Tag Archive for: domestic terrorism

VIDEO: Bondi Beach Survivor Says Cops Prevented Her From Fighting Back Against Terrorists

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A woman who survived the Hanukkah terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Australia said on Monday that police officers seemed less concerned about stopping the attack than they were about keeping her from fighting back.

A father and son of Pakistani descent opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 40, with one being slain on the scene by police and the other wounded and taken into custody. Vanessa Miller told Erin Molan about being separated from her three-year-old daughter during Monday’s episode of the “Erin Molan Show.”

“I tried to grab one of their guns,” Miller said. “Another one grabbed me and said ‘no.’ These men, these police officers, they know who I am. I hope they are hearing this. You are weak. You could have saved so many more people’s lives. They were just standing there, listening and watching this all happen, holding me back.”

WATCH: Australia’s Darkest Night: Survivors, a Rabbi, and What Happens Next

“Two police officers,” Miller continued. “Where were the others? Not there. Nobody was there.”

New South Wales Minister of Police Yasmin Catley did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about Miller’s comments.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to enact further restrictions on guns in response to the attack at Bondi Beach, according to the Associated Press. The new restrictions would include a limit on how many firearms a person could own, more review of gun licenses, limiting the licenses to Australian citizens and “additional use of criminal intelligence” to determine if a license to own a firearm should be granted.

Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24,  reportedly went to the Philippines, where they received training prior to carrying out the Sunday attack, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Naveed Akram’s vehicle reportedly had homemade ISIS flags inside it.

Australia passed legislation that required owners of semi-automatic firearms and certain pump-action firearms to surrender them in a mandatory “buyback” following a 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, that killed 35 people and wounded 23 others. Despite the legislation, one of the gunmen who carried out the attack appeared to use a pump-action shotgun with an extended magazine.

AUTHOR

Harold Hutchison

Media Reporter

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Political Violence Escalates as Rioters Target ICE Operations

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The domestic terrorist attack at a federal immigration facility in Texas Wednesday morning has only served to highlight the rash of political violence and civil unrest targeting President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda and the officers carrying it out.

Following the deadly shooting at a Dallas U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is increasing security at detention centers nationwide, in order to mitigate the risk of further terrorist attacks and loss of life. DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Washington Stand, “In light of the horrific shooting that was motivated by hatred for ICE and the other unprecedented acts of violence against ICE law enforcement, including bomb threats, cars being used [as] weapons, rocks, and Molotov cocktails thrown at officers, and doxing online of officers’ families, DHS will immediately begin increasing security at ICE facilities across the country.” She added, “Our ICE officers are facing a more than 1,000% increase in assaults against them.”

McLaughlin pledged that DHS will also work to combat left-wing extremist groups like Antifa, which the president formally designated as a domestic terrorist organization this week. “Antifa and other left-wing extremists have shot, attacked, issued death threats against, and incited riots against law enforcement. Enough is enough: if you lay a hand on our federal law enforcement officers, you will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” McLaughlin said. “Antifa and their friends haven’t stopped us. They’re not even slowing us down,” she added. “Despite the 1,000% increase in assaults against them, our brave men and women in federal law enforcement are still on the ground, fighting every single day to uphold the rule of law and keep Americans safe from violent extremists and criminal illegal aliens alike.”

ICE currently operates 25 field offices specializing in enforcement and removal operations (EROs) and has a network of over 200 detention centers, including local jails, private prisons, and dedicated ICE facilities. Neither DHS nor ICE shared with The Washington Stand what increased security measures may look like nor how the agencies intend to combat Antifa and other left-wing rioters.

According to authorities, the shooter who targeted the Dallas ICE facility this week intended to kill ICE agents, although he accidentally shot and killed one detained immigrant and injured two others. Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy Larson reported that Joshua Jahn, the 29-year-old gunman suspected of firing on the ICE facility before taking his own life, left behind notes clarifying his intention to target and kill ICE personnel. “It seems that he did not intend to kill the detainees or harm them. It’s clear from these notes that he was targeting ICE agents and ICE personnel,” she said in a press conference.

