Amid concern that radical Islam is influencing violent attacks across America in the wake of President Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury in Iran, a Muslim reformer warns that Americans can expect more attacks in the short term, though he expects a positive result in Iran will bring the threat to an end.
“In the next few weeks, we need to be vigilant, there’s probably going to be more attacks,” Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim reformer who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Friday. Jasser draws a clear distinction between political Islam or Islamism—the movement dedicated to imposing Islamic law, Sharia, on the broader society—and the practice of Muslims who stand for American values and religious freedom.
A White House official told The Daily Signal that the administration is closely monitoring intelligence regarding threats.
“The entire Trump administration is closely monitoring all intelligence and remains vigilant to deter potential threats if they arise,” the official said in a statement Friday. “This situation underscores how critical our efforts have been to deport criminal illegal aliens, institute travel restrictions from various countries, and restore integrity to America’s law enforcement organizations – even before any military action in Iran.”
Jasser, a primary care doctor and military veteran, noted that the people carrying out attacks in the U.S. “are not getting orders from Tehran, it’s just part of the Jihadi brand as they have a final opportunity to act out with the propaganda that’s coming out as a result of the war.”
Jasser, a Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District, predicted that Trump’s joint operation with Israel will give cover for the Iranian people to pursue their freedom and defeat “one of the primary global hive minds of radical Islam, which is Tehran.”
Violent attackers don’t represent the beginning of a new threat, but the last gasp of a long-term one, he argued.
“Many of these Islamists that have been waiting for that time in which they get to be soldiers and to the Jihadi ‘cool’ thing, which is to end their lives in what they feel is going to heaven but ultimately is a genocidal act… it’s their last opportunity to do so,” Jasser said. Their violence “proves that they are an internal threat to our democracy and our freedoms, and that we’re doing the right thing in Iran.”
The Muslim reformer spoke after America experienced at least four violent attacks seemingly motivated by Islamism after Operation Epic Fury began.
1. Texas Shooting
A gunman later identified as Ndiaga Diagne opened fire at a bar in Austin, Texas, early Sunday morning, about 24 hours after President Trump announced Operation Epic Fury. Diagne, a naturalized citizen who had been born in Senegal, killed two people and wounded 14 before police shot and killed him. He had been wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag and a hoodie reading “Property of Allah.” The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, possibly tied to the war.
2. Gracie Mansion Bombing
On Saturday, March 7, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, attempted to detonate two improvised explosive devices, targeting protesters outside Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The protesters had been opposing radical Muslims. According to the Justice Department, both men expressed their support for the Islamic State, or ISIS.
3. Old Dominion University
On Thursday, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire inside a classroom for the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, according to an FBI special agent. Jalloh killed an Army ROTC instructor and injured two others. Jalloh, who died of stabbing injuries after the ROTC students responded in self-defense, had previously been convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
4. Temple Israel Synagogue
Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a Lebanese-born naturalized citizen, rammed a vehicle into the building of Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomington Township, Michigan, on Thursday. He damaged the building and engaged in gunfire with armed security, who killed him. The FBI has described the attack as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. A source in Michigan’s Lebanese American community told CBS News that an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed the suspect’s two brothers and other family members.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which bills itself as the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization but has faced criticism for historic ties to terrorist funding networks and for condemnations of Israel’s war in Gaza, condemned the recent acts of violence in the U.S.
“Regardless of whether the recent attacks were motivated by opposition to the U.S.-Israel bombing of Iran or motivated by ideological extremism, they are unacceptable crimes that the American Muslim community condemns,” a CAIR spokesperson told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday.
“American Muslims will, God willing, continue speaking out against all forms of criminal violence, whether terrorism and hate crimes here at home or ethnic cleansing and genocide overseas,” the spokesperson added.
Jasser attributed some of the threat to lax border enforcement under the previous administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
He warned of the “unvetted invasion” of the Obama and Biden years, where many crossing the border have been “known to be adherents to the ideologies of radical Islamism, be it on the Sunni side of ISIS, Hamas, or the Shia side of Hezbollah, the IRGC, and others.”
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