by Dr. Christopher C. Harmon
How go the patterns of world terrorism, and what is the U.S. strategy for fighting back?
Citizens and analysts of national security matters have a double opportunity to find out, just now. With the first week of May, we had the publication of two key U.S. documents long awaited. Our Department of State released its annual on trends and incidents called Country Reports on Terrorism. About the same moment, the White House published a United States Counterterrorism Strategy. Both are important for the second Donald Trump Administration, especially the strategy paper, a guide for what the White House counter-terror team has been doing and what we may anticipate in the realms of words and actions.
Marco Rubio’s State Department was rumored to have axed the annual Country Reports. That would have been a mistake. It dates at least as far back as 1980, and 22 pages, then called “Patterns of Global Terrorism.” This grew with time and enemy attacks into a sort of encyclopedia of 300 pages. Facing occasional criticism, most often it has been authoritative and of great help to journalists, scholars, and government officials world-wide. The report’s problems are dwarfed by its offerings.
The newest issue—which arrives late—details year 2024 events but well anticipates many of today’s news stories: Chaos in the Sahel region of Africa and states such as Mozambique and Congo. The quieter world of Western Europe, where Marxist-Leninist movements—and even Greek anarchists—have faded. Declines in most violence in the Philippines, a U.S. treaty partner with whom bilateral work is continuous. The persistence of Islamic State recruiting, and potential for more trouble given 8,700 detained fighters and some 42,000 displaced persons after our coalition crushed the caliphate during the first Trump term.
Governments on State’s dirty roster for sponsoring terrorism overseas also appear in each annual. Time has whittled down the list. Syria has just been de-listed in an inducement to the new (post-Asad) regime. Libya may still be a horror show domestically, but its government(s) are no longer exporting terror deliberately. Iraq reformed enough to be freed from State’s sanctions. But Iran, proverbially tunneling under Iraqi sovereignty as always, has no chance of being de-listed. Cuba remains listed, since Colombian ELN leaders, Spanish Basques, and several U.S. terrorists, including a cop killer, have been able to lounge about there, enjoying freedoms denied to indigenous Cubans daring to have political opinions. North Korea, briefly removed as an international bargaining effort, is back on the list now; Pyongyang kidnapped citizens of Japan and, like Cuba, still shelters aging international terrorists.
Of the three governments still on our State Department’s blacklist, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, it almost goes without saying that Iran is the most aggressive today in low-intensity conflict. State’s new report mentions funding to HAMAS, to Houthi Shia attacking international shipping, and to other violent parties. It should do more to detail the shocking level of Iranian interference in Europe. From Albania, and north to England, Iranian nationals or agents have been in dozens of plots, some injurious, in recent years. When Labour’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said recently that the Iran war was something for the U.S. and Israel which did not engage British interests, he was ignoring MI5 evidence of twenty plots against his citizenry by Iranian perpetrators in just three recent years. North Western continental European countries have the same problem with Iran, which uses its intelligence agency MOIS, and diplomats, and independent actors in organized crime, and Hizbollah to plan and carry out attacks overseas.
Readers may be surprised to see this category in Country Reports: “White Identity Terrorism.” Officially added to federal considerations in the Joseph Biden Administration, and tracking closely with his domestic counterterrorism strategy of 2021, this section offers paragraphs on international travel and internet connections by white racists, attacks in Scandinavian countries, and related militancy. More expected, from the Trump Administration, is emphasis in the new “Strategy” on international anarchism, and Antifa, which has recently been listed for U.S. sanctions. If the U.S. is able to show Antifa chapters sharing resources across borders, we may expect indictments for material support to terrorism.
There is no suggestion in these two new reports, or others of credibility, that global terrorism, or anti-American terrorism, is rising. Many countries with tens of millions of citizens do not see more than a half-dozen lethal attacks in a typical year. Six Americans were killed in 2024 terrorism, and others were injured or kidnapped, mostly in the Middle East. There are, of course, increased attacks against our public officials at home; these are not really addressed in the new strategy, which is focused on transnational matters.