FBI Director Kash Patel shared, “One of the handwritten notes recovered read, “Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror, to think, ‘is there a sniper with AP [armor-piercing] rounds on that roof?’” Patel further warned that Jahn conducted a “high degree of pre-attack planning,” including using an app to track the movements and operations of ICE agents. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt faulted mainstream media outlets (namely, CNN) for promoting the ICE-tracking app. “Three months ago, CNN irresponsibly gave free publicity to an app that recklessly shares the location of ICE Agents. It has now been revealed the leftist lunatic shooter who opened fire on the Dallas ICE Facility was using one of these apps,” she wrote in a social media post. “The liberal media is complicit in the increased threats and violence against ICE.” The official X account for DHS echoed the sentiment, writing in a post, “These apps, and the media who is gleefully advertising them, represent an existential threat to our agents. It’s no different than giving a hitman the location of their intended target.”

Meanwhile, rioters are targeting ICE facilities in Chicago. ICE began conducting intensive immigration raids in and around Chicago recently, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) boats seen patrolling the Chicago River this week. In the Chicago suburb of Broadview, protestors have lined up outside an ICE detention facility and, on Friday, began rioting. As ICE agents attempted to leave the facility, activists started blocking and even physically attacking the law enforcement officers’ vehicles. Others called for ICE agents to be shot and killed, with one rioter shouting, “Shoot the f******! Shoot the f******!” Eventually, federal law enforcement agents had to fire “pepper balls” at the rioters in order to let the ICE vehicles pass and ICE agents have also begun deploying tear gas in order to disperse rioters.

Earlier this year, riots broke out in Los Angeles in response to ICE operations in the city, escalating to violent attacks on ICE agents and culminating in Trump federalizing California’s National Guard and deploying U.S. Marines to stop the rioting.

Despite agitation against interior deportation operations, the Trump administration is slated to become the first in history to achieve “operational control” of the nation’s borders. The term “operational control” was defined in the 2006 Secure Fence Act as “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”

Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and the current resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, argued that the Trump administration’s stringent border security efforts may just earn Trump the distinction of being the first president to achieve “operational control” under the terms of the Secure Fence Act. “If current trends continue, FY 2025 will be the most secure year in history at the U.S.-Mexico line, and DHS will achieve complete ‘operational control’ of our borders in FY 2026,” Arthur wrote, adding, “That’s a big ‘if,’ however, because the smugglers, while quiet for now, haven’t gone away.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Christians Attacked during Sunday Worship in Michigan and Syria

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Christians were attacked in their places of worship on Sunday in two assaults thousands of miles apart in Michigan and in Damascus, Syria. Experts say the attacks are reminders that Christian churches continue to be prime targets for terrorism both domestically and across the globe, and that churches should take appropriate security measures to protect themselves.

On Sunday morning in Wayne, Michigan, a 31-year-old white male dressed in tactical gear and carrying a “long gun and handgun” attempted to enter CrossPointe Community Church during services, but was thwarted by parishioners, one of whom struck the gunman with his vehicle amid gunfire. Eventually, two church staff members fatally shot the individual. One staff member was shot in the leg during the incident.

So far, local police have not been able to determine a motive for the attack. “His motivations are unknown, but at this point it appears he was suffering from a mental health crisis,” Wayne Police Chief Ryan Strong stated.

At the same time almost 6,000 miles away, a far more serious attack on Christians occurred on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria. As worshippers prayed inside a Greek Orthodox church, a suicide bomber shot his way inside before detonating himself, killing at least 25 and injuring an estimated 63 others. Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Syrian authorities say the terrorist was affiliated with the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS).

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, himself a former member of radical Islamist groups, called the attack “heinous” and vowed to bring justice to the perpetrators. The interior ministry reportedly arrested “a number of criminals involved in the attack” and seized explosive devices, saying that the operation was carried out against cells affiliated with ISIS. Al-Sharaa has vowed to bring stability to Syria after his rebel group ousted the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad last year. President Trump and Republican members of Congress have met with al-Sharaa, and Trump has expressed interest in normalizing relations with the new government.

