During the Senate Select Committee’s worldwide threat assessment hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Islamist terrorist tactics have shifted since the peak of ISIS and al-Qaida. “Increasingly we are seeing less indicators of large-scale organized, complex threats or attacks,” she said, noting instead a focus on individuals radicalized online or with limited contact with foreign groups.
That shift has prompted questions after several violent incidents in the U.S. this month: an attempted attack on anti-Muslim protesters outside the New York City mayor’s mansion and an Old Dominion University shooting that killed a student are being investigated by the FBI as potential terrorism. A third incident at a Detroit-area synagogue has been labeled targeted violence.
Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, which monitors threats to North American Jewish communities, said calls for violence have come from Iran and its proxies and from groups like ISIS and al-Qaida. “We know that people are working to answer that call and that they are answering it at a quicker pace,” he said. Masters and other experts say the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran has provided a narrative opening exploited by foreign extremist entities, and that a decline in content moderation on social platforms has made it easier for violent messaging to spread.
William Braniff, director of PERIL at American University and a former DHS prevention official, added that the retreat from content moderation and investments in trust-and-safety, combined with AI, is making the internet a more dangerous place for amplification of extremist content.
Synagogue attack in Michigan
Authorities have not confirmed the motive for the synagogue attack in West Bloomfield, Mich., where a naturalized Lebanese-American, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, fired a weapon then crashed a vehicle into the building and died by suicide at the scene. Ghazali had lost family members in Mashghara, Lebanon, after an Israeli airstrike earlier in the month. According to local officials and the Israel Defense Forces, two of his brothers and other relatives were killed or injured; one brother was identified by the IDF as a Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Masters said the attack underscores a sustained escalation of threats to American Jews. He reported a roughly 95% increase in violent social-media posts directed at the Jewish community since the conflict began. Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut emphasized that threats predate the current conflict, pointing to long-term trends including the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, and argued that whether attacks stem from foreign groups, homegrown white nationalists, or other causes, the impact on the community is the same. He noted Jewish organizations now spend heavily on security—about $760 million a year—money diverted from community services.
ISIS’s pivot to decentralized recruitment
Research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found seven ISIS-inspired plots and attacks in the U.S. in 2025, roughly similar to the prior year and a small share of overall domestic violent extremism. Matthew Ivanovich of ISD said those figures reflect a recent uptick after a lull following the collapse of ISIS’s territorial caliphate. ISIS has reconstituted in parts of Africa and Syria and adopted a decentralized model that urges adherents to carry out attacks locally rather than travel to a central base.
“It’s much rarer these days to see a direct Islamic State coordinated and planned attack,” Ivanovich said. Instead, the organization seeks self-radicalized individuals to conduct plots. ISD’s data show six of the seven 2025 ISIS-inspired incidents involved teenagers. Ivanovich linked the rise in such plots to increased ISIS-aligned propaganda on mainstream social platforms, which he said followed reductions in moderation and trust-and-safety investments.
Security, funding, and prevention
In response to the heightened threat environment, some political and faith leaders have called on Congress to boost funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to as much as $1 billion; the last appropriation was about $300 million. The grants, distributed by FEMA, are available to any eligible nonprofit and are used for physical security improvements and protective measures. Fingerhut and others said the Temple Israel attack highlights the urgent need for increased funding.
Experts also urge greater investment in prevention and targeted-violence programs. Braniff said efforts to professionalize prevention work were gaining traction when staffing and resources were reduced under the current administration; he resigned two months into the term. He warned that much of the prevention effort has been left to states and localities, rather than being sustained at the national level.
Complexity of motives
Officials and analysts stress the complexity of today’s threat landscape. Attacks and plots in the U.S. may be inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown extremist ideologies such as white nationalism, personal grievances, or a mix of motivations. The convergence of overseas conflict narratives, decentralized extremist recruitment models, and looser online moderation has created conditions that allow violent messaging to reach and radicalize people more quickly.
Communities and authorities are responding with increased physical security, calls for federal support, and renewed attention to prevention and online safety. But leaders warn that addressing the risk requires both immediate security funding and long-term investment in programs to detect, disrupt, and counter radicalization pathways.