The White House has released its US Counterterrorism Strategy report, outlining the Trump administration’s plan for addressing threats both homegrown and foreign. It states that the US currently faces three major types of terror groups: "Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs," "Legacy Islamist Terrorists," and "Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists." These threats can be defeated, the White House said, "but the threat is significant and pervasive."
The first priority for the administration’s counterterrorism strategy is the "neutralization of hemispheric terror threats," including incapacitating cartel operations.
The report notes that the open border under the Biden administration led to cartels and gangs "flooding" the US with drugs, weapons, and illegal immigrants, leading Trump to designate such groups as foreign terrorist organizations. In addressing the issue of cartels, the Trump administration has been taking out cartel drug boats in waters near the US, as well as capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The US is also working to target such groups’ finances and supply lines, including connections to terrorist funding.
The second priority is destroying the top five Islamist terror groups with the ability to "execute External Operations against the US," including al Qaeda and the subgroup al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), ISIS groups including ISIS-K, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The White House said that "hundreds of Jihadist terrorists in multiple countries" have been taken out since Trump returned to office, and the Counterterrorism Strategy " is predicated on maintaining and increasing that pressure on those groups until they no longer pose a threat to the homeland because they are destroyed, or because we can hand suppression operations over to capable allies or partners."
The report said the "greatest threat" to the US emanating from the Middle East region is from Iran, "directly in the form of its nuclear and missile capabilities, and indirectly in the form of the billions of dollars it funnels to its terror proxies, including Hezbollah." The White House said "decisive actions" such as June’s Operation Midnight Hammer and the ongoing Operation Epic Fury "will continue until the regime in Tehran is no longer a threat to the United States."
The report states that "President Trump knows that all modern Jihadi groups, from al Qaeda to ISIS to Hamas, can trace their roots back to one organization: the Muslim Brotherhood." The group was called "the root of all modern Islamist terrorism predicated on recreating the Muslim Caliphate." Multiple international chapters have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by Trump.
The report also noted the terror threat of Europe, being called an "incubator" of such threats due to mass migration and open borders. "Europe can be strong again if it rediscovers traditional principles of freedom of speech, has honest conversations about Islamism, devotes sufficient resources to mitigate terrorism and cartel threats within its nations, and then actively shares its threat intelligence globally and moves counterterrorism burden shifting to take greater responsibility for its own security."
Also being prioritized by counterterrorism is "the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist." The report said the administration is using tools to map these groups, identify members and ties to organizations such as Antifa, and working to "cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent."
In Africa, the administration aims to block terrorist groups from building a base of operations there, and to protect Christians on the continent. Christians have frequently been targeted in mass killings in African nations such as Nigeria.
Beyond the three categories of terrorist threats, the Counterterrorism Strategy also addresses five functional aspects of the current counterterrorism environment: "New and evolving collaboration between nation-states and threat groups such as cartels," "New and deepening alliances between the far-left and Islamists, i.e., the 'Red-Green' alliance," "New and evolving alliances between established terrorist groups, such as the collaboration between Al Shabaab and the Houthis," "Exploitation of new weapons, like drones, by cartels and Jihadists, as well as the provision of these technologies to terrorists by state actors, namely, Iran, China, and Russia," and "The remaining threat of terrorists acquiring and using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons."
"Additionally, there is the special category of terror-like actions taken by state actors, including acts of sabotage and the use of proxies, assassinations, and what some of our allies have labeled "hybrid" attacks. We will continue to work with our CT partners to make it impossible for such state-driven terrorism to occur in the homeland," the report states.
The report stated that the counterterrorism operations "will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us," and that "millions of Americans have lost confidence in the rectitude of the most powerful elements of our Federal government; the national security apparatus of the United States" in the wake of the Biden administration’s actions, including Catholics attending traditional mass and parents speaking out at school board meetings.
The report stated that "this Administration will continue to prohibit the IC from being used politically against innocent Americans. As real threats were ignored or underplayed, Americans have witnessed the politically motivated killings of Christians and conservatives committed by violent left-wing extremists, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies."