The two attacks are the latest in a rising pattern of violence occurring against Christian churches both domestically and internationally. A 2024 report from Family Research Council found that 915 acts of hostility occurred against churches in the U.S. over the past six years, including “vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more.” The report further found that the 436 incidents that occurred in 2023 represented an eight-fold increase when compared to the number of incidents that occurred in 2018. Globally, Open Doors reported earlier this year that numerous countries have seen “an increase in anti-Christian violence.” According to the organization, approximately 365 million Christians are currently subject to “high levels of persecution and discrimination,” compared to 340 million in 2021.

“It’s jarring to see violence against churches full of believers mirrored in the United States and Syria on the same weekend,” Arielle Del Turco, director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty, told The Washington Stand. “These acts are intended not only to end the lives of the Christians who gathered in those churches, but to terrorize and intimidate Christians far beyond the walls of those churches in Michigan or Damascus. We can pray for peace and safety for Christians around the world going to worship the Lord in community.”

She continued, “At a political level, the Trump administration should speak up on behalf of persecuted Christians at home and abroad, and work to ensure the nominee for the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom is confirmed by the Senate quickly and can bolster the administration’s work to promote religious freedom around the globe.”

As to what churches in America can do to better protect themselves against violent attacks, security experts like former FBI senior director Wiley Thompson say that every church should find “a good leader with a good heart for service, who can recruit, organize, train, and deploy volunteers” in order to protect congregations from physical harm.

“When designing a security ministry, the altar, platform, or stage in the sanctuary represents the center point for imaginary strategic circles (or ‘layered security’),” he told TWS.

Thompson, a 25-year FBI veteran, further explained, “The first layer is the outermost ring surrounding the church property which can generally be staffed with parking lot greeters who observe and report anyone or anything that looks suspicious. The idea is to identify and engage a potential threat before it reaches the doors to the church building.”

He continued, “The second layer of security is the greeters and members of the welcome team who are trained to conduct behavioral profiling and communicate to the security team anyone or anything out of the ordinary. The third layer is the ushers, deacons, pastoral staff, etc., inside the sanctuary, who have the same responsibilities as those in the second layer.”

“The final layer is the posting of two security team members on the stage facing the congregation and one on the front row, with direct line of sight and path to the pastor or priest at the pulpit,” Thompson detailed. “The two are responsible for detecting and deterring any threat moving toward the pulpit during the service, while the gatekeeper in the front row has the primary duty of protecting the speaker by moving forward and leading the principal off the stage to a safe room, if necessary.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

D.C. Murder of Jewish Couple: ‘This Is a Major Watershed Moment’

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It may have been the 593rd day of the conflict in Gaza — but last Wednesday, the war came to America. In a nightmarish attack on the streets of D.C., the hatred that’s been boiling under the surface spilled over, taking the lives of a young couple who will never have the chance to grow old together. “Instead of walking you down the aisle,” Israeli Embassy spokesman Tal Naim wrote mournfully, “we are walking with you to your graves.”

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were casualties of a battle with no real ground forces, no weapons system, no command structure. But it’s a force that a growing number of countries — including the United States — are desperately trying to overcome: anti-Semitism.

“I did it for Palestine,” the shooter told police officers at the Capital Jewish Museum, where the two embassy workers’ bodies lay outside — the deliberate targets of a man who was born and raised in America. They were a handful of days away from going to Jerusalem to meet his parents. Sarah’s own mother, Nancy, didn’t know Yaron was planning to propose until the entire world realized he never would.

She was two days away from flying to D.C. to watch her daughter’s goldendoodle Andy while they were away. When she saw the news alert about the shooting, Nancy hurried to open the locator app and check her daughter’s location. “I pretty much already knew,” she told The New York Times. “I was hoping to be wrong.” Still reeling, Sarah’s dad admitted, “The ironic part is that we were worried for our daughter’s safety in Israel. But she was murdered three days before going.”

