Remarks by Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center

Brett M. Holmgren

"Countering a New Phase in the Global Terrorism Landscape”

Center for Strategic and International Studies

November 12, 2024

Washington, DC

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Seth, for the introduction, and thanks for your thought leadership on terrorism and national security issues more broadly. I also want to thank CSIS for hosting today’s event. The purpose of CSIS is to define the future of national security, so it’s only fitting that my remarks are intended to help define the future of the global terrorism landscape.

This September, we celebrated the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) 20th anniversary. We honored the outstanding work of the thousands of NCTC officers, past and present, who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to keep Americans safe from terrorism at home and abroad. Their work, their contributions to our Nation’s security, is why I’m so proud to lead this extraordinary organization.

In reflecting on NCTC’s history, it was striking to reflect on how much the global terrorism landscape has changed since President George W. Bush established NCTC in 2004. At that time, Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri were still plotting from caves in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US forces were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, a group called ISIS didn’t exist. In the US, you didn’t have to remove your shoes at the airport. A lot has changed.

The only constant is the ever-evolving nature of the threat itself. Terrorism, in all its forms, is underpinned by violent extremist ideology, and ideologies can’t be defeated by governments or counterterrorism tools alone. But what we can and must do is have a clear-eyed assessment of the threat in order to design and implement smart, sustainable approaches that manage risks responsibly and wisely, consistent with our values.

So this afternoon, I’d like to describe the global terrorism threat and touch on how the U.S. Government has worked aggressively and responsibly to counter this evolving challenge.

***

Today’s terrorism threat is unfolding amid tectonic shifts in the international system, a profound moment in a world marked by volatility, instability and hostility. Overwhelmed governments are confronting multiple crises simultaneously involving state and non-state actors, while also trying to manage transnational issues like migration, disease and climate change. In this context, terrorist groups like ISIS have found ways to exploit these circumstances, especially in the Middle East and Africa, to slowly and quietly rebuild.

As a result, today we’re in yet another transformational phase of the global terrorism landscape—a threat that is more diverse, more complex and more decentralized.

It’s more diverse because the ideological motivations and range of foreign terrorist actors are multi-dimensional. Whereas in the past we focused mainly on monolithic groups like al-Qa'ida, ISIS and Hizballah, today’s actors also include transnational racially and ethnically motivated extremists, or REMVEs, anti-government and anti-authority groups, homegrown violent extremists, or HVEs, and Iranian-linked entities, in particular the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF).

The threat is more decentralized and distributed around the world, largely due to CT successes over the years, which had the effect of forcing groups to operate in smaller cells in more locations to survive. The changing nature of ISIS’s footprint in Syria and its expansion in Africa reflect this reality.

Finally, the threat is more complex because terrorists are more skilled technologically. They’re using 3D printing and artificial intelligence to produce weapons and enhance propaganda, they’re communicating on more sophisticated platforms, and they’re turning to cryptocurrency and alternative payment channels to finance operations.

So that’s the contemporary global terrorism landscape – more diverse, decentralized, and complex. Against that backdrop, let me situate the current threat to the United States.

***

In September 2023, my predecessor, Christy Abizaid, noted that, thanks to focused efforts across four administrations, the terrorism threat to the U.S. Homeland had been dramatically reduced. She was right. Unfortunately, a month later, HAMAS’s horrific terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing conflict and tragedy in Gaza served as a galvanizing event for terrorist groups worldwide and came at a time when ISIS-Syria and ISIS-Khorasan had begun rebuilding core capabilities.

This year alone, ISIS-K's attacks in Russia and Iran, multiple ISIS-linked or inspired attacks in Germany, hundreds of ISIS attacks throughout Africa, and the first-ever ISIS-associated attack in Oman all signal a reenergized global ISIS enterprise. And so today, the United States – and many other countries – are facing an elevated terrorist threat.

In addition to the Israel-HAMAS conflict, a convergence of factors is driving the elevated threat, including new migration patterns spurred in part by Putin’s war in Ukraine, growing political and economic grievances worldwide, and technological advances exploited by terror groups.

Here in the Homeland, we continue to assess that individuals who are inspired, enabled or directed by foreign terrorist organizations, including HVEs, pose the most serious threat. Since 9/11, HVEs inspired or enabled by foreign terrorist organizations have conducted 45 of the 49 terrorist attacks in the United States. The Afghan national arrested in Oklahoma earlier this month who was charged with conspiring to conduct a terrorist attack on Election Day on behalf of ISIS represents the type of foreign terrorist-associated threat we’re most concerned about domestically.

Elsewhere, ISIS-Syria and ISIS-K are the two most potent elements of the ISIS global enterprise. In Syria, ISIS exploited reduced counterterrorism pressure last year to recover and rebuild as governments shifted attention and resources to the conflict in Gaza. They’ve used a base of operations in central Syria to drive external plotting, turning this desert location into the current locus of plotting against the West, including the United States. They’ve also benefitted from improved finances and stronger media and propaganda campaigns.

In Yemen, al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) retains a desire to attack the US Homeland, but US CT actions and the civil war in Yemen have constrained AQAP’s ability to reconstitute.

Meanwhile, in South Asia, Taliban pressure on ISIS-K has forced key elements of the group to relocate to Pakistan. While recent Pakistan operations have begun to target ISIS-K, sustained pressure will be needed to prevent the group from expanding further.

