The global terror threat has skyrocketed due to the October 7 Hamas attack and the Gaza war, experts warn

A man runs on a street as fire burns after rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, October 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

According to experts spoken to, the threat of terrorist attacks in the West has escalated following the Hamas terror group’s massacre in southern Israel on October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza The General.

The brutal success of Hamas’s invasion of the Jewish state last fall, coupled with images emerging of Israel’s military operations against the terror group in Gaza, has sparked a new wave of radicalization, experts argued. Of particular concern is the emergence of a new wave of so-called “lone wolf” terrorists, who have drawn inspiration from Islamic extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), and have been further galvanized by the current conflict in the Middle East.

“The FBI and others have reported a sharp increase in terrorist activity, including active recruitment and self-radicalization, since the October 7 attacks and the Israeli response,” said Matthew Levitt, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“This holds true across a wide ideological divide and a wide geographic space,” Levitt added. “This includes both organized activities by established groups and individual actors who may be inspired by the sharp increase in terrorist propaganda in the wake of these events.”

Senior U.S. officials have also warned of an increased terror threat since Oct. 7, when Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others hostage.

“When I look back on my career in law enforcement, it’s hard for me to imagine a time when I saw so many different threats at the same time, all of which were high,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told NBC News in an interview last month.

In early April, Wray told U.S. lawmakers in testimony before Congress that he believed small groups or individuals were “taking inspiration from events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home.” He noted that concerns had increased before the Hamas attack, but “we saw the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole different level after October 7.”

Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, shared Wray’s sentiments when he testified before Congress in March. Terrorist groups were using Israel’s war against Hamas to encourage further attacks against the United States, Guillot argued. However, he added that terrorism has become more widespread and informal, making it more difficult to combat.

“The increasingly diffuse nature of the cross-border terrorist threat is testing the ability of our law enforcement partners to detect and prevent attacks against the homeland and leaving us vulnerable to surprise,” Guillot said.

Days earlier, U.S. intelligence director Avril Haines said that al-Qaeda and ISIS were inspired to attack Americans and Israelis by Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that rules Gaza.

“Although it is too early to tell, both al-Qaeda and ISIS, inspired by Hamas, have directed their supporters to carry out attacks against Israeli and U.S. interests,” Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee out of. “And we have seen how it inspires individuals to commit anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts of terrorism around the world.”

She added that the Gaza war “will have a generational impact on terrorism.”

The United States and its allies have spent years undermining the capabilities and networks of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. The secret services have also improved their methods for identifying and preventing terrorist attacks. Experts therefore believe that smaller groups such as ISIS-K and radicalized individuals pose the greatest threats to the US homeland. Experts also pointed to the threat posed by Iran, which the US government consistently views as the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.

“The ongoing and primary terrorist threat comes from the Iranian regime and its proxies,” said Marshall Wittman, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “That is why it is critical that America stands with its ally Israel, which is at the forefront of this fight against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian aggression. “U.S. national security interests are aligned with Israel’s fight against Iranian-sponsored terrorism that threatens regional stability in the Middle East.”

Iran is Hamas’s main international sponsor, providing the terrorist group with weapons, money and training.

In addition to increasing the threat of terrorism, the October 7 massacre has led to a global rise in anti-Semitism, likely making the Jewish community the target of potential terrorist attacks.

The Anti-Defamation League released a report last month showing that anti-Semitic incidents in the United States rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the riots occurred after October 7 during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitic incidents have also skyrocketed and reached record highs in several other countries around the world, particularly in Europe, since the Hamas atrocities.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Oct. 7 unleashed a “tsunami of hate” against the Jewish people.

Much anti-Semitism has manifested itself in the form of violent threats and attacks against Jewish people. In late October, for example, authorities arrested a Cornell University student for threatening to “stab” and “slit the throat” of his Jewish classmate. That same month, the FBI foiled an attack on a Jewish gathering in Houston, Texas.

Corey Walker is a journalist based in Washington, DC