Like so many people in disbelief, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins could only shake his head. “This is not something I expected here on the streets of America. I’ll be very frank.” The day after the killings rocked the Western world, he sat down with Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli American Council and former U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.

“This is more than just another incident,” Carr stressed. “This is a major watershed moment in this fight.” As a nation and a world, he underscored, “We have to fight against Jew hatred. We have to understand how dangerous it is. We have to understand how prevalent it is. And we have to understand where this comes from. And when you look at [the shooter Elias] Rodriguez’s background and you look at the ideological indoctrination [that he experienced] to get to this point, it’s very clear that we’ve got a real fight on our hands, and we need to stop the indoctrination of Americans in anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic values that contradict the very spiritual DNA of our civilization.”

In the days following the attack, larger cities like New York and D.C. are on high alert, promising a bigger police presence around synagogues and other Jewish institutions. The greatest mistake, most believe, is becoming complacent. “I hate to say it,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) told Perkins on “This Week on Capitol Hill,” but I think oftentimes we have become numb to these things happening internationally and certainly in the Middle East. But we [should be] completely shocked that they happen in the nation’s capital, right here in the United States of America.”

The Pennsylvania congressman, like so many others, blames the anti-Jewish sentiment taking over college campuses. Here’s a person, he said of the shooter, who “grows up in America and is willing to assassinate and execute Jews on the streets of America.” It’s unfathomable. But then, he lamented, “We have accommodated this global intifada, the calls for ‘Free Palestine,’” he warned. “And this is the result of that. This is the next phase of that. The radical leftist anti-Semitic movement is robust around the world, and it has unfortunately come home to America.”

Let’s be clear, Carr wanted people to know. “‘Free Palestine’ is not a pro-Palestinian statement. It is an anti-Semitic call for genocide against the Jewish people. That’s what that is. And we have to understand that when Americans are indoctrinated in anti-Semitic genocidal hate, they are being ruined. A generation of American kids [is] going to be ruined and raised in a culture of violence and aspiration to jihad,” he paused, “which is what we saw. And so, we’ve got to fight this indoctrination of America’s young people.”

Above all, he emphasized, “This has to be a unifying moment. We have to understand that all of us are in the crosshairs, and we are facing a despicable, violent, evil enemy that is bloodthirsty. We saw that on October 7th. We saw that on October 8th. And the global reaction of glee and joy at the murder of 1,200 Jews with medieval barbarity. And we see it today … in the United States.”

This is all in the shadows of the current Iranian talks, Perry reminded people. “And we know that Iran continues to stoke the flames.” This tragedy, he insisted, “just hints at the urgency of making sure that not only does this rhetoric stop and these actions stop, but that the potential for mass global atrocities” at the hands of monsters like Iran, Hamas, and their proxies “also stop.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Declassified Document Reveals Biden’s Scheme To Spy On Americans

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The full extent of former President Joe Biden’s apparent lawfare seems to be coming to light.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified the Biden Administration’s “Strategic Implementation Plan For Countering Domestic Terrorism” on April 16. The fifteen-page document details “four pillars” of domestic terrorism response, as assessed by intelligence and law enforcement in March 2021.

How exactly did the administration plan to accomplish these lofty goals? By, it appears, increasing mass surveillance of the American people.

“Optimize and create, as appropriate, interagency federal and state level data sharing arrangements to improve real-time data and information sharing to identify individuals at risk in order to target interventions at the local, state, and federal level,” the declassified plan explains.

The administration hoped to drive “executive and legislative action, including banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” Their goal has become law in Colorado, where Democratic Gov. Jared Polis recently approved an absurdly restrictive gun bill.

The document also references implementation of the bizarrely named “COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act,” signed into law in May 2021, as part of “improv[ing] federal hate crimes data and analysis to eliminate hate crimes under-reporting; mitigat[ing] xenophobia and bias, including by advancing inclusion in the nation’s COVID-19 response.” Are we to understand that the coronavirus was committing hate crimes against innocent pedestrians?

Perhaps most concerning are details of the administration’s attempts at ideological control.

