New Challenges to U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts An Assessment of the Current Terrorist Threat

Brian Michael Jenkins, Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate, July 2012.
The United States confronts a more diverse terrorist threat in 2012 than it has in the past. Al Qaeda, still our principal concern, has exploited the turmoil created by the Arab uprisings to make tactical advances and open new fronts. In addition, several incidents in the past year suggest a resurgence of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. Mexico faces what some analysts have called a “criminal insurgency” by the country’s drug cartels, which could expose the United States to the kind of savagery seen in that country. The global economic crisis has spawned mass protests. These are legitimate expressions of popular discontent, but they attract violence-prone anarchists and may generate their own violent fringe groups.