U.S. Terrorism Threats Rise Amid Iran War and FBI Cuts

Three violent incidents in the span of one week have sharpened concerns among national security officials that the United States is facing a surge in terrorism threats at a moment when the agencies responsible for stopping them are understaffed and under strain.

In New York City, two men federal authorities say were inspired by the Islamic State carried homemade bombs to a far-right protest outside the mayoral mansion. In Michigan, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon drove his vehicle into a synagogue before being shot by security. In Virginia, a man previously imprisoned on a terrorism conviction opened fire inside a university classroom, yelling “Allahu akbar” before students killed the shooter.

Each incident might look isolated. Taken together, they sketch a threat picture that counterterrorism veterans say is serious and getting worse.

The violence comes against the backdrop of an active U.S. war with Iran, a conflict that has already reshaped threat calculations across the federal government. Iran has vowed revenge for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the U.S. and Israel. While fighting has remained concentrated in the Middle East, Tehran has a documented history of attempting violence on American soil.

After the 2020 assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iranian operatives pursued a disrupted murder-for-hire plot targeting former national security adviser John Bolton. Just last week, a Pakistani business owner was convicted in New York of attempting to hire hit men in 2024 for assassination plots targeting multiple public figures, including President Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors said he was acting on instructions from a contact inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The FBI has also recently warned law enforcement in a bulletin about Iran’s interest in conducting a drone attack inside the United States, though the country’s capability to organize a large-scale assault on American soil remains difficult to assess.

What is easier to assess is the condition of the agencies charged with preventing such attacks. Over the last year, the FBI and Justice Department have shed experienced national security personnel through firings and resignations tied to Trump administration priorities. Resources and staff have been redirected toward other enforcement objectives, leaving counterterrorism units thinner and, critics say, less capable.

Frank Montoya, a retired senior FBI official, did not mince words. “So much experience has been decimated from the ranks,” he said. The people “best-positioned to get to the bottom of it before something really bad happened” are in many cases gone, he said. That leaves less experienced personnel handling elevated threats and “starting from way behind.”

The FBI pushed back on that framing, declining to discuss personnel numbers or specific decisions. In a statement, the bureau said its “agents and staff are dedicated professionals working around the clock to defend the homeland and crush violent crime,” adding that it “continuously assesses and realigns our resources to ensure the safety of the American people.”

For North Texas, the concern is not abstract. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has seen its own terrorism cases in recent years, and the region sits within the jurisdiction of the FBI’s Dallas field office, which, like field offices across the country, has not been insulated from the broader staffing pressures hitting federal law enforcement.

The convergence of factors, a hot war with a nation that has long pursued retaliation on U.S. soil, a spike in ideologically motivated attacks, and a counterterrorism infrastructure absorbing significant personnel losses, is exactly the kind of compounding risk scenario that experienced intelligence officials have long warned about.

Tehran’s use of proxies and hired operatives has drawn most of the public attention. But the FBI bulletin about potential drone operations suggests the government is tracking more direct threats as well. How seriously those threats materialize may depend in large part on whether the agencies watching for them have enough seasoned professionals left to act before, not after, the next incident.

Three attacks in one week is a pattern worth watching. Whether Washington is watching back with enough eyes and experience is the question national security officials are now asking out loud.