The Terrorist Threats and Trends to Watch Out for in 2023 and Beyond.

AuthorHoffman, Bruce

Among the memorable aphorisms of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was his answer to a reporter's question at a Pentagon briefing just a few months after America's war on terror commenced. When asked about Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qa'ida, Rumsfeld famously explained that:

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns--the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones. (1) It is an apt summation of the global and domestic landscape of terrorism today. There are some known knowns, such as the fact that counterterrorism is no longer the overriding national security priority for the United States that it was for nearly two decades. In addition, we have known unknowns, such as the abiding threat posed by longstanding terrorist adversaries like al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State including who will succeed Ayman al-Zawahiri as al-Qa'ida's emir and how successful the Biden administration's "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism strategy will prove in the long-term, as well as the resurrection of an old threat made new: state-sponsored terrorism. And, finally, there are unknown unknowns, foremost of which is the trajectory of domestic terrorism as political divisions in the United States deepen in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

This overview provides a snapshot of continuing and emergent terrorist threats and counterterrorism challenges organized around Secretary Rumsfeld's three categories of threat analysis. Rumsfeld's guiding paradigm is not intended to be a systematic or perfect overview of the range of terrorist threats and adversaries nor does this article explore all types of terrorist threat for each of Rumsfeld's categories. Instead, it provides a potentially useful prism through which to assess the uncertainty of currently unfolding and future potential salient extremist and terrorist threats to the U.S. homeland and its allies abroad.

The Known Knowns: Counterterrorism is no longer the preeminent U.S. national security concern, despite terrorism remaining an enduring threat.

For nearly two decades, counterterrorism was America's foremost defense and national security priority. That changed in 2018 with the release of the Trump administration's National Defense Strategy. As Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis explained, "We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order--creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security." (2)

The long promised but unfulfilled "pivot to Asia," advanced during President Obama's first term in office, (3) was the driving force behind this rebalancing of U.S. defense and national security priorities implemented by President Trump. President Biden, who had been vice president when Obama commenced this shift, has continued along this same path. "War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking. We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is degraded in... Afghanistan. And it's time to end the forever war," (4) Biden declared within months of assuming office. He made good on the pledge with the completion of the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, when he reiterated that, "there's nothing China or Russia would rather have, would want more in this competition than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan." (5)

Regardless of the merits of this decision (against which these authors argued (6)), the withdrawal itself was shambolic. U.S. forces, for instance, abandoned the mammoth Bagram airfield and facility without notice, thus allowing some 5,000 imprisoned al-Qa'ida, Islamic State, and Taliban terrorists to escape from both that prison and the Afghan National Detention Facility at Pul-e-Charkhi (7)--including, according to U.S. government sources, some three-dozen senior al-Qa'ida operatives. (8)

In mid-August 2021, as the Taliban advanced on Kabul and the Afghan government started to collapse, President Biden promised that the United States possessed an "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism capability that "will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed." (9) The effectiveness of this strategy was almost immediately called into question when tragedy struck on August 26, 2021, at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. Concealed within the crowds seeking places on the final departing flights was an Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISK) terrorist who detonated a bomb that killed over 180 people-including 13 U.S. military personnel--and injured more than 150 others. (10) This prompted one unnamed U.S. intelligence official to dismiss the administration's claims as more "over-the-rainbow" than "over-the-horizon." (11) Additional proof of the challenges of this much-touted counterterrorism strategy was also tragically provided three days later when a U.S. drone strike meant to disrupt a suspected follow-on ISK attack unintentionally killed Afghan civilians--among whom were seven children. (12)

The successful targeted killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri by a CIA drone on July 31, 2022, arguably provided needed proof of the viability of America's "over-the-horizon" strategy. The al-Qa'ida leader was killed as he appeared on the balcony of a villa in Kabul's tony Shirpur neighborhood--where he reportedly lived as a guest of long-time terrorist and Taliban Minister of the Interior Sirajuddin Haqqani. (13) The fact that al-Zawahiri was living more or less openly in a house linked to Haqqani clearly revealed the falsity of Taliban assurances to the United States during the Doha negotiations that they would not allow Afghanistan again to become a terrorist safe haven. (14) It also raised new questions about whether the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, rather than ending "the forever war," in Biden's words, may in fact extend it if indeed al-Qa'ida has reestablished, and continues to consolidate, its presence.

Finally, far from validating the "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism approach, the al-Zawahiri strike perhaps underscored its challenges. Al-Zawahiri, after all, was hiding in plain sight. U.S. intelligence had reportedly tracked al-Zawahiri's wife, daughter, and grandchildren to Kabul and eventually confirmed that the al-Qa'ida leader was living with them. In fact, al-Zawahiri felt so safe and secure that he frequently emerged onto his balcony, thus enabling confirmation. (15) As some observers have noted, the success of any counterterrorist operation is predicated on on-the-ground human intelligence, which was likely relatively easily obtained in this instance. But, in less permissive, rural environments and more typically security-conscious terrorist hiding places, the United States has likely largely deprived itself of such essentials by leaving Afghanistan. (16)

Indeed, the other high-profile counterterrorism success of the Biden administration, the assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in northern Syria in February 2022, was not actually a triumph of "over-the-horizon" capabilities, but a clear sign of the importance of forward basing. The raiding party had flown from a U.S. special operations forces base in Syria. (17)

The Known Unknowns: al-Qa'ida, the question of who will lead al-Qa'ida, the Islamic State, and Iranian state-sponsored terrorism

As we enter the third decade of the post-9/11 war on terrorism, several facts are assured: Both salafi-jihadi and state-sponsored adversaries will maintain their intentions to attack both the U.S. homeland as well as American interests and allies abroad. But the primary form and leadership of those threats remains unclear.

The Jihadi Terror Threat

Although al-Zawahiri's elimination will likely hinder al-Qa'ida's core operations for the time being, its affiliates remain resilient and strong. In July, in the latest of its invaluable and industry-leading biannual reports, the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team shed new light on al-Qa'ida's current strength. Beyond Afghanistan, the movement is thought to include 7,000 to 12,000 fighters in its al-Shabaab affiliate in Somalia; a few thousand with its Syrian wing, Hurras al-Din; a few thousand more with al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula; 180-400 with al-Qa'ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS); and still more fighters with its expanding Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) in Mali and the Sahel. (18) Although these numbers remain relatively consistent, at least since our last assessment in this publication in 2021, they indicate the global movement's enduring relevance and continued recruitment. (19) Indeed, JNIM's gains and its opportunity to now trumpet the notion that it achieved withdrawal of French military forces from Mali is an ominous sign of the al-Qa'ida movement's resiliency and strength. (20)

The threats posed by each of these affiliates are more local or cross-border than regional, much less global. But some harbor ambitions to strike internationally. Since 2016, for instance, al-Shabaab--doubtless al-Qa'ida's least technologically proficient franchise--has sought to replicate the movement's spectacular 9/11 attacks by training pilots and operatives to hijack commercial aircraft and crash them into buildings. In the last few years, two al-Shabaab terrorists have been arrested in the Philippines and Africa taking flying...

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