Abdul Ballout’s deadly July 25 attack on Berlin’s Pride festival was entirely predictable and preventable. Out on parole after being convicted for trying to join ISIS in Syria, the 21-year-old terrorist rammed a rented van into a crowd at the event. When his mangled vehicle was disabled by the impacts with flesh and bone, Ballout began slashing attendees with a knife. He killed one person and injured at least 29 others before German police killed him.
Ballout embodies the new global threat from ISIS. While ISIS no longer has its caliphate in Syria and Iraq, it has regrouped as a potent and geographically diverse terrorist movement. Its reach now extends from Berlin to Sydney, Australia, where two ISIS converts killed 15 people and wounded 40 more celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach last December.
Recommended Stories
A sobering new report, “ISIS: Know Thy Enemy” by Sarah Adams and Dave Benton of the Askari Media Group (Askari is Arabic for “security guard”), exposes the new threat in detail. Adams is a former CIA counterterrorism analyst with experience targeting terrorists. Benton is a military and intelligence community veteran. Their readable report is a must for a thorough understanding of the new ISIS.
After losing its territory battling U.S. and Iraqi forces, ISIS has reconstituted itself as a virtual terrorist organization that recruits, trains, and activates fighters online. It has plenty of seasoned fighters to carry out its mission. Over the past 18 months, Syrian President Abu Mohammad al Julani’s security forces have released 2,100 ISIS prisoners. Of these, 450 are high-ranking ISIS commanders and officials. They have found a safe haven in Afghanistan. From there, many reportedly went on to Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, and Turkey. These ISIS veterans are in addition to ISIS members inside the U.S., the majority of them illegal immigrants who crossed our southern border.
We have former President Joe Biden’s twin policy debacles of the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan and the opening of our southern border to thank for this gathering storm of ISIS terrorists. The senile president simultaneously gave ISIS safe haven under the Taliban and here in America.
On Jan. 4, 2024, the Islamic State released a video titled “And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them.” ISIS’s new battle cry is “act wherever you are, using whatever means are available,” according to Adams and Benton. The video calls on Jihadists to “bring to life the blessed attacks in the heart of the Jews’ and Christians’ homelands” and “chase your prey whether Jewish, Christian or their allies, on the streets and roads of America, Europe, and the world.” ISIS specifically called for attacks on civilian targets like schools, churches, synagogues, and public gatherings like the Berlin Pride event.
Such attacks are hard to stop because ISIS’s digitized operations can identify and recruit a terrorist online and then train them to attack in just a few weeks. In contrast, under ISIS’s former operational structure, terrorist recruits had to travel to Syria or Iraq for security vetting and advanced training. The new “remote activation” model means counterterrorism authorities have comparatively little time to identify and counter impending terrorist threats.
In the two years since ISIS changed its strategy, the tempo of attacks on Western countries has accelerated dramatically. They will only intensify unless countermeasures are strengthened. Even if ISIS’s claim to have 2,500 Islamic militants inside the U.S. is exaggerated for propaganda purposes, it’s clear that ISIS adherents are here. In June, the FBI arrested three men charged with providing material support to ISIS. One of the men, Bisaam Ghafoor, allegedly said “he has always wanted to kill a female soldier by beheading” and “I wish I could kill 300,000,000 Americans.”
CANADA IS CHOKING AMERICA. TRUMP IS RIGHT TO MAKE THEM PAY
In addition to close surveillance of Islamic militants on encrypted communications platforms like Telegram and Discord, legal and operational barriers to interdicting terrorist cells need to be addressed. We need to take a harder look at the boundary between free speech and the crime of incitement to violence with a view toward heightened enforcement, not of so-called “hate speech”, but of actual calls for terrorist attacks and assassinations.
Finally, we need a frank debate about how much legal immigration from Islamic societies is compatible with American values. While it is absolutely true that most Muslim immigrants are peaceful, law-abiding Americans, until Islam undergoes a reform whereby the unequal treatment, abuse, and killing of non-believers is expressly forbidden by clerics, the slaughter of the innocents will go on.
John B. Roberts II served in the Reagan White House and was an international political strategist and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. He is an author and artist.
