived by "pro-mortalism, anti-natalism, and anti-pro-life ideology," or the belief that people should not be born without their consent.
An alleged co-conspirator in the Palm Springs attack was arrested this month with federal authorities saying he provided large quantities of ammonium nitrate to the suspect killed in the blast.
The attacks in Washington, D.C., New Orleans and at Gov. Shapiro's Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, residence were all allegedly carried out by U.S. citizens, according to investigators. The suspect in the Boulder attack is an Egypt-born man who lived in Kuwait until he moved to Colorado three years ago and had overstayed his B2 tourist visa, investigators said.
Additionally, a dual American-German citizen was arrested on May 19 after he allegedly attempted to attack the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, but was thwarted by a guard, investigators said. The suspect was captured after dropping a backpack filled with Molotov cocktails, authorities said.
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"We have to do a better job at maintaining awareness of the threat, and that means by tracking what foreign domestic threat actors or what foreign intelligence services terrorist groups are posting online, the types of attacks they're calling for and the techniques that they are promoting to conduct those attacks," Cohen said. "Law enforcement can take that intelligence then and have a better understanding of the targets that are at risk and ensure that security measures are put in place to reduce the likelihood that these types of public events would be targeted."
Neumann said that the current threat environment requires an urgent response from the federal government.
"As with everything that happens in Washington, there will be another attack of such a scale that people are going to say, 'We should do something,' and then all of a sudden, the money will flow, and then they'll be like, 'Oh, look, here's this new shiny object that we can solve this problem with,'" Neumann said. "It will get restarted, but we will have lost a long period of time and expertise and will have to make some similar mistakes again as we relearn. That's kind of sad, because in the intervening time people will die because we're not investing in this now."
ABC News' Michelle Stoddart and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
Amid recent string of attacks inspired by Israel-Hamas war, some experts worry counterterrorism not a priority originally appeared on abcnews.go.com