FBI Director Wray says the terror threat in the United States is at a "whole other level" due to Israel-Hamas war.

 

FBI Director Christopher Wray. Fox News/AFP.

FBI Director Christopher Wray says the terror threat in the United States is at a "whole other level" due to the Israel-Hamas war. Fox News. He said that the level was already elevated before the war but the attack by Hamas has elevated the threat. The attack that killed a large number of Jews could serve as an inspiration for lone wolf attackers not seen since the height of ISIS. Lone wolf or small group attackers inspired by the attack are a major concern as well as retribution attacks against Jews and Muslims taken by domestic terrorists. However he also warned that Hamas or other terror groups could launch their own attacks, citing the threat from Hezbollah and possibly Iran itself. Wray's comments were echoed by other government agencies. 

My Comment:

The really pathetic thing about this is that the FBI has essentially given up on counterterrorism. They have instead focused on persecuting the people that were at the January 6th protests, to the point it's rumored that they are now arresting people that were simply at the rally Trump had that day. Indeed, Wray also said that they weren't really tracking any foreign terrorists at the moment, which was an absurd thing to say. 

That video is also pretty spooky since Wray is also saying there are gaps in our intelligence on the terror threat and even quoted Donald Rumsfeld talking about "known unknowns". That's the same kind of rhetoric we heard before during and after the 9/11 attacks and it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. 

Given the track record of the FBI and terror attacks it's probably almost better that they aren't actually tracking terror targets right now. The FBI has an absolute history of botching these things, with the most notable case being the Curtis Culwell attack in Texas where an FBI agent was on the scene of the attack and was almost shot by local police since he was dressed like one of the attackers and had gone to the scene of the attack with them. 

Despite the FBI's bad reputation I do agree that the terror threat is at an absurdly high level. People like succeeds and Hamas had a huge success with their attack on the Israelis. Not only did they take the Israelis by almost total surprise, they managed to deal a blow to one of the most hated countries in the entire world by Muslims. 

They also appear to be winning the propaganda war. The atrocities that Hamas committed in Israel have largely been forgotten and their own major mistake in the war, bombing their own hospital with a malfunctioning rocket, has been successfully blamed on Israel. They also have a sophisticated media propaganda arm that has no problem exploiting dead people. 

We have already seen some small scale terror attacks that may have been inspired by the attack, most notably the ISIS attack in Belgium. Given the time that has passed since the attack, terrorists have had time to plan a major attack, though who knows if there is a terror group strong enough to actually pull it off. 

Hamas is of course using all their resources to fight Israel and presumably don't want to bring the United States into the war so I don't see them launching any attacks in the US. ISIS and al-Qaeda are mostly destroyed and though they have had some room to regroup and rearm, they are mere shadows compared to what they once were. 

What does worry me is Hezbollah and Iran. Both have been very active in the United States. Iran has been infiltrating people in for years and Hezbollah was so involved here that they made a billion dollars smuggling cocaine into the United States. Unlike Hamas they have people here and have a major reason to hit us, given their hatred of US foreign policy. I don't think Iran would attack us directly but if the war escalates to the point where we are in a shooting war with Iran, all bets are off. 

Far more likely are lone wolf terror attacks and open street violence. It doesn't take much for someone to launch an attack, you don't even need a gun. All you need is the will and the intelligence to find a weapon and a person can easily pull off an attack like this. 

And those pro or anti-Israel rallies? Given how many conflicts there have been at those rallies I would not be surprised if they turn into a melee or a riot. Tensions are just way too high and I highly recommend to not go to any of these events. It's a minor miracle that nobody has been killed at these events. 

Finally, there is the potential for good old fashioned murder. We have already seen one such incident, where a man stabbed a 6 year old Muslim boy, but that could be the tip of the iceberg. Given how many Jews are reporting being harassed I think it's only a matter of time before one of these incidents escalate into murder...