How serious is the threat of Islamic jihad attacks inside America?

The threat of possible sleeper cell attacks on the U.S. has increased as the conflict between Iran and the United States continues. Chris Swecker, a former assistant director of criminal investigations at the FBI, and Ambassador Alberto Fernandez of the Middle East Media Research Institute, discuss the threat of jihad on this country.

The Center SquareEven before the current Iran war began,“foreign jihadist networks and homegrown violent extremists” represented a “persistent terror threat to America.”

A DHS Report identified more than 50 cases in 29 U.S. states between April 2021 and September 2024, including dozens of attempts to provide material support to Islamic designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), ISIS, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, with individuals receiving military type training from ISIS and Hezbollah, and committing fraud.

The states where jihadist cases were identified include Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

The report lists examples of convictions of foreign nationals and American citizens, nearly all Muslim men, in 29 states. Of the dozens cited, some include:

Ex-Muslim Danny Burmawi argues that Islamic Jihad hasn’t changed—but how it’s described in the West has. Reframed through the language of social justice, anti-colonialism, and political grievance, he says the concept has been reshaped in ways that obscure its historical and theological roots.

Middle East Forum Danny Burmawi, founder and CEO of the Ideological Defense Institute (IDI) says: There are two dominant views of the Middle East. The prevailing one will determine “whether Western civilization survives or gets eroded from within.” The first, “blame the Jews,” dominates much of media, academia and segments of the political sphere. This view “paints Israel as the aggressor and the Arabs/Muslims as perpetual victims.”

When Israel defends itself against jihad, it is accused of being the aggressor. The narratives that Israel’s presence destabilizes the region and that, prior to the re-establishment of the Jewish state, Jews and Christians lived in harmony under the umbrella of Islam, are revisionist distortions of history. “That is nonsense.” With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Jews in Israel and Christians in Lebanon wanted sovereignty. Although the Lebanese Christians caved to Islamic supremacy, the Israelis fight Islamic jihad to this day.

The second narrative, grounded in “theology, history, and reality,” recognizes the two projects that “ultimately aim to establish Allah’s rule over the entire earth”—the Sunni Caliphate [Muslim rule reigns] and the Shi’a Wilaya[legitimate authority]. Islam’s conflict with Israel over the past 80 years is only one aspect of Islamic jihadi military warfare against the Christian West that supremacist Islam waged during its spread of “dominance for 14 centuries.”

Despite historical evidence, the West has rebranded “jihad” as a softer and sanitized version of its historical definition. The three reasons for this revisionism rest on geopolitics, ideological agendas, and the introduction of “new vocabulary” to sanitize jihad.

“By obscuring jihad’s roots, the West has emboldened the jihadists. Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Jabhat al-Nasra—they have crippled counter-terrorism by focusing on grievances and poverty. They completely erased the victims of Islamic jihad all through 14 centuries. So, they have weakened the resolve. ‘Islamophobia’ was introduced to be an accusation for anyone who dares to criticize that theology, the canonical books. So, this rebranding made the West vulnerable.”

Protecting the West against self-inflicted vulnerabilities requires facing the threat head-on by defining jihad for what it is. “The rebranding of Islamic jihad is happening in the West, it’s real, and the goal behind it is to make the West weak.” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in every speech, is trying to promote or push these anti-West narratives.” It is overwhelming for the average uninformed person in denial about jihad to believe that “the religion of two billion people is the reason behind all of this violence.”

Following the 9/11 attacks, the view that Islam was directly connected to the historical meaning of an Islamic jihad was widespread. Yet, instead of directly challenging Islam’s assault on the West, President George W. Bush claimed a speech that “Islam is the religion of peace.” That opened the door for apologetics and evasion that eased Islam’s expansion in the West. Immigration of Muslims rose after 9/11 in the U.S. and across the West as a way of compensating for the temerity—and fear—of accusing Islam of waging military jihad in New York.

Displays of Islamic supremacism are seen in the streets of Europe, and even in the U.S., when Muslims by the hundreds and thousands indulge in public prayer on city streets en masse instead of confining their prayer to mosques. Public prayer is a way of projecting power, dominance, and intimidation.

Western politicians who accuse those warning about Islam in the West of being “Islamophobes” desire to remain in denial that Islam “is not only a religion, but Islam is a political ideology that has a religion.”