The FBI’s Director, Christopher Wray, said on Tuesday (Oct. 31) that the US is “in a dangerous period” given the prolonged conflict between Israel and Hamas and that the prospect of targeted attacks, including hate crimes not seen in over a decade, remains high.
The danger perception of international terrorism in the United States has been relatively low in recent years, especially since the so-called Islamic State terror group’s territorial gains in Iraq and Syria were liberated.
However, according to recent reports in the US media citing senior American officials, Hamas’ fatal October 7 strike on Israel is likely to have consequences for individuals in and outside the US.
“The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level,” Christopher Wray said in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The FBI director stops short of tying Hamas to ISIS
Israeli authorities, notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have compared Hamas to ISIS by citing the atrocities committed by its members.
“Hamas is ISIS” is a rallying cry of Israeli leaders amid the ongoing state of war in West Asia.
Hamas’ attack, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, “will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago,” Wray said.
Following the Hamas strikes, Al-Qaeda raises its head against the United States
While the FBI has no proof of imminent danger from a foreign terrorist group within the United States, Wray stated that al-Qaeda has issued its most precise demand for violence against the United States in many years.
Furthermore, the Islamic State has asked its alleged supporters, who are sometimes referred to as ‘sleeper cells’ by a number of security organizations, to attack Jews in the United States and Europe.
According to Christine Abizaid, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the Israel-Hamas conflict has been highlighted in al-Qaeda propaganda since October 7.
“We have seen it from al-Qaeda affiliates, almost every single one of them,” she was quoted as saying by Newsweek.
“We have also seen it from ISIS, which isn’t ideologically aligned with a group like Hamas but is still leveraging this current conflict to try to sow the kind of violence and bring adherence to its cause in a kind of exploitative way.”
Meanwhile, the FBI director stated that the most serious issue for the agency is extremist acts of violence, which might be conducted by lone individuals inspired by terrorist organizations.
“We have seen that already with the individual we arrested last week in Houston, who’d been studying how to build bombs and posted online about his support for killing Jews,” Wray said. “And with the tragic killing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois in what we’re investigating as a federal hate crime.”
