The latest assessment from the U.S. intelligence community has flagged the surge of radicalized lone wolf actors within the country as one of the most pressing threats to national security. Released in 2026 by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the Annual Threat Assessment highlights a growing concern over teenage extremists. According to the unclassified document, the most probable terrorist incidents on U.S. soil involve solo perpetrators. It references the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans and a June incident in Boulder, suggesting these acts were spurred by anti-Israel sentiments. The report underscores that these individuals often draw motivation from foreign terrorist ideologies, which exploit global events like the Gaza conflict to incite radicalization.

The document also emphasizes the role of social media in the radicalization of youth, noting the ‘ease of accessing extremist content’ online. It points out that teenage Islamist extremists were behind a significant portion of domestic plots in 2025, continuing a trend observed in previous years. An incident in March 2025 involved a 16-year-old from Virginia, who, driven by Islamist ideology, used a stolen vehicle in an attack on a police officer in New Jersey. The report details that the teenager was influenced by terrorist propaganda and aspired to join ISIS. In response to these challenges, top intelligence officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel, are set to address the Senate Intelligence Committee about global threats confronting the U.S.

The New Year’s attack in 2025 involved an ISIS-radicalized individual plowing a truck through the bustling French Quarter in New Orleans. This incident resulted in the Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and Georgia being delayed by nearly a day at the Superdome, which was also the venue for the previous year’s Super Bowl. In another summer attack, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, reportedly yelled ‘Free Palestine’ while hurling makeshift Molotov cocktails at peaceful protesters in Colorado. The FBI promptly labeled this violence as a ‘targeted terror attack.’ Following former President Donald Trump’s aggressive stance on Iran, the threat posed by lone actors and ‘terror cells’ within the U.S. has become increasingly acute.

Last week, the President addressed reports of potential Iranian sleeper cells in the United States after reports of a possible drone attack revenge plot that would target California. Fears of possible cells came after encrypted communications, believed to have come from inside Iran and intercepted by the US, were sent as an ‘operational trigger’ for ‘sleeper assets.’ Those worries were further stoked, as the FBI alerted California law enforcement to potential Iranian drone strikes on the West Coast in retaliation for the US war against Iran. The president told reporters that federal law enforcement was probing the drone threat. ‘It’s being investigated. You have a lot of things happening, and all we can do is take them as they come,’ he said.

Trump blamed Joe Biden’s immigration policies for the sleeper cell threat – calling him ‘the worst president in the history of our country.’ ‘I have been [briefed] and a lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border,’ he told the group of reporters traveling with him for a two-stop jaunt in Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday. ‘But we know where most of them are. We’ve got our eye on all of them, I think,’ he added. The Daily Mail exclusively reported last year how the existence of sleeper cells in and around the US was on the rise due to Iranian and Venezuelan cooperation. The threat, experts explained, was exacerbated by border policies that allowed illegal immigrants to enter the US.