Blinking Terror Lights – But What Kinds Of Terror?

The warning from FBI Director Christopher Wray on December 5 was grim, if vague. Asked by Congress about current terror threats, he said: "I see blinking lights everywhere I turn." A joint information bulletin issued by the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice spoke about threats from Al-Qaeda and ISIS, with primary targets seen as "churches, synagogues, and members of the Jewish community."[1]

Certainly, there have been tangible threats in the days after the beginning of the Hamas-Israel War on October 7, 2023. On November 29, German police arrested two Muslim teens of (Afghan and Chechen) migrant origin who were reportedly planning an attack against "infidels," targeting a Christmas market and synagogue.[2] In Paris, a French citizen of Iranian origin, previously jailed for terrorism, stabbed several tourists, killing one, on December 2. Arman Rajabpour-Miyandoab publicly pledged loyalty to the Islamic State (ISIS) and claimed to have done the deed for the sake of the Muslims of Afghanistan and Palestine.[3] On December 1, Las Vegas police and the FBI arrested a 16-year-old recent convert to Islam who also claimed allegiance to ISIS and who threatened to "start lone wolf operations in Las Vegas against the enemies of Allah."[4]

These and other attacks are concerning but, to be totally honest, they are the type of terror we have seen now in the West for decades. So was the recent bombing of a Catholic Mass at Mindanao State University in the Philippines, an outrage also claimed by ISIS.[5] Getting teenagers to stab people on the street and bombing Christian or Jewish religious services are staples of Salafi-Jihadist groups going back decades. And while some may claim a connection to the war in Gaza, the fact remains that both ISIS and Al-Qaeda always seek to tie their acts to whatever is timely or trendy – the burning of a Qur'an, the banning of a hijab, a blasphemous cartoon or the fall of Al-Andalus over five centuries ago – there is always something to claim, some grievance real or imagined, no matter how specious.

While the traditional Salafi-Jihadist space that has been the focus of Counter-Terrorism agencies worldwide for more than 20 years remains an important issue, Western governments have highlighted supposed new threats in recent years. FBI Director Wray mentioned in March 2021 that violent groups espousing "white supremacy" were the biggest part of their domestic terrorism portfolio, a statement that was twisted by some of the Left to make it seem that this was the greatest threat overall, which was not what Wray said.[6] Still, the specter of this threat has gotten a lot of media ink.

The FBI and Department of Justice under the Biden Administration have been criticized for seeming to target critics to their right: peaceful anti-abortion activists, demonstrators at school board meetings, and even Traditionalist Catholics for investigation. Republicans have pointed to such incidents as evidence of leftist political bias by federal law enforcement.[7]

But is there another threat out there that law enforcement and national security agencies may have minimized over the past few years? For the past few years, some Western countries – especially the United States – have been wracked by intense, at times violent, leftist activism leading to thousands of protests.[8] This has ranged from the racialism of BLM to Antifa to the pro-Palestine, often antisemitic, protests of late 2023, especially at universities and in major cities. While the intense focus by protestors against Israel and Jews is new in the American context, there seems to be an eerie parallel to leftist agitation at universities and in major American cities 50 years ago.

Perhaps the aggressive pro-Palestine protests seen in the West will die out in the next few weeks. Eventually there will be some sort of ceasefire and the mob is nothing if not fickle, moving on to the next big thing once the novelty wears off. Such an eventuality is likely for many, even those poseurs who profess their admiration of Osama bin Ladin on TikTok these days.[9] But the counterculture and anti-war protests of the 1960s show that a different path can be followed, one which would eventually lead to the mobilization of a radical, violent terrorist fringe.

Bryan Burrough's brilliant 2015 historical account, Days of Rage, tells the story. The first bombing going beyond the occasional Molotov cocktail against a university ROTC, was by radical Sam Melville (real name Samuel Grossman) in New York City on July 26, 1969, against U.S. imperialism in Latin America and in honor of the Castro Revolution in Cuba (hence the date). During an 18-month period in 1971-1972, the FBI reported more than 2,500 bombings on U.S. soil.

There are some commonalities between that era and today:

- Anti-war protests

- A connection to radicals on university campuses and urban areas

- A connection to other causes – a November 1969 bombing was claimed in support of "the North Vietnamese, legalized marijuana, love, Cuba, legalized abortion and all the American revolutionaries and G.I.'s who are winning the war against the Pentagon and Nixon." Today the call is to "Globalize the Intifada." Or, as activist Greta Thunberg said, combining two causes, "No Climate Justice on Occupied Land."[10]

- An urgent feeling that the time for action or revolution is ripe ("In Our Lifetime," "If Not Now," "Ceasefire Now") but that it is being stymied by reactionaries in power ( "Biden, Biden, you can't hide!" they yelled. "We charge you with genocide!")[11]

The trajectory of one man, of Sam Melville himself, is perhaps illustrative. An attraction to left-wing politics leads to anti-war media work and interaction with campus radicals including the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground and even the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), then the fateful step to take direct action with eight bombings in New York City in 1969, then arrest and conviction and finally dying during the Attica Prison Riot in 1971, of which he was a principal agitator.

The toxic combination of leftist politics, war, domestic and foreign causes, and campus turmoil would birth the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, "the Family," the George Jackson Brigade, the Puerto Rican FALN, and other, smaller groups. While they may have spawned in the hothouse environment of the Vietnam War and protests against it, the heyday of these groups was in the years after the war had wind down or actually ended.

In a separate recent interview, FBI Director Wray expressed his fear of threats from "lone actors radicalized online, organized terrorist groups, state actors such as Iran, and far-right and neo-Nazi groups."[12] All of that may be true. But someone should keep an eye on subtle developments on the political left.

*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.