For years, experts worried that groups like al-Qa'ida would turn Africa into the next global jihadist battleground. These dynamics are already well-established in East Africa – particularly Somalia – and also are beginning to unfold in the Sahel and West Africa, where ISIS and al-Qa'ida, through its operational arm JNIM, are expanding their presence and intensifying attacks. For example, the number of ISIS and al-Qa'ida-linked attacks in West Africa and the Sahel are on pace to double from 1,500 in 2021 to a little more than 3,000 by the end of 2024.

ISIS and JNIM have exploited weak governance, local grievances, ineffective security responses, and political instability to spread their ideology among vulnerable populations. Moreover, in places like Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic, these groups have capitalized on the actions of Russia, including private military companies like Vagner, whose so-called counterterrorism operations have made the situation worse – resulting in civilian casualties, human rights abuses, and new terrorist recruits.

For now, while ISIS and al-Qa'ida are mostly focused on local interests in Africa, their continued expansion and recruitment of fighters from outside the continent would position them to pursue external operations in the future. For all these reasons, Africa is emerging as the center of gravity for the Sunni violent extremist movement and, if left unchecked, Africa could become a much more acute long-term terrorist threat to US interests.

In response, the United States and European partners have been investing in a more geographically diverse and reliable set of counterterrorism relationships in Central and West Africa and are taking a forward-looking, strategic approach to these and other challenges in the region.

***

In the time remaining, let me summarize key elements of the U.S. Government’s response to the threat. As set forth in National Security Memorandum-13 on U.S. International Counterterrorism Policy, the administration’s approach has been guided by several key principles. Among them:

• Prioritizing finite counterterrorism resources against terrorist groups that pose a direct threat to US interests;
• Investing in international partnerships and maintaining US global leadership;
• Promoting civilian-led, non-kinetic approaches where possible; and
• Optimizing Intelligence Community collection and analysis.

When it comes to prioritizing anti-US threats, counterterrorism actions at home and abroad in recent months exemplify this approach. For instance, as ISIS began rebuilding in Syria earlier this year, the US military has since conducted numerous strikes and raids that have removed dozens of ISIS leaders and operatives from the battlefield. This includes multiple strikes by the US military late last month against several ISIS camps in the Syrian desert that killed dozens of leaders and operatives. As a result, ISIS plots have been disrupted, its leadership and membership ranks have been degraded, and its safehaven in Syria is under the most severe pressure in years.

In the United States, thanks to the FBI, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and the Intelligence Community, two potential ISIS threats to the Homeland were disrupted, including the recent plot in Oklahoma I mentioned earlier.

At the same time, we’ve stepped up foreign engagements. As reports emerged this spring that some Central Asian migrants with violent extremist ideology or possible ISIS links had entered the United States, US officials engaged extensively with Central Asian governments and Turkiye to share more information and crack down on facilitation networks and activities. The US also continued to lead internationally through the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. I attended the recent D-ISIS Ministerial hosted at the State Department and can tell you that the 87 countries who comprise the D-ISIS Coalition remain laser focused on cooperating to degrade and destroy ISIS.

As we’ve adjusted to deal with a reenergized ISIS, the US Government has also engaged with international partners to increase collection, analysis and disruption efforts against a growing transnational REMVE threat, which has inspired mass shootings in the United States and abroad. At NCTC, we’ve engaged with Five Eyes nations and European partners to enhance information sharing and leverage best practices on preventing and countering REMVE across borders.

Finally, the IC has strengthened collection and analysis on ISIS, surged linguists with Central Asian backgrounds, and enhanced intelligence screening and vetting support to homeland security and border officials.

***

Of course, we know the threat endures and that our responses to it must be flexible. In reflecting on the last four years and looking ahead to the future, some takeaways emerge.

First, the US approach to counterterrorism has successfully prevented foreign terrorist directed or enabled attacks on the US Homeland and reduced the ability of these groups to conduct large-scale attacks. That’s a credit first and foremost to the countless counterterrorism professionals throughout the US government.

Second, as the terrorism threat in Africa metastasizes, an international approach that considers the strategic competition dimensions of the continent will be needed to address the long-term drivers that are allowing terror groups to thrive.

Third, we will need to rethink and diversify counterterrorism partnerships to reduce dependency risk if partner capabilities fall short or the relationship collapses, as we saw in Niger.

Fourth, the rising number of juveniles engaging in terrorism is a global phenomenon, and it may worsen in the near-term as the effects of the Israel-HAMAS conflict take hold. Given the global ramifications, pursuing common approaches with close partners and allies could yield new insights, new ideas, and more efficient and effective solutions.

Finally, if future priorities or global realities limit the US ability to take action against terrorist threats upstream, investing in downstream capabilities like identity intelligence and screening and vetting – our last line of defense – will be even more important.

***

So in sum, as the United States confronts a new phase in the global terrorism threat, it’s important to remember that strategies like NSM-13 are never meant to be static, and that only by internalizing lessons from the last four years can we position the next administration for success.

And in that connection, I look forward to engaging with the Trump administration’s national security team to conduct an orderly transition and ensure they are ready on day one to address a dynamic CT environment. And throughout the transition process, the US counterterrorism enterprise will be working diligently – as they always do – to keep threats at bay so that our democracy may continue to shine as a beacon of freedom and hope in the world. Thank you.

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