Top 3 factors that increase the risk of a terrorist attack in a country

As a former military intelligence officer, working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), I tracked foreign threats to the US homeland, identifying enemy plans, intentions and capabilities that could harm the American people. I predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than a year before it happened. In March, in my Fox News Digital article entitled “Ignore the FBI director’s urgent warning about the terrorist threats to our danger,” I predicted a terrorist attack in the United States, the kind that happened on New Year’s Day in New Orleans and Las. Vegas.

Here are the top three reasons why we may face more terrorism in America this year. This time, it will be something we have never seen before.

Bureaucratic Inertia Impedes Defense Against Threats

Bureaucratic inertia prevents government agencies from acting on the threats they see and warn about. During the conference’s annual briefing on “global threats” to the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that terrorist threats have reached “a whole level” from an already tense situation. Wray spoke of the “heightened” threat posed by “domestic violent extremists, jihadist-inspired extremists, extremists, domestic extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, and state-sponsored terrorist organizations.”

He also called out violent gangs and smugglers with links to ISIS entering the country through the southern border. This was in March 2024.

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Wray’s concerns, however, did not translate into an improved security situation that should have been accepted by the intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies, and could have avoided the tragic events in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and saved American lives.

Millions of immigrants, mostly men of military age, including criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence agents, have continued to pour into our country. The most dangerous gang from Venezuela, Tren de Aragua, has established operations in 16 states, including New Jersey and New York, since November. They attacked the American people, at will.

To this day, the border is not fully secured, allowing millions of illegal crossings, suppressing local law enforcement and making communities unsafe. A popular free app called the CBP One app, continues to be widely available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Immigrants of all stripes who wish to enter the United States use it to schedule interview sessions, conducted remotely, to qualify for asylum status and to enter our country. This is all because of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Has the FBI implemented any of the 18 recommendations made by the 2012 William Webster Commission to develop and identify terrorist threats? What actions, if any, were taken following Wray’s March warning? These are the right questions for Americans to ask of their government. Especially given that we’ve had two assassination attempts on President-elect Trump, mysterious drone flights over our military installations, and rampant crimes by members of international gangs – all since March.

FBI Director Christopher Wray arrives to testify during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on June 4, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Threats ‘Over the horizon’ seem to have been ignored

There is a new threat coming. And it hasn’t even made it to the government’s to-do list. Drone warfare is a prime example of such an emerging threat, driven by the democratization of high-tech capabilities, such as unmanned aerial systems (UASs). UAS is the general term for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV – aircraft or drone), but it includes the entire UAV operating system, including the ground control station (to host the pilot operating the UAV); communication hardware (which links the UAV to the controller); payload (cameras, sensors, explosives, etc.); and flight planning software.

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UASs present easily the most dangerous threat our country has ever faced for three reasons. They are commercially available, relatively inexpensive, highly controllable, very difficult to detect and define, and have unlimited payment potential. You can outfit the UAS with a non-kinetic payload, such as a sensor or camera, or a kinetic or lethal force, such as an explosive, bomb, or WMD (chemical, biological, radiological).

An Islamic State masked terrorist holds an ISIS flag in 2015. (History Group/Universal Images via Getty Images)

Originally employed by our military for surveillance purposes and later as a counter-terrorism tool to eliminate terrorist leaders, drones are now widely available and used, including by terrorists. Drone warfare is being used and perfected in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and on the battlefields of the Middle East.

Drones have the perfect ability to hit soft targets and densely populated areas, which their home country is full of. Here’s what a 2023 study commissioned by the US Department of Homeland Security says: “The increasing use of UASs in both private sector and government operations likely means that more people will have access to these systems in the future and the skills to use them, making the use of UASs in attacks very possible.” The study highlighted the fact that “UAS can also give the operator the ability to act anonymously and a greater chance of avoiding detection and capture.” This feature can be very attractive to terrorists and US enemy state actors.

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As of 2018, the US government knew about the drone threat. Kirstjen M. Nielsen, who was the secretary of Homeland Security at the time, wrote in a Washington Post article, “The US is not ready for the growing threat of drones,” and was defenseless against them. He even pointed out that “terrorist groups like the Islamic State wish to use armed drones against our country and US interests overseas.”

And yet, to this day, we are still vulnerable to drone attacks. It became clear to everyone whether we can still defend ourselves against such attacks during the recent mysterious drone incidents. For weeks since November, unidentified drones have been flying over military bases and critical infrastructure facilities in several East Coast states, including New Jersey and New York, and no federal or state security agencies have stopped them. The White House and the Pentagon even admitted that they do not know the origin of those drones.

A soldier of the Ukrainian Air Force carries a drone in the direction of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 10, 2024. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Politicizing intelligence drives the wrong goals

All government security agencies are now politicized, from foreign threats, such as terrorists, to the American opposition. Instead of identifying and stopping those who are out to harm the American people, our government agencies have been targeting our citizens who oppose the spread of ideas that have risen in our society. Catholics, whose religious beliefs prevent them from accepting things such as transgenderism, and parents, who protest against the intellectualization of their children in left-wing ideologies, such as critical race theory (CRT), which pervades our public schools, are now viewed by government agencies as domestic threat actors.

This terrible policy comes from the very top. President Biden has been downplaying the terrorist threat to the country, including that from ISIS. In June 2021, Biden said: “According to the intelligence community, terrorism from White supremacy is the most dangerous in our country today. Not ISIS, not al Qaeda – white supremacists.” Is it any wonder that the FBI agent initially ruled out any links between the New Orleans attacker and terrorism or ISIS? That despite the fact that the attacker, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar from Texas, had put an ISIS flag in his Ford van, which he deliberately drove into a group of citizens celebrating New Year’s in the French Quarter, killing 14. .

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army medic convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009. (US Government Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences via Getty Images)

Similarly, the FBI failed to identify a military psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who in 2009 shot and killed 13 people and wounded 31 at Fort Hood, Texas, as someone involved in terrorist activities – despite Hasan’s frequent contacts. known terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. In his book, Hasan, an American-born Muslim, discussed suicide bombings, and whether it is permissible to “kill innocent people for an important purpose.”

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According to the 2012 report of the William Webster Commission on the FBI, Counterterrorism, Intelligence and the Events at Fort Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009, the FBI’s San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force knew that Hasan was connected to al. -You don’t wait many times before shooting. However, the FBI’s Washington field office determined that Hasan was “not involved in terrorist activities.” The FBI therefore did not issue a warning about Hasan’s terrorist links to the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, both of which described the incident as workplace violence and not an act of terrorism. The 2012 report made 18 formal recommendations for the FBI to improve and detect terrorist threats.

The incoming Trump administration has promised to cut federal agencies. Appointing Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, as Director of National Intelligence, as part of a Republican administration is a step in the right direction. Intelligence should be nonpartisan. Intelligence officials should not be afraid to speak truth to power even if their agenda conflicts with the policies of the sitting president. But breaking government inertia will be a very tall order. Let’s see, if the DOGE can force government officials to protect the drone threat and save the American people.

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