Is the US facing an increased domestic terrorism threat while Trump fights a war 7,000 miles away in Iran?

There have been many Islamic terror attacks targeting Jewish people in the West, particularly in the US, since the Israel-Palestine war broke out in October 2023. However, there has been a fresh wave of Islamic terror attacks in the US amidst the ongoing conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran. Michigan synagogue, Old Dominion University, to Texas University: Islamic terror attacks surge in the US ever since Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran On 12th March 2026, a vehicle-ramming attack was carried out by a rifle-armed Islamic jihadi named Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a Lebanese-born naturalised American citizen, at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit, Michigan. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials called the attack a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community”. There were over 140 children present at an attached preschool when the attack was carried out. On the same day, an ISIS-inspired attack occurred at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The shooting was perpetrated by Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a 36-year-old naturalised US citizen who came from Sierra Leone. Jalloh killed one person and injured two before he was subdued by students present in the classroom.  FBI Special Agent Dominique Evans said that 36-year-old Jalloh barged into a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) classroom at the Virginia college, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’, before opening fire. ROTC instructor, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, was killed in the shooting, while two people were injured. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the case as an act of terrorism. FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that the bureau is treating the shooting as “an act of terrorism”. In another such incident, a deadly shooting outside a bar was reported in Austin, Texas. The authorities said that they are investigating the terrorism angle in the matter. The shooting occurred around 1:59 a.m. outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden, a popular bar in downtown Austin’s nightlife district. According to investigators, the suspect initially fired shots from an SUV before exiting the vehicle armed with a rifle and opening fire into the crowded area. Police officers responded swiftly and shot the gunman within about a minute of receiving the first emergency call. The suspect was identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, a naturalised U.S. citizen originally from Senegal. Authorities said items recovered from the suspect’s vehicle and residence included an Iranian flag and extremist writings. The authorities said that Diagne was wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag design on it underneath a hoodie printed with “Property of Allah,” As a result, federal investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint Terrorism Task Force are examining whether the attack may have been motivated by extremist ideology or whether the suspect had been self-radicalised. Besides those killed, fourteen others were injured in the shooting, several of them students. On 7th March, two ISIS-inspired suspects hurled homemade explosive devices outside the residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani near Gracie Mansion. The accused were identified as 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, who are US citizens from Pennsylvania. The duo was attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device at an ‘anti-Islam’ protest and a counterprotest near Mamdani’s residence. US wants to eradicate the Iranian “existential threat” to Israel, while a Jihadi threat looms in its own backyard Ironically, America under President Donald Trump is engaged in eliminating the alleged ‘existential threat’, a nuclear threat, posed by the Ayatollah regime in Iran against the world’s only Jewish state of Israel, yet the phantom of that very same threat looms right in America’s own backyard. Shootings, arson, and a monumental surge in antisemitic incidents in the US have been reported quite frequently since Israel launched a full-fledged military offensive against the Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas in October 2023. However, these attacks have found a renewed intensity since the day Israel and the US eliminated Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. While Donald Trump has been keeping busy with directing US military operations thousands of miles away in Iran, and boasting disputable successes of Operation Epic Fury, during media interactions, the home front is unravelling under a mounting wave of Islamic terrorism. Recently, it was reported that US intelligence intercepted encrypted communications originating from Iran on 9th March, which have been interpreted as potential “operational triggers” for activating sleeper cells in the US and other countries, hinting at Iran’s strategy of asymmetric warfare. These Islamic terror attacks in the US are occurring even as there was intelligence input that Jewish synagogues could be targeted by jihadists. Clearly, while in Trump’s mind and rhetoric, the US has won the war against Iran, his administration appears to be failing even at the domestic counterterrorism front. It seems that the ongoing conflict has not only disrupted global energy supplies via Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but also triggered the Jihadi sleeper cells, who, just as parasites, sustain themselves at the expense of their host, exploit American laws to gain citizenship, only to curse the host country and carry out terror attacks against Kafirs. The US, however, should have known this better, since its wars abroad have always bred new enemies. The Iraq War birthed ISIS, and now the Iran War will also give rise to new militant groups and unite existing Islamist enemies. The US may neutralise the nuclear threat in Iran through its airstrikes. However, no number of airstrikes can eliminate a decentralised and isolated terror threat America is now grappling with, while Israel watches helplessly.