“Norms of non-violent political expression and rejection of racism and bigotry are strengthened,” reads the document. “Americans have increasing faith in democracy and government.”

The neat gloss of “fighting racism” permits the administration enormous discretion in deciding who qualifies as a domestic problem. Democrats have bloated and contorted the definitions of “racism,” “bigotry,” and “democracy” beyond recognition in recent years — often in service of dismissing the concerns of Republican voters. A recent speech reveals just how Biden feels about Trump supporters.

“We can’t go on like this with a nation as divided as we are. It’s never been this divided. Granted, it’s roughly 30%, but it’s a 30% that has no heart,” said the former president.

Biden announced the creation of the nation’s first “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” in June 2021. The strategy, as explained to the public, justified itself by dual reasoning: a “resurgence” of racially motivated violence, attacks against government institutions, and associated individuals. Among the latter, according to the document, were the January 6, 2021, protests which culminated in protesters occupying the Capitol.

“Americans witnessed an unprecedented attack against a core institution of our democracy: the U.S. Congress,” the document claims.

Also unprecedented was the Biden administration’s campaign against political rivals under the guise of fighting domestic terrorism.

AUTHOR

Natalie Sandoval

Contributor. Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatalieIrene03

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republised with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Leftist Attacks on Tesla Are ‘Domestic Terrorism’: DOJ

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Progressive Marxism reduces down to two basic instincts: 1) rich businessmen are evil, and 2) government is god (rich politicians, therefore, get a pass). So, it’s no surprise that progressive Marxists were outraged when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, got an inside pass to knock the waste, fraud, and abuse out of government agencies like a bull in a china shop.

Unfortunately, the response by these progressive Marxists was no less surprising. Alarmed at the utterly fascistic powers wielded by a man with no official office, these courageous freedom fighters resorted to every democracy’s tool of choice — the Molotov cocktail.

But these misled radicals had to confront a glaring, strategic contradiction: the American people had placed the institutions they most revered in the hands of the people they most despised. Attacking the American government is no way to save the American government. Therefore, they had to target Musk some other way. Blessed with all the strategic foresight and aim of a Stormtrooper, they chose to assault private property and businesses instead — in particular, anything carrying the “T” for Tesla, Musk’s most successful company.

Yes, as strange as it sounds, for the past month leftist radicals have turned America’s top electric-car company into a totem for Nazism. This has given them a mental excuse to treat Teslas with all the disgust normally felt for a sworn enemy. All over the country, the built-in cameras on Teslas have recorded random passers-by doing everything from subtly keying the hated car’s door to smearing feces on it.

Such malicious, irrational behavior is almost a performative, religious act, for an insecure progressive to prove (at least to him or herself) that he or she is a good citizen — a mandatory requirement for those who believe government is god. The acts seem like a bizarre, voluntary form of fumie, the 17th century Japanese practice whereby people were forced to step on an image of Jesus Christ to prove they were not Christians.

The sudden animosity towards Tesla from its erstwhile customer base has seriously hurt the business, whose shares have fallen 35% this month and 42% this year (the company also issued a major recall last week). Even Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), a recent candidate for vice president of the United States, was induced to mock the brand online, “If you need a boost during the day, check out Tesla stock.”

But the catty turned catastrophic when several individuals chose to escalate the violence to arson attacks. In Salem, Ore., a man armed with an AR-15 rifle threw approximately eight Molotov cocktails into a Tesla dealership. In Loveland, Colo., another man attempted to ignite Teslas with Molotov cocktails, while in Charleston, S.C. a man turned his fiery rage against Tesla charging stations.

The Department of Justice swiftly arrested all three perpetrators and announced on Thursday that they “will face the full force of the law.” Each faces charges carrying a minimum of five years in prison, and a maximum of 20 years.

“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” declared U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”

Two days earlier, Bondi had warned, “The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. … We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”

President Donald Trump endorsed the DOJ’s vigorous prosecution in his own statement. “Those people are going to go through a big problem when we catch them. We’ve got a lot of cameras up. We already know who some of them are. We’re going to catch them,” he said. “And they’re bad guys. They’re the same guys that screw around with our schools and universities, the same garbage.”