This new 16-page U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy (drafted by Dr. Sebastian Gorka) announces a logic of discussion of “Principles…Priorities…Goals…and Resources.” Certain commentators have been quick to say these are under-developed, but that has often been a prominent view when any White House releases so short and unclassified a paper. Present national security staff advance the premise that Americans should not have to live in fear of armed fanatics desperate for popular support. That is well-said. What is different now is harsher language, and more threat of use of force. There have been armed campaigns, short or long, against multiple centers of terrorism since Mr. Trump assumed power 17 months ago, and this trend is underscored by his fresh threats of force now, this May.
Most secular governments escape the White House sights in this short new document. Sub-state narco-terrorist groups overseas get the first blast. Then the “Strategy” turns to religious militants and governing entities involved in transnational violence; these are directly called out, from Mali to the Middle East. If Iran represents the armed Shia threat to peace and world order, the White House names many other Sunni groups of self-declared “jihadis” to be put on notice. Those murdering Christians by the score in Nigeria and Sudan are twice touched in the new language.
Trump teams have often been accused of “Islamophobia,” and the new strategy paper will not alter that trend in domestic American commentary. But with the possible and controversial exception of several Muslim Brotherhood chapters, the groups noted in black ink have been demonstrated to be lethal. Critics tend to forget that the types of hubristic “Holy Warriors” who grab Westerners and publish “Death to America” fatwas kill brother Muslims yet more freely. Consider the Afghan-governing Taliban’s war with ISIS-K; both parties are Sunni extremists. When a bomb devastates another Shia mosque in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the perpetrators are usually Sunnis. Al Qaeda controlled its blood lust against these “deviant” Shia, but ISIS glories in it: they slit the throats of such believers said to wander from the footsteps of Mohammed, and they smash the stone profiles of ancient men of Shia faith. In recent months, most detention centers in Syria holding ISIS members have been dismantled, making acts of violence from Islamic State adherents more likely, not less. Where ISIS attacks are indiscriminate, Muslims are at the same risk as others.
We have seen that “force” and the showing of it are prominent in the new U.S. Strategy, and, indeed, there are a few lines of unnecessary bluster. But to be noted as well are all the lines about the many traditional American measures for contesting the terrorist plague. There are a dozen invocations to work with our security partners. The self-interest of many governments will move them in the direction of working with us, this White House paper states, and that is true. Encouraging such movement is the business of diplomats, and also intermediaries in “track two” diplomacy: With a Pakistani lady—a gifted Ph.D. in political science—I was honored to work with a team from the Maldives on their well-rounded political plans against radicalization; now, years later, we see that the island group is in our global coalition against ISIS. If terrorists are international, we must be also, and diplomacy and public diplomacy are vital.
Intelligence is both a ground for understanding terrorists and a platform for striking against them. While the new paper mentions intelligence, it underserves the cyber dimension of defense and offense. A decade ago, the U.S. military created “Task Force Ares” to take down many Al Qaeda and ISIS servers and websites—a brilliant success—and such offensive power in our cyber toolkit remains, awaiting the fullest use.
There are, of course, covert measures making very limited or “discrete” uses of force. For some of the accused on whom we hold thick evidence files, rendition is a remedy. It was introduced into counterterrorism conversations by Ronald Reagan; it was just used again against the druggie-aligned Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela. Rendition can end in public trial and jail, which has many advantages.
Economic sanctions are a U.S. staple, too, even if their good effects may be limited and our non-allies may undercut them.
“…the U.S. government will use diplomatic, intelligence, military, economic, law enforcement, and scientific capabilities, including kinetic and non-kinetic actions where appropriate, to thwart this threat.” With such sober words, the May 2026 White House strategy document closes. It uses new words and promises new energy, yet the path is not unfamiliar to past American governments: diverse actions, tracking in the same direction, and reinforcing one another.
Christopher C. Harmon, Ph.D., wrote the textbook Terrorism Today (2000; 2008). His work on terrorism & counterterrorism subjects has also appeared from Cambridge and Oxford University presses and such journals as Vital Speeches, Orbis, and The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. He teaches at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.