In New York City, two men federal authorities said were inspired by the Islamic State brought powerful homemade bombs to a far-right protest outside the mayoral mansion, the Associated Press reported. In Michigan, a naturalized citizen from Lebanon rammed his vehicle into a synagogue; security shot at him before he shot himself to death, according to the report. In Virginia, officials said a man previously imprisoned on a terrorism conviction yelled “Allahu akbar” before opening fire in a university classroom, and that the shooter was killed by students, AP reported.
The AP said the three acts of violence in the last week have highlighted a heightened terrorism threat unfolding against the backdrop of the U.S. war with Iran, while the country’s counterterrorism system faces strain from departures of experienced national security professionals at the FBI and the Justice Department. The report described firings and resignations, along with shifting resources and personnel over the past year to meet other Trump administration priorities, as fueling concerns about whether the government’s capability to head off a potential surge in threats has been weakened.
Frank Montoya, a retired senior FBI official, said “So much experience has been decimated from the ranks,” and that many of the people “best positioned to get to the bottom of it before something really bad happened” are no longer with the government, leaving less experienced personnel “starting from way behind,” AP reported. The FBI, AP said, declined to comment on personnel numbers and decisions, but issued a statement saying “agents and staff are dedicated professionals working around the clock to defend the homeland and crush violent crime.” The FBI also said it “continuously assesses and realigns our resources to ensure the safety of the American people,” AP reported.
The Associated Press said Iran has a history of plotting attacks and targeted killings inside the United States, while also vowing revenge for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the U.S. and Israel. AP reported that Iranian operatives responded to the 2020 assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani with a disrupted murder-for-hire plot targeting former national security adviser John Bolton. The report also pointed to a Pakistani business owner, who said he was carrying out instructions from a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who was convicted in New York last week of trying to hire hit men in 2024 for assassination plots targeting public figures, including President Donald Trump.
While the AP said Iran’s capability to organize a large-scale assault on the U.S. remains unclear, it reported that the FBI had warned law enforcement in a recent bulletin about Iran’s aspiration to conduct a drone attack targeting California. After the warning was publicized, AP said officials emphasized the intelligence was unverified and that no specific plot was known to exist.
The AP also described a persistent concern within counterterrorism planning: lone actors radicalized online. Edward Herbst, a retired FBI official, said the attackers are “self-directed” and that “That’s what makes them really lethal,” according to AP. Herbst told AP that officials “never know when they’re going to rise up” and “never know when and where they’re going to attack.”
Claire Moravec, a former FBI national security official who served as deputy homeland security adviser in Illinois, told AP that terrorism concerns typically rise during international conflicts when military action overseas is accompanied by increased vigilance and coordination between federal and local law enforcement. In an email to AP, she said the “goal during these periods is not ‘surveillance’ but maintaining a broad awareness of how international events could translate into domestic security risks, so that threats can be identified and disrupted early,” and she said wars like the one involving Iran can function as “accelerants,” raising the volume and intensity of grievances for the disaffected.
AP reported that officials said there was no indication that the men arrested in connection with the explosives in New York or the man responsible for the Old Dominion University shooting were motivated explicitly by the Iran war. The report said the man who crashed into Temple Israel synagogue near Detroit lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon, citing an official in Lebanon. Even without a direct link to the Iran war, AP said the broader dynamics of international conflict can still intensify domestic security risks.
Separately, AP reported that personnel changes and casework reassignments have affected counterterrorism units at the Justice Department. It said lawyers in the Justice Department’s National Security Division were assigned to review the Jeffrey Epstein files in preparation for release, and that elite sections dedicated to prosecuting terrorists and catching spies have seen turnover. AP also said about half of the division’s counterterrorism prosecutors have left since the beginning of the Trump administration, along with about a third of its senior leadership, according to estimates from Justice Connection.
The AP reported that a Justice Department spokesperson said the division’s focus remains “keeping the American people safe from threats foreign and domestic” and that there are no known or credible threats to the homeland. The report also said FBI Director Kash Patel has fired dozens of agents, most recently about a dozen employees who worked on the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Matthew Olsen, who led the National Security Division during the Biden administration, told AP on the Lawfare podcast that “they are not as capable as they were a year and a half ago” and that “they’ve lost, forced out, fired, the most capable, the most experienced FBI agents, FBI officials and DOJ prosecutors, that were working on the Iran threat,” AP reported. Montoya, AP said, described a disruption in institutional continuity, saying there was “no transition” and that agents were “just walked out of the building,” before adding, “you’re still introducing a brand new face into the equation.”