While the Trump administration’s approach to law enforcement is sometimes open to the charge that it is unmeasured or hasty, here Bondi and Trump are on solid ground, suggested the editors of National Review, who are by no means instinctual Trump cheerleaders.

“It was appropriate for Attorney General Pam Bondi to describe what is happening as a ‘wave of domestic terrorism,’” they wrote, “in the sense that the perpetrators are resorting to violence to achieve a political or ideological goal; they want to convince people not to buy Teslas and to do enough damage to Musk’s company that it drives him out of public life.” Non-state actors resorting to violence to achieve a political goal is the definition of terrorism.

Boycotting a store or product — as conservatives did to Target and Bud Light — is one thing. It preserves a respect for property rights, violates no laws, and puts no one’s life in danger. Actively destroying someone else’s property or business by arson is something entirely different.

It’s no surprise, then, that the column of radicals torching Teslas is the group with little ideological allegiance to private property, the rule of law, or the value of human life — or even to America itself. But, when government-worshipers confront the unwelcome reality that government is now run by their sworn enemies, their tactical options are limited. Violence is the expected result.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

U.S. at Second-Highest Threat Level for Terrorist Attack: Expert

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American soldiers abroad and U.S. citizens at home face perilously high odds of suffering a terrorist attack caused by the Biden administration’s policies, a national security expert has revealed. In his estimation, the American homeland stands at the second-highest level of terrorist alert.

His estimation comes days after U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which oversees 83,000 U.S. soldiers across the continent, raised the threat of a terrorist attack over the next week to “Force Protection Charlie,” the second-highest level.

“There are a host of issues that might be at play,” said retired Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis on “Washington Watch” Monday. “Certainly, the Olympics come to mind,” as they start later this month, as well as possible Russian activity in response to U.S. sponsorship of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the Biden administration would give an additional $2.3 billion in taxpayer funding to Ukraine. That comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked President Biden for permission to use U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike deep into the interior of Russia, significantly widening the war.

But, Maginnis warned, the potential to suffer from some form of terrorist attack is far from confined to Americans overseas — and the primary danger comes from uncontrolled illegal immigration.

“Where would you suspect we are right here in the homeland?” asked guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice.

“Probably Charlie trending to Delta,” replied Maginnis.

The force protection levels, from lowest to highest, are: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.

“We are at a very heightened level, even though it’s not acknowledged by Homeland Security,” said Maginnis, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council and author of the book “Kings of the East: China’s Plan to Eliminate America and Impose a Communist World Order.”

“The risk is high,” he said.

“The southern border has been wide open for a long time. Millions of people have come in” during the Biden administration — an estimated 10 million illegal border crossings, not including unknown gotaways. That includes “many thousands of military-age communist Chinese, many from the Middle East, many from northern Africa — where we don’t have any real friends — and then, of course an odd lot from Eastern Europe that we could very well have bad characters in sleeper cells posted around this country near our critical infrastructure.”

“As we saw on September 11, 2001, it only takes 19 bad dudes to disrupt the entire United States,” said Maginnis.

Potential terrorists continue to swarm over the southern border, a problem that has intensified with each passing month of the Biden administration. Last month, ICE agents arrested eight illegal immigrants from Tajikistan with ties to ISIS in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York City. At least two of the potential terrorists had background checks conducted at the southern border by agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but nothing alerted CBP to the men’s nefarious connections — so they were released into the interior of the United States, in accordance with the Biden administration’s standard operating procedure. Another of the men used the CBP One App, created by the Biden administration to expedite the importation of illegal aliens into the U.S., to schedule a smooth entry into the U.S.

