Top Republican lawmakers are calling for U.S. security agencies to quickly change course under President Donald Trump to better confront threats from terror groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.
The House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday issued an update threat assessment, highlighting the New Year’s Day truck ramming attack in New Orleans, which killed 14 people, as well as the June 2024 arrest of eight Tajik nationals with suspected Islamic State ties.
“Make no mistake — all of the lights are still blinking red,” said committee chair Republican Representative Mark Green in a statement.
“The New Orleans terrorist attack was a stark reminder that the terror threat to America is alive and persistent,” said Green. “Foreign terrorist organizations and jihadist networks abroad remain committed to recruiting and radicalizing individuals on U.S. soil.”
Green’s comments harken back to a 2023 warning from then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, made in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel, which officials said seemed to inspire terror groups around the world.
“I’ve never seen a time where all the threats, or so many of the threats, are all elevated, all at exactly the same time,” Wray said at the time.
Last year, Wray warned the FBI was increasingly concerned about a coordinated terror attack on the U.S. like the March 2024 Islamic State terror attacks on a Moscow concert hall.
The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 annual threat assessment, issued this past October, warned, “The terrorism threat environment in the United States over the next year will remain high.”
And it attributed the biggest danger to individuals who are not necessarily affiliated with established terror groups.
“The threat will continue to be characterized primarily by lone offenders or small cells motivated to violence by a combination of racial, religious, gender, or anti-government grievances; conspiracy theories; and personalized factors,” it said.
Green on Wednesday blamed the increased threat on the administration of former President Joe Biden, saying terror groups have been “emboldened by the national security blunders of the past four years.”
The committee’s “Terror Threat Snapshot” cited more than 50 terrorism cases in 30 U.S. states since April 2021 and 187 terrorism arrests, attacks and plots in Western Europe since the start of 2023.
Democrats expressed some disappointment, arguing the comments have not been backed up by the committee’s actions to date.
“It’s a bit confusing,” according to one staffer, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to respond to the chair’s comments. “Why haven’t they had substantive hearings on foreign terrorism and homegrown violent extremism?”
Meanwhile, a new report Wednesday by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies cautioned that while there is reason to be concerned about the exploits and ambitions of groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida, the threat inside the United States does not appear to be growing.
“Longer-term trends suggest that jihadist terrorism in the United States is not resurgent,” according to the report.
“Groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida have filled more of an inspirational role rather than directly orchestrating attacks on the United States,” it said. “The average lethality of jihadist terrorist attacks has also fallen since the peak of the [Islamic State] caliphate.”
The CSIS report found there were a yearly average of 38 recorded attacks or plots in the U.S. from 2020 to 2023, but only 21 recorded plots or attacks during the first 11 months of 2024.
