As the US election comes down the final stretch, the radical Islamic terrorism threat continues to metastasize—at home and abroad.
On October 8, the FBI arrested an Afghan man who authorities allege was planning an Election Day attack on behalf of the Islamic State. According to the DOJ, Nasir Ahmad Tawhidi, 28, an Afghan residing in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, “allegedly took steps to liquidate his family’s assets, resettle members of his family overseas, acquire AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition, and commit a terrorist attack in the United States.” Then, on October 13, the Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office in Paris announced that an unidentified relative of Tawhidi was charged with plotting to conduct an attack on a soccer match on behalf of the Islamic State.
According to NBC News, Tawhidi worked as a security guard for the Central Intelligence Agency before entering the United States in September 2021. According to the same reporting, senior Biden administration officials stated that counterterrorism officials assessed that he was likely radicalized during his three years in the US. Contrary to earlier speculation, Tawhidi did not enter the United States on a Special Immigration Visa (SIV) but on humanitarian parole. He passed two rounds of vetting, almost certainly aided by his previous work for the CIA, before he was granted parole. Tawhidi then applied for an SIV, likely because it provides an easier path toward obtaining legal permanent residence in the US.
These arrests have not been made in isolation. Over the summer, authorities disrupted terror plots in Germany, Austria, and France. Further, in June 2024, the FBI arrested eight Tajik Nationals across the US due to suspected links to the Islamic State–seven of those men have been removed or are awaiting removal from the country following rulings by immigration court justices. Relatedly, on July 12, Asif Merchant, a Pakistani man with ties to Iran, was arrested and subsequently indicted on September 10 for a murder-for-hire plot against US politicians, including President Trump. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, considering the Iranians have repeatedly promised to avenge the drone strike Trump ordered that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.
The FBI and the Secret Service should be commended for disrupting these plots. However, these incidents point to multiple vulnerabilities.
First, the continued and exacerbated radicalization threat is real and pervasive. The Islamic State’s propaganda arm is advanced, utilizing artificial intelligence to create deepfakes. This creates a new tool to hinder overworked FBI and Secret Service agents. Just this week, Cole Bridges, a former American infantryman who was radicalized before joining the US Army, was sentenced to 10 years for attempting to help the Islamic State kill American soldiers. Put another way, if the US Army cannot correctly identify radicalized soldiers, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security will almost certainly struggle to identify terrorists across the United States.
Second, the Iranians and their proxy networks pose a serious threat to the homeland and forces abroad. In early March, the FBI warned about Majid Dastjani Farhani, an Iranian intelligence officer, for trying to recruit assets to assassinate US government officials. Iran’s proxy network in the “Axis of Resistance,” especially Hezbollah, remains a severe threat to US forces throughout the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan, and especially the 100 soldiers being deployed to Israel to help with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery.
With three weeks left to the election, terrorism targeting the US, American personnel overseas, and other targets remains a persistent threat. The lights are still blinking red.