“The arrest of eight men affiliated with ISIS in the interior of the United States is enough proof to show that terrorist organizations are, in fact, exploiting our border to possibly carry out an attack on American soil,” wrote a group of Republican congressmen led by House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.) to the now-impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Unfortunately, the unacceptable security failures that have allowed individuals with terrorist ties to enter the United States through the Southwest [b]order have become an alarming pattern under this administration.” In addition to the eight Tajikis:

  • An ISIS-affiliated human smuggling ring reportedly brought 400 illegal immigrants into the United States. Only 150 had been arrested as of last week. The whereabouts of 50 of them remained unknown.
  • 48-year-old Mohammad Kharwin, a native of Afghanistan and a suspected member of the terrorist group Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), illegally entered the United States last March 10 near San Ysidro, California. Although he was on the U.S. terrorist watchlist, the information reportedly did not show up on his background check, so agents released him two days later, only to track him down and take him into custody this February.
  • A 2022 George Washington University report on Hezbollah activity inside the United States identified 128 individuals carrying out Hezbollah -related illegal activity in Michigan (55 cases), California (19 cases), North Carolina (16 cases), and New York (15 cases). Of those, 19 offered operational support for Hezbollah, “including as human smugglers, weapons procurers, pre-operational surveillance, and travelers who sought to join the group.”
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered 1,703 people on the U.S. terrorist watchlist since the beginning of the 2021 fiscal year (which began in October 2020): 173 in 2021, 478 in 2022, 736 in 2023, and 316 people so far this fiscal year.
  • Robert Lee, CEO of the energy cybersecurity company Dragos, testified before the Senate last March that it is “a very reasonable assumption” to believe Chinese and Russian sleeper cells have already penetrated the U.S. energy grid in preparation for a future attack. “If they’re not already in key parts of it, I don’t think they’re doing the job very well,” said Lee.

The Biden administration’s soft-on-crime “prioritization of catch, process, and release” at the southern border “presents a grave danger to national security,” the congressmen wrote.

Sleeper cells, which may lay dormant for months or years before engaging in deadly activity, have proven their lethality in every corner of the globe. Last week, a Russian official revealed that “sleeper cells” had carried out the June 23 Islamist terrorist attack on churches and synagogues in Dagestan, which left 22 people dead, including 66-year-old priest Fr. Nikolai Kotelnikov. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the attacks as having “diabolic” origins.

“This is a dangerous time,” Maginnis told Hice.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

DHS: ‘Domestic violent extremists’ are ‘infiltrating’ the abortion debate

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What would we do without the Department of Homeland Security? Those intrepid defenders of our liberties are showing these days how richly they deserve our taxpayer billions, as DHS officials, ever on the watch, warned on Monday that “domestic violent extremists” are “infiltrating” the national debate over abortion, with nefarious plans to “incite violence amongst their supporters.”

Now, I must admit, I’m not as sharp as the all the knives in the drawer over at the DHS, and I don’t have my finger on the pulse of threats to “our democracy,” which Leftists are constantly telling us is in imminent peril from people who believe in the U.S. Constitution and the basic goodness of the American experiment. So I hope that Alejandro Mayorkas and his henchmen, that is, colleagues, at the DHS will forgive me for not realizing that domestic violent extremists have only recently infiltrated the abortion debate. I had the crazy idea that domestic violent extremists had actually infiltrated the abortion debate decades ago; in fact, I thought they had been there from the very beginning. After all, there are people out there who think that those who dismember babies in the womb are performing a decent and righteous act; if that’s not domestic violent extremism, what is?

But that is, of course, not the kind of domestic violent extremism that the DHS has in mind. To be sure, our intrepid defenders didn’t specify exactly what kind of domestic violent extremism they did have in mind. ABC News reported that the DHS official who disclosed this warning “did not specify which side, if any, the extremists were taking.” However, it’s not hard to figure out which side the DHS has in mind. The FBI, as well as DHS officials, have quite frequently repeated the claim that “white supremacists” are the most formidable “domestic extremist” threat that the nation faces today.

This is an administration that has likened parents who have protested at school board meetings against Communist indoctrination and transgender propaganda in public schools to terrorists, while not saying a thing about genuine Antifa violence and thuggery, so when the DHS warns that “domestic violent extremists” are infiltrating the abortion debate, it’s absolutely certain that the people they are tarring with this label are pro-lifers. And while there have been a handful of pro-lifers who were violent in the past, it’s far more likely that DHS is equating dissenting words with violence.

