“ISIS is returning to the streets of America”: a wave of anxiety following the attack in New Orleans

Just a week before Trump’s planned entry into the White House, the FBI reveals: Islamic terrorism is returning to America – this is following the deadly New Orleans New Year’s Eve drive-by attack, in which 15 people were killed and around 30 injured by an American terrorist supporting ISIS.

“It’s not a blow to New Orleans, it’s a blow to America,” said Oliver Thomas, a member of the New Orleans City Council. “This is one of the most iconic cities, and one of the most recognized streets in the world.”

Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, warned in his testimony before a congressional committee in October 2023: “We have seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a completely different level,” since the Hamas attack on Israel. “It’s hard for me to remember a time when so many threats to our public and national security were heightened at the same time,” he said.

The terrorist, Shamsood-Din Jaber, a 42-year-old American citizen and a veteran of the US Army who served in Afghanistan, drove a rented Ford truck into a crowd of revelers in the French Quarter. According to the FBI, weapons, an improvised explosive device and an ISIS flag were found in the truck. that. Christopher Raya, Deputy Assistant Director of the Terrorism Division at the FBI, defined it as a “planned and evil terrorist attack”.

President-elect Donald Trump was quick to link the attack to the immigration policies of the Biden administration. “With Biden’s ‘open borders policy’ I have said, many times at rallies and elsewhere, that radical Islamic terrorism will become so bad in America that it will be hard to even imagine or believe,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social social network.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the attack highlights the renewed threat of ISIS, which may require a reexamination of American security priorities, which have recently focused on Russia and China as threats to national security.

The terrorism experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies warn that despite the weakening of ISIS, the threat still exists. This opinion is connected to a figure reported by Bloomberg, according to which in 2024 five ISIS attack attempts were thwarted, a significant increase from 2023.

The attack raised special concerns for mass events. The Bracket Bowl game has been postponed by 24 hours, and tough questions are being raised about security at the Super Bowl scheduled for New Orleans in February. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency and called in a force of about 100 military police from the Louisiana National Guard.

Stephen Miller, designated for the position of deputy chief of staff for policy in the Trump administration, wrote on the X social network: “Islamic terrorism is an import. It is not ‘homegrown’. It did not exist here before immigration brought it here.”

The Secretary of State in Lincoln expressed concern about the possible strengthening of ISIS in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime. “This is a moment of vulnerability when ISIS will try to regroup,” he told reporters. The US maintains approximately 2,000 troops in northeastern Syria in order to prevent the organization from recovering.

The timing of the renewed wave of anxiety over Islamic terrorism is taking on a new dimension in the wake of another dramatic development this week: the US military’s appeals court rejected Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s attempt to overturn plea deals with the planners of the September 11 attacks. These arrangements allow terrorists, led by Khaled Sheikh Mohammed – the mastermind behind the deadliest attacks in American history – to avoid the death penalty in exchange for a partial confession. This decision adds to the growing public tension surrounding the issue of Islamic terrorism in the US.