A joint federal intelligence bulletin obtained by CBS News warns of potential violent extremism and hate crimes committed in response to the one-year limit of the October 7 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas and the resulting conflict in Gaza.
The bulletin, written by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center, was first distributed by federal law enforcement agencies to local law enforcement partners late Wednesday.
The agencies found that the one-year nature of the attack “as well as any further significant escalations” in the war between Israel and Hamas “could be a motivating factor for violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes to engage in violence or threaten public safety .” read the bulletin.
The bulletin gave several recent examples of such threats, including the September 6 arrest of a Pakistani citizen by Canadian authorities accused of planning a mass shooting at a Jewish center in New York City.
The bulletin also comes at a time when tensions in the Middle East continue to rise. After an Israeli airstrike on Beirut last week who killed Hassan Nasrallah, former Hezbollah chief, responded with a rocket salvo on Israel on Tuesday, launching nearly 200 ballistic missilesmost of which were intercepted by Israeli missile defense systems. Hamas and Hezbollah are both proxies of Iran.
Israel also started limited ground operations in southern Lebanon this week.
After Iran’s missile attack, a senior DHS official told CBS News during a briefing on Wednesday: “I don’t know that we have a crystal clear assessment on that at this point. We are literally in the early days of trying to understand what exactly Iranian intentions might be. However, we believe that Iran has a global capability and a global capacity, that it can draw on, that it can target American interests around the world – and that it certainly has the reach and capacity to do so. to deal with individuals here in the United States in ways that pose a potential threat to the United States here at home.
The official added that this is an area of ”almost daily engagement” between DHS, the FBI and other law enforcement partners.
Iran has been involved in “a variety of other efforts in the aftermath of October 7,” the official noted, including “spreading fabricated material to try to increase people’s anger about the post-October 7 situation.”
The bulletin warned that “the expansion of the conflict further into the region could serve as motivation for violence against Jewish, Israeli, or American targets in retaliation for civilian deaths, and we cannot rule out the possibility that threat actors in the United States will respond with violence until the death” of Nasrallah.
Intelligence analysts revealed in the bulletin that the October 7 attack and the war between Israel and Hamas “are cited as sociopolitical grievances influencing the mobilization of some individuals to violence in the United States,” adding that “hate crimes began shortly after attacks increased dramatically and decreased over time. in recent months to a level consistent with pre-conflict reporting, a trend reflective of hate crimes following previous international conflicts or events.”
In the first months after October 7, there were reports of anti-Semitic incidents rose in the US The Anti-Defamation League said 2,031 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded nationwide between October 7 and December 7, 2023, a 337% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
“Over the past year, we have observed violent extremist activity and hate crimes related to the conflict in the United States,” the bulletin said. “Jewish, Muslim, or Arab institutions, including synagogues, mosques, and community centers, and large public gatherings, such as memorials, vigils, or other demonstrations, present attractive targets for violent attacks or for menacing threats from a variety of threat actors. including homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremists, and hate crime perpetrators who may see the anniversary as an opportunity to carry out an attack or other high-profile, illegal activity.”
The bulletin also warns that foreign terrorist organizations have created media that compares the October 7 and September 11 attacks and “encourages lone attackers to use simple tactics such as firearms, knives, Molotov cocktails and ramming vehicles against Western targets in retaliation for the deaths in the US. Individuals inspired by these online messages may act alone and launch an attack without any warning.”