Why do I say that? Because it has happened to me. Last year, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an organization created by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube to police terrorism on the Internet, bizarrely designated my organization Jihad Watch a “violent extremist” group, despite the fact that pretty much all we do is type and report on jihad activity in the U.S. and around the world. In response to a letter from my attorney demanding a retraction, the GIFCT refused to back down. Those who designated Jihad Watch as a “violent extremist” group explained that we reported on violent activity — terrorist bombings, murders, etc. — and that this in some way “dehumanized” Muslims.

How we did this was left unexplained; it would have been impossible to explain, as it was absurd on its face. If reporting news that puts some group in a bad light is “dehumanizing,” the GIFCT and DHS should go after the establishment media for “dehumanizing” Trump and his supporters. The response to my attorney’s letter was essentially the increasingly common Leftist argument that speech that dissents from its party line is violence, and hence must be shut down.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, fresh from defending his sinister and Orwellian new Disinformation Governance Board, promises that his department is right on top of this alleged “domestic violent extremist” threat: “Over the past year, we in the Department of Homeland Security have improved and strengthened our approach to combating this dynamic, evolving threat.”

How reassuring. Meanwhile, Leftist pro-abortion ideologues have been demonstrating at the homes of the Supreme Court Justices who are likely to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in a naked attempt to intimidate them into changing their vote. Despite the fact that it is a felony to demonstrate at private homes, the Biden administration has applauded these protests. The government is presently in the hands of thugs who believe that bullying and frightening people into submission is an acceptable political tactic. Can the DHS, in such an environment, spare even a few agents to try to head off any possible Leftist violence regarding a possible overturning of Roe? After all, Leftists are much, much more likely to be violent than pro-lifers. This is true both historically and recently and is indicated by the nature of what they’re so avidly defending.

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

Senior Fellow.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

New ‘domestic terrorism’ bill supposedly targets white supremacists and neo-Nazis

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The problem with this bill is that it is increasingly common for Leftists, including high-level members of the political and media establishment, to call all those who oppose the Leftist agenda “white supremacists” and “neo-Nazis,” including law-abiding Americans who abhor racism and fascism and are simply standing against Communist indoctrination, transgender delusions, and other lies foisted upon us from above these days.

Domestic Terrorism Bill Targets White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis

by Ellen M. Gilmer, Bloomberg, May 18, 2022:

Three federal agencies would be tasked with rooting out domestic terrorism threats within the government and across the US under a bill slated for a House vote Wednesday.

The measure (H.R. 350) would authorize domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the FBI. It would also require officials to assess White supremacist and neo-Nazi threats in the US and inside agencies.

The May 14 mass shooting of mostly Black victims at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store prompted renewed urgency for passing the bill after lawmakers scrapped plans for a floor vote last month.

Similar legislation (S. 963) is pending in the Senate but may face challenges if Republicans in that chamber take up their House colleagues’ complaints that the bill would allow federal officials to target everyday people as potential threats for speaking out about issues such as Covid-19 and school policies. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the bill’s sponsor, said Monday that his panel will hold a hearing on the bill.

House bill sponsor Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) acknowledged that Republicans’ complaints about potential federal overreach have weighed heavily in the House but said Democrats would try to return focus to the bill’s purpose does during floor debate….

The House bill has also created friction on the left, with some groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, lauding it as a way to counter domestic terrorism without profiling racial and religious minorities. The [Hamas-linked — ed.] Council on American-Islamic Relations and others argued last month that agencies would inevitably use new authorities to target marginalized communities.

Bill supporters aimed to address those concerns this week through an amendment that tweaked the definition of domestic terrorism and added a section on First Amendment protections. CAIR, Defending Rights & Dissent, and other groups on Monday said they appreciated the changes and would no longer push lawmakers to vote no….

DOJ, DHS, and the FBI already have teams that investigate domestic terrorism. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the three agencies would need more than 100 new analysts, agents, lawyers, and support staff to address the bill’s requirements.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.