Terrorism
global
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Make no mistake, the threat of global terrorism is as real and dangerous as ever. Over the past decade, there has been an unprecedented cycle of jihadist mobilization as Islamist violent extremist groups leverage new technologies, social media, and sophisticated messaging to recruit foreign fighters to their cause.
The Taliban’s breathtakingly fast takeover of Afghanistan infused a renewed enthusiasm into the jihadist narrative and inspired increased violence by the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups in Pakistan. Meanwhile, as Israel advanced into southern Lebanon, its troops found large stashes of Russian weapons in Hezbollah-controlled areas.
ISIS-K, which is active primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan, recently claimed responsibility for a major attack in Russia and is thought to be behind another in Iran. Although the ISIS caliphate is gone, the group still has cells and affiliates scattered across Africa and Southeast Asia. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has raised serious concerns about a potential resurgence there. Before his death by an American drone, Ayman al-Zawahiri significantly empowered local franchises of al-Qa’ida, encouraging them to participate in acts of governance and build their very own civic society.
The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, released on February 5, 2024, warned:
U.S. persons and interests at home and abroad will face an ideologically diverse threat from terrorism. This threat is mostly likely to manifest in small cells or individuals inspired by foreign terrorist organizations and violent extremist ideologies to conduct attacks.
While Al-Qa’ida has reached an operational nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan and ISIS has suffered cascading leadership losses in Iraq and Syria, regional affiliates will continue to expand. These gains symbolize the shift of the center of gravity in the Sunni global jihad to Africa.
Terrorists will maintain an interest in conducting attacks using chemical, biological and radioactive materials against U.S. persons, allies, and interests worldwide. Terrorists from diverse ideological backgrounds continue to circulate instructions of varied credibility for the procurement or production of toxic or radioactive weapons using widely available materials in social media and online fora.
ISIS
ISIS will remain a centralized global organization even as it has been forced to rely on regional branches in response to successive leadership losses during the past few years. External capabilities vary across ISIS’s global branches, but the group will remain focused on attempting to conduct and inspire global attacks against the West and Western interests.
ISIS–Greater Sahara and ISIS–West Africa contribute to and capitalize on government instability, communal conflict, and anti-government grievances to make gains in Nigeria and the Sahel.
ISIS-Khorasan is trying to conduct attacks that undermine the legitimacy of the Taliban regime by expanding attacks against foreign interests in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda regional affiliates on the African continent and Yemen will sustain the global network as the group maintains its strategic intent to target the United States and U.S. citizens. Al-Qaeda senior leadership has not yet announced the replacement for the former emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, reflecting the regionally focused and decentralized nature of the organization.
Al-Shabaab continues to advance its attack capabilities by acquiring weapons systems while countering a multinational CT campaign, presenting a risk to U.S. personnel. In 2023, al-Shabaab also expanded its operations in Northeast Kenya.
Hizballah
Lebanese Hizballah will continue to develop its global terrorist capabilities as a complement to the group’s growing conventional military capabilities in the region. Since October 2023, Hizballah has conducted attacks along Israel’s northern border to tie down Israeli forces as they seek to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. Hizballah probably will continue to conduct provocative actions such as rocket launches against Israel throughout the conflict.
Hizballah seeks to limit U.S. influence in Lebanon and the broader Middle East, and maintains the capability to target U.S. persons and interests in the region, worldwide, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States.
Transnational Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists
The transnational racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVE) movement, in particular motivated by white supremacy, will continue to foment violence across Europe, South America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand inspiring the lone actor or small-cell attacks that pose a significant threat to U.S. persons. The loose structure of transnational RMVE organizations and networks, which encourage or inspire but do not typically direct attacks, will challenge local security services and creates resilience against disruptions.
Lone actors are difficult to detect and disrupt because of their lack of affiliation. While these violent extremists tend to leverage simple attack methods, they can have devastating, outsized consequences.
RMVE publications and manifestoes from previous attackers feed the RMVE movement with violent propaganda, targets, and tactics. The Terrorgram Collective, a loosely connected network of online channels and chatrooms, has a global reach and with its sophisticated online publications seek to inspire violence.
Since early 2022, we have identified five RMVE attacks and five suspected RMVE attacks, killing a total of 27 people, by apparent lone actors in the United States and abroad. During the same period, there have been disrupted RMVE plots, arrests, and threats reported in several European countries.
