A Holiday Warning

Troubling Clouds…

I know traditionally this is the time of year when we seek a quieter time of life and hope for a warm, loving family holiday. We try to capture good cheer in the air.

That’s why it is so disconcerting for me to write this column. Through multiple interviews over the past month, I’ve learned that counter terror experts are privately and publicly expressing alarm that major terror attacks are being prepared throughout the United States.

J. Michael Waller, who I’ve known for two decades last week told me that, the risk of terror attacks in the United States “is by far the most grave in our history.”

Officially, Waller is a senior analyst for Strategy at the Century for Security Policy. But he’s also a highly regarded analyst in military and counter terror affairs. He has been an instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. He also has been a guest lecturer at the FBI Academy. He is a soft-spoken man who rarely is an alarmist.

But Waller told me that “our detection and enforcement systems are overwhelmed. We’re not just talking about individual terrorists and jihadists, but organized terror networks and their legal support systems, and state-sponsored covert intelligence networks whose cadres are professionally trained and strategically deployed.”

His grave assessment is shared by John Guandolo, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, who recently reached out to me. He’s also a Marine Corps combat veteran from the first Gulf War and most importantly, was a counter terrorism expert as an FBI Special Agent beginning right after the 9/11 attacks.

He told me, “Al Qaeda cells have embedded themselves across major urban centers in the US. This has been confirmed by intercepted communications, financial tracking, and human intelligence. The attack strategy by Al Qaeda is designed to sow confusion and cripple emergency response.”

Sara Adams concurs. She’s a former CIA targeting officer and analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia. She warns that “A war is coming to the U.S. homeland—whether you like it or not.”

She claims the U.S. faces new suicide bombings along with “a Mumbai-style hostage/assault in Washington, D.C., and mass-casualty urban attacks where you live, work and play targeting churches, hospitals, malls, transit, and first responders.”

She adds, “A terrorist plot of this scale has never been set into motion here, with al-Qaeda leading on one front and ISIS on another.”

Aligned with these warnings is an official warning by the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT) at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The warning was to state and local officials of “Al-Qa‘ida’s resurgence of calls for attacks in the homeland.” They cited the “persistent and enduring threats” of Al-Qa‘ida and its Yemen-based affiliate, al-Qa‘ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

I hope these experts are wrong. But now there also is mounting evidence that individual Islamic Jihadis are ramping up inside the United States.

In the last five weeks alone, there have been an unusual number of federal arrests of radicalized Muslims who allegedly were planning terror attacks. Here is what we know:

On October 31, according to the Justice Department, five Muslims “were charged for having firearms that would be used in a conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. The federal complaint sets forth grievous allegations of a radical Islamic terror plot involving AR-style rifles, shotguns, handguns, and other tools for a tactical assault.”

The arrests, three from the Muslim-dominated city of Dearborn, Michigan didn’t make much news. Two more were later arrested in New Jersey.

Then there is Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, 30, of Fort Worth, Texas. He was arrested on November 23 and has been federally charged with threatening to build a bomb, conducting a suicide attack and kill Americans. As alleged, Alokozay, a former Afghan citizen, threatened to conduct a suicide attack on the other participants as well as “infidels,” a common term for Westerners.

The next day, on November 24, University of Delaware student Luqmaan Khan, age 25, was arrested with a with a huge cache of guns, body armor and a notebook filled with plans to shoot up his school. Khan told FBI investigators that martyrdom is “one of the greatest things you can do” and “a goal,” according to court filings.

And, as we all know, two days later, on November 26, Rahmanullah Lakanwal 29 of Belleville, Washington gunned down two National Guardsmen in the nation’s capital, killing one. Lakanwal told relatives “I am living with Tablighi.” Tablighi is an Arabic word that means to “inform” or “convey” and it refers today to Tablighi Jamaat, a global Islamic missionary movement.

Waller says that the open borders policy of President Biden was a great opportunity for our enemies. “Any adversary would be a fool not to have taken advantage of the open borders policy to infiltrate their people here without detection. There is no way to discern who most of them are. They can hide comfortably among welcoming religious and ethnic communities, with shelter from sanctuary cities and the politicians and judges bent on keeping them here.”

Guandolo agrees. “The problem is we do not know how many are in the U.S. We do know millions of people entered the United States during the Biden administration, many were military aged males from hostile countries, and many are still in the United States.”

But he is more specific. Guandolo claims, “We also know Al Qaeda brought at least 1000 soldiers into the U.S. in the last year to execute their latest operation which we expect between now and end of February. This will be a series of widescale nationwide attacks in at least 5 states. No local or state police, nor the FBI are prepared for what is coming.”

The prospect that a terrifying mass-casualty attack may soon hit Western cities has not been lost on the Israelis.

On November 27, Israel’s National Emergency Authority director general, Avichai Kahana oversaw an unusual strategic exercise simulating a scenario in which a massive wave of immigration of Jews takes place in a short period of time.

One possible scenario that could lead to the a flash of immigration would involve a terrorist attack against the Jewish community in a Western country. Kahana noted that in some countries, Israel already has “possible warnings” that in one night, riots will break and Jews will want to pack up and leave immediately.

We know we’re living in unusual times. We have seen the West face increasingly militant pro-Islamic groups join forces with some of their anti-Israel progressive allies to attack Jews and isolate and demonize Israel.

Is this the beginning of a spectacular set of coordinated Islamic attacks in the United States? Are these experts right?

I certainly hope they’re wrong. But we also have to be aware that we are witnessing an unprecedented rise in Islamic militancy throughout the world.

Let’s hope for peace during the holidays and into our future.