McLEAN, Va. — Brett Holmgren woke up early on New Year’s Day to warnings that a driver was colliding a crowd of revelers in New Orleans.
The rampage, which killed fourteen people, was the deadliest attack on US soil in years and inspired by the Islamic State group. The National Counterterrorism Center, which Holmgren directs, sprang into action to help the FBI uncover information about the Texas perpetrator and his plot.
It was a rare recent example of a mass attack motivated by religious extremism to strike the American homeland. But this did not take place in a vacuum, and came at a time when a terrorist threat that has grown and diminished in the twenty years since the attacks of September 11, 2001 is clearly on the rise all over the world.
“We are in a period where we are facing a heightened threat,” Holmgren said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We had to deal with that last year. We will be confronted with it again in 2025.”
The NCTC emerged in the aftermath of September 11 as a centralized hub of the U.S. government to collect and analyze data and intelligence on the international terrorism threat, and to provide information to the White House and other agencies to shape policy decisions and protect against attacks.
Holmgren, a former counterterrorism analyst and assistant secretary of state, was named acting director last July and plans to step aside at the end of the Biden administration. At that time, new leadership under the president-elect Donald Trump will struggle with managing some of the global hotspots such as Syria which has affected civil servants in recent months and which the NCTC is monitoring.
Holmgren cites several factors as to why the threat is greater than before, including the passions that arise from it the war between Israel and Hamas – a conflict that he says has been a driving factor in some 45 attacks worldwide since October 2023. He also points to mass migration from the war between Russia and Ukraine that has sent Central Asians, some of whom have ties the Islamic State groupto countries such as Turkey, Syria, Iraq and even the US
Officials around the world are monitoring tensions in Africa, which Holmgren called potentially the biggest long-term threat to U.S. security given that the Islamic State group has a large footprint on the continent and is investing resources there.
He says the “most powerful overseas threat the United States currently faces” is the group’s Afghanistan-based affiliate known as Islamic State-Khorasanwhose attacks include a massacre in March 2024 in a theater in Moscow and the August 2021 bombs that killed 13 American soldiers and about 170 Afghans in the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
An ongoing concern is Syria, where an insurgent group has been named Hayat Tahrir al-Shamor HTS, led a lightning offensive last month which brought down the president’s government Bashar Assad.
HTS is a Sunni Islamic group with which there used to be ties al-Qaedaalthough the leader has preached religious coexistence since taking over in Damascus. The group has not plotted against U.S. interests in recent years and has been “the most effective counterterrorism partner on the ground,” Holmgren said.
HTS has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. athat carries heavy sanctions.
Asked whether that designation would stick, Holmgren said it was a policy decision, although he noted: “They want to be seen in this day and age as people who are on the right side of the international community when it comes to counter-terrorism. But we will continue to evaluate not only their words, but also the actions they take.”
As an indication of Syria’s continued instability Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press last week that the US should keep troops there to prevent the Islamic State group from rebuilding, and that intelligence officials should remain there Syria’s new de facto government have already foiled an IS plan to detonate a bomb at a Shiite shrine in a Damascus suburb.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, remain concerned about the possibility of IS gaining strength by taking over weapons left behind by Assad’s government or through a mass release of fighters now imprisoned.
“A large-scale release of prisoners in Syria could give IS real momentum at a time when they are under significant pressure,” Holmgren said.
The counterterrorism center’s focus is on international terrorism, including cases in the U.S. such as the New Orleans disaster in which the attacker was inspired by a group from abroad. The perpetrator, 42 years old Shamsud-Din Jabbarpledged his allegiance to ISIS in videos he recorded just before plowing his speeding pickup into the crowd on Bourbon Street early Jan. 1.
At this point, Holmgren said, there is no evidence that Jabbar communicated with IS operatives abroad or was directed by anyone, but given that he was a lone actor who became radicalized, “this symbolizes exactly the kind of attack that we warned. for a while.”
“And I think this illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and between governments in disrupting plots abroad and pursuing terrorist leaders, we still have a lot more work to do when it comes to combating violent extremism at home, countering violent extremist propaganda abroad,” he added.
“That is ultimately what will be needed to prevent more attacks like the one in New Orleans,” Holmgren said.
Likewise, through extensive intelligence collection, strengthened defenses and overseas counterterrorism operations, the US has made the risk of another large-scale attack like September 11 less than ever before.
“But if we become complacent as a country,” he warned, “it will come back to bite us.”