The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, released in March 2025, warned:
ISIS
ISIS’s most aggressive branches, including ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), and its entrepreneurial plotters will continue to seek to attack the West, including the United States, via online outreach and propaganda aimed at directing, enabling, or inspiring attacks, and could exploit vulnerable travel routes. ISIS has suffered major setbacks and is incapable of holding ground in Iraq and Syria. In recent years, ISIS saw the U.S. defeat of its physical caliphate in 2019, the loss of three overall leaders in 2022, 2023, and 2025, and renewed counterterrorism efforts this year removing leaders driving global operations. Nevertheless, ISIS remains the world’s largest Islamic terrorist organization, has sought to gain momentum from high-profile attacks, and continues to rely on its most capable branches and globally dispersed leadership to weather degradation.
The New Year’s Day attacker in New Orleans was influenced by ISIS propaganda, and separately, an Afghan national was arrested in October for planning an election day attack in the name of ISIS, highlighting ISIS’s ability to reach into the Homeland to both inspire and enable attacks.
ISIS-K in South Asia is the group’s branch most capable of carrying out external terrorist attacks and maintains the intent to conduct attacks in South and Central Asia, and globally, although its capabilities vary. ISIS-K’s mass casualty attacks in Russia and Iran in 2024, as well as arrests of ISIS-K supporters in Europe and the United States, highlight the group’s expanding capability beyond South Asia and ability to inspire individuals to conduct attacks abroad.
ISIS will seek to exploit the end of the Asad regime in Syria to reconstitute its attack capabilities, including external plotting, and to free prisoners to rebuild their ranks.
In 2024, the ISIS spokesman publicly hailed the group’s Africa expansion, highlighting the growing importance of the continent to the group. ISIS-Somalia has doubled in size during the past year, ISISWest Africa remains the largest branch and leads in numbers of claimed attacks, and ISIS-Sahel is expanding into coastal West Africa.
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda maintains its intent to target the United States and U.S. citizens across its global affiliates. Its leaders, some of whom remain in Iran, have tried to exploit anti-Israeli sentiment over the war in Gaza to unite Muslims and encourage attacks against Israel and the United States. Al-Qaeda’s media apparatus issued statements from leaders and the group’s affiliates supporting Hamas and encouraging attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) relaunched its Inspire guide with videos and tweets that encouraged attacks against Jewish targets, the United States, and Europe. Inspire provided instructions for making bombs and placing explosive devices on civilian airliners and gave religious, ideological, historical, and moral justification for such attacks. In addition to trying to inspire attacks worldwide and in the United States, AQAP has the intent to conduct operations in the region and beyond.
Al-Shabaab – Al-Qaeda’s largest and wealthiest affiliate – remains focused on attacks in Somalia that further its regional objectives, provides funding to Al-Qaeda efforts outside of Somalia, and has a burgeoning relationship with the Huthis that could provide access to a new source of more sophisticated weapons, increasing the threat to U.S. interests in the region.
In West Africa, Al-Qaeda is expanding its territorial control by gaining inroads with civilians through the provision of services and intimidation, and is threatening urban centers in Burkina Faso and Mali, where U.S. personnel are located.
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Hurras al-Din, probably is exploiting the end of the Asad regime in Syria to strengthen its position. Despite its public announcement that the group was ordered dissolved by Al-Qaeda’s senior leaders in Iran, Hurras al-Din members were advised not to disarm and instead to prepare for a future conflict, noting their continued fight against the Jews and their supporters.
Other Groups
Other Islamic terrorist groups – including some with historical ties to Al-Qaeda – continue to pose a threat to the United States primarily in the regions where they operate. Most of these groups generally have targeted local governments in recent years, while Lebanese Hizballah has continued to pursue limited targeting of primarily Israeli and Jewish individuals in and outside of the Middle East. The U.S. government works with partners worldwide to prevent attacks against U.S. citizens, while watching for indications that these groups may shift intent and build capabilities to pursue transnational attacks.
In South Asia, Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) operations in recent years have focused exclusively on targeting the Government of Pakistan, probably to avoid drawing more counterterrorism pressure. However, TTP’s capabilities, historical ties to Al-Qaeda, and previous support to operations targeting the United States keep us concerned about the potential future threat. Anti-India groups, including Lashkar-e Tayyiba, similarly concern us in part because of their historical links with Al-Qaeda.