A senior U.S. counterterrorism official is cautioning that the threat from global jihadists has expanded significantly, although the resources to counter them have declined.
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism, on Feb. 11 told a Washington conference organized by the American Foreign Policy Council that he based the current threat assessment on several factors.
“Number one, jihadist groups are more geographically dispersed than ever before, with networks extending across the Sahel, Central and East Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia,” he said.
“To cite just one example, West African countries like Benin and Togo, that once had little exposure to jihadi threats, are now seeing jihadi Sunni actors in their territory and elsewhere, affecting their national sovereignty.”
Benin and Togo have reported attacks by al-Qaida, an expansion of the violence the terror group is carrying out in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Gorka said militant groups are increasingly capable and using new forms of technology to execute their deadly missions.
Gorka said that militants “remain highly adaptive entities.”
“If you look at their use of social media, especially encrypted apps to communicate, these individuals have acclimatized to the new technological environment,” he said.
One of Trump’s main campaign promises in last year’s election was to tighten security along the U.S. border and deport migrants without legal status. He signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the border. Gorka argued that border vulnerabilities give militants an advantage.
“The global jihadi actors are poised to capitalize on global security vulnerabilities, especially the fact that, for four years, we have had no southern border,” Gorka said.
Former President Joe Biden defended his immigration policies during the 2024 presidential election campaign and blamed the Republicans for walking back on a bipartisan immigration bill. Biden said Trump was involved in sinking the bill.
The Middle East
Gorka said militant groups in the Middle East, including Hezbollah and Hamas, which the United States, Britain and other Western nations have designated as terrorist groups, have been severely marginalized.
“Let's just be blunt — since the heinous, tragic massacre of more Jews than have ever been killed since the end of the Shoah [Holocaust] in 1945, since Oct. 7, our friends in Israel have literally redrawn the map of the region,” he said.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the October 2023 Hamas terror attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages. Israel’s counteroffensive has killed more than 48,200 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza health authorities. Israel says the death toll includes 17,000 militants it has killed.
“As a result, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas have been radically degraded,” Gorka said. This has paved the way for what? The collapse of the [Bashar al-] Assad regime in Syria, which together represent devastating blows to the greatest global sponsor of terrorism as a nation-state — Iran's capability to hurt our interests and the interests of our friends and partners.”
US airstrikes in Somalia
Gorka also gave more details about the airstrikes on Feb. 1 that targeted Islamic State group militants in Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland.
The strikes were carried out by the U.S. Africa Command and authorized by Trump and coordinated with Somalia.
“We told the president, ‘There is a cave complex in northern Somalia full of ISIS,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. “We have been surveilling it for years, but the last administration refused to take action.”
According to the Africa Command, 14 militants were killed, including Ahmed Maeleninine, who was described as a "recruiter, financier and external operations leader responsible for the deployment of jihadists into the United States and across Europe."
Somali officials said he is from Oman, although the U.S. has not commented on his nationality.
“The person you saw in the footage is not just a foot soldier,” Gorka said as video of the airstrike was played. “He is a recruiter, trainer and financier for ISIS, one of the guys who is hard to replace. We had been surveilling him for months.”
The strikes were carried out by fighter jets launched from the USS Harry S. Truman, which was in the Red Sea at the time.
Trump confirmed ordering a precision military airstrikes on the same day.
Somali forces in Puntland this week reported success against the militants. Scores were killed after Puntland forces repelled a complex attack from the militants in the early hours of Feb. 11.
The U.S. has been training elite Somali forces known as Danab, which means “lightning.” So far, there has been no publicly known change of US security support to Somalia.
VOA’s Farsi Service contributed to this report.
