As a former military intelligence officer, serving in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), I tracked foreign threats to the U.S. homeland, identifying adversaries’ plans, intentions and capabilities that could harm Americans. I predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year before it took place. In March, in my Fox News Digital article titled “Ignore FBI director’s urgent warning about terrorist threats at our own peril,” I predicted terrorist attacks striking inside the U.S. homeland, the kind that took place on New Year’s Day in New Orleans and in Las Vegas.
Here are the top three reasons why we will likely face more terrorism in America this year. This time, it will be something we haven’t seen before.
Bureaucratic Inertia Stifles Defense Against Threats
Bureaucratic inertia prevents government agencies from acting on threats they themselves identify and warn about. During last year’s annual congressional briefing on the top “worldwide threats” facing the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that terrorist threats have reached a “whole other level” from the already heightened situation. Wray mentioned the “elevated” threat posed by “homegrown violent extremists, that is jihadist-inspired, extremists, domestic violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, and state-sponsored terrorist organizations.”
He also specifically called out violent gangs and smugglers with ties to ISIS entering the country via the southern border. This was in March 2024.
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Wray’s concerns, however, did not translate into an augmented security posture that should have been adopted by 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 migrants, predominantly military-age males, including criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence operatives, continued to pour into our country. The highly dangerous transnational criminal gang from Venezuela, Tren de Aragua, has established operations in 16 states, including New Jersey and New York, as of November. They’re attacking Americans, at will.
To this day, the border has not been fully secured, enabling millions of illegal crossings, straining local law enforcement and making communities unsafe. The notorious free mobile application called the CBP One app, continues to be widely available on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Foreigners of all stripes who wish to enter the United States use it to schedule interview appointments, conducted remotely, to qualify for asylum status and entry to our country. All of this is courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Did the FBI implement any of the 18 recommendations made by the 2012 William Webster Commission to improve and detect terrorist threats? What actions, if any, were taken following Wray’s March warning? These are fair questions for Americans to ask of their government. Especially given that we’ve had two assassination attempts on President-elect Trump, mysterious drone overflights over our military installations, and rampant crime committed by members of a transnational criminal gang – all since March.
‘Over-the-horizon’ threats seemingly ignored
There’s a whole new threat that is looming over the horizon. And it hasn’t even hit the government’s to-do-list yet. Drone warfare is a prime example of such an emerging threat, which is driven by the democratization of high-tech capabilities, such as uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs). UAS is a general term for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV – aircraft or drone), but it encompasses the UAV’s entire operating system, including a ground control station (hosting the pilot operating the UAV); communication hardware (linking the UAV and controller); payload (cameras, sensors, explosives, etc.); and flight planning software.
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UASs easily present the most dangerous threat our homeland has ever faced for three reasons. They are commercially available, relatively inexpensive, highly maneuverable, extremely difficult to identify and characterize, and have virtually unlimited payload capacity. You can outfit a UAS with a non-kinetic payload, such as a sensor or a camera, or with a kinetic or lethal capability, such as an explosive device, a bomb, or a WMD (chemical, biological, radiological).
Originally employed by our military for surveillance purposes and then later as a counterterrorism tool to eliminate terrorist leaders, drones are now widely available and used, including by terrorists. Drone warfare is being operationalized and perfected in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and in combat zones in the Middle East.
Drones are a perfect capability to strike soft targets and crowded places, which the homeland is full of. Here’s what a 2023 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security noted: “The growing use of UASs in both the private sector and government operations likely means that more people will have access to these systems in the future and the expertise to operate them, making the use of UASs for attacks increasingly likely.” The study highlighted the fact that “UASs can also give the operator the ability to act anonymously and a greater chance to avoid detection and capture.” This characteristic can be very attractive to terrorists as well as state actors who are U.S. adversaries.
As early as 2018, the U.S. government knew about the drone threat. Kirstjen M. Nielsen, then secretary of Homeland Security, wrote in a Washington Post article, “The U.S. isn’t prepared for the growing threat of drones,” and was defenseless against them. She even revealed that “terrorist groups such as the Islamic State aspire to use armed drones against our homeland and U.S. interests overseas.”
And yet, to this day, we remain vulnerable to drone attacks. It became very obvious to everyone just how defenseless we still are to such attacks during the recent mysterious drone incidents. For weeks since November, unidentified drones were reportedly flying over military sites and critical infrastructure facilities in multiple East Coast states, including New Jersey and New York, and neither federal nor state security agencies put an end to it. The White House and the Pentagon even admitted not knowing the origin of those drones.
Politicization of intelligence drives shift to the wrong targets
The entire government security apparatus is now politicized, having shifted its focus from foreign threats, such as terrorists, to American dissidents. Instead of identifying and stopping those who are hell-bent on harming Americans, our government agencies have been targeting our own citizens who oppose the spread of woke ideologies in our society. Catholics, whose religious convictions prevent them from accepting things like transgenderism, and parents, who protest against the brainwashing of their children in leftist ideologies, such as the critical race theory (CRT), engulfing our public schools, are now viewed by government agencies as domestic threat actors.
This heinous politicization comes from the very top. President Biden has been minimizing the terrorist threat to the homeland, including that emanating from ISIS. In June 2021, Biden said: “According to the intelligence community, terrorism from White supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not al Qaeda – White supremacists.” Is it any wonder that the FBI agent-in-charge 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 of Texas, had an ISIS flag installed on his Ford pickup, which he intentionally rammed into a group of civilians celebrating the New Year in the French Quarter, killing 14.
Similarly, the FBI failed to identify an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, who in 2009 shot and killed 13 people and injured 31 at Fort Hood, Texas, as someone involved in terrorist activities – despite the fact that Hasan was in regular contact with a known terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. In his correspondence, Hasan, an American-born Muslim, discussed suicide bombers, and whether it is permissible for “the killing of innocents for a valuable target.”
According to a 2012 Report of the William Webster Commission on the FBI, Counterrorism, Intelligence and the Events at Fort Hood, Texas on Nov. 5, 2009, the FBI agents on the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force were aware that Hasan had contacted al-Awlaki numerous times before the shooting spree. Nevertheless, the FBI field office in Washington 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 the Army and the Pentagon, both of which classified the incident as workplace violence and not an act of terrorism. The 2012 report made 18 formal recommendations to the FBI to improve and detect terrorist threats.
The incoming Trump administration promised to de-politicize government agencies. Nominating Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, as the Director of National Intelligence, as part of a Republican administration is a step in the right direction. Intelligence is supposed to be nonpartisan. Intelligence officers should not fear to speak truth to power even if their analytic line contradicts the sitting president’s policies. But eradicating government’s inertia will be a much taller order. Let’s see, if DOGE can compel government bureaucrats to mount defenses against the drone threat and save Americans.
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