FBI bomb-disposal unit. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Across the United States and Europe, Islamist terrorist attacks are increasing in frequency. Some perpetrators are homegrown violent extremists radicalized domestically by ISIS propaganda and acting without direct foreign instruction.
Others are connected to Shia militant networks linked to Iran, operating either as state-directed proxies or as individuals motivated by Iran-axis grievances.
This common threat environment was activated by the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and the killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei, exploiting radicalized networks already present inside Western countries.
The domestic threat wave began on March 1, 2026, the same day U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran, when a U.S. citizen of Senegalese origin opened fire on civilians at a bar in Austin, Texas, killing two people and wounding 14 others before officers killed him.
The shooter, identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Property of Allah” and a shirt bearing an Iranian flag design. Photos of Iranian leaders were found at his home.
On March 7, two men traveled from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to New York City with improvised explosive devices and attempted to detonate them at a protest outside Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the city’s mayor.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the suspects as Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, and described the incident as an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism.
At approximately 12:15 p.m., Balat ignited and threw a device toward the protest area, then retrieved a second device from Kayumi and dropped it near NYPD officers before being tackled and arrested.
An FBI bomb technician determined both devices were approximately the size of a mason jar, fitted with fuses and packed with nuts and bolts.
The first device contained TATP, triacetone triperoxide, a volatile explosive used in multiple terrorist attacks over the past decade.
After his arrest, Balat wrote a statement pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and declared he wanted to carry out an attack bigger than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Kayumi told police he watched ISIS propaganda on his phone and considered himself affiliated with the group. A notebook recovered from Balat listed alternative targets including shopping centers.
Investigators found that Balat had traveled to Istanbul from May to August 2025 and returned to the U.S. from Turkey in January 2026.
Kayumi had also traveled to Istanbul in summer 2024 and to Saudi Arabia in March of that year. Both suspects face five federal counts including use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
NYPD officials stated there was no evidence the attack was connected to the war in Iran, noting that ISIS is a Sunni extremist organization with no operational relationship to the Shia Iranian government.
On March 8, an IED exploded outside the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, damaging the entrance to the consular section but causing no injuries.
Norwegian police arrested three brothers, all Norwegian citizens of Iraqi heritage in their 20s, on suspicion of a terrorist bombing.
Police lawyer Christian Hatlo said the brothers were suspected of deliberately targeting the embassy with the intention of killing or causing serious harm and that none had previously come to police attention.
One brother has admitted to placing the device; the others deny involvement. Shortly after the blast, the embassy’s Google Maps page was hacked and a video of the late Ayatollah Khamenei was posted with text in Farsi reading, “God is great. We are victorious.”
Investigators stated they were working from the hypothesis that the attack could have been an order from a government entity.
Norway’s security service PST had warned the previous month that Iran could use criminal networks as proxy actors to carry out operations on its behalf. Iran’s ambassador to Oslo denied any involvement.
On March 9, a predawn blast damaged a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, blowing out the door and windows of the 120-year-old building, which also serves as a museum for the city’s Jewish community.
On March 11, a previously unknown organization calling itself the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right claimed responsibility, releasing a video appearing to show masked men detonating a device in front of the synagogue.
The group’s name, logo, and dissemination network, circulated via Telegram channels supporting Iran’s Axis of Resistance, resemble those of Iraqi armed groups and Hezbollah.
On March 10, two men fired a handgun at the exterior of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto, Canada, before fleeing. No one was injured. Toronto police are treating it as a national security incident, not ruling out a link to a recent string of synagogue shootings in the city.
On March 12, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia National Guardsman and convicted ISIS supporter, entered an ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, asked if it was an ROTC class, and when someone answered yes, opened fire, killing Lt. Col. Brandon Shah and wounding two others.
Jalloh shouted “Allahu Akbar” before the attack, according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans. ROTC students in the room subdued Jalloh; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
In 2016, Jalloh had pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS, including traveling to North Carolina to procure an AK-47 for what prosecutors described as a plot to murder U.S. military personnel, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The Bureau of Prisons released him in December 2024 under a provision allowing early release for inmates who complete a substance abuse treatment program.
Previous BOP leadership had proposed excluding terrorism-related offenses from that provision, but efforts to update the policy were stalled by the union.
Court records from Jalloh’s original case show he had stated it was better to plan an attack during Ramadan; the ODU attack occurred during Ramadan.
Also on March 12, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed his truck through the front entrance of Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and drove it down the hallway before two armed security guards exchanged fire with him.
Ghazali committed suicide by gunshot while still in the vehicle. His body was badly burned when the truck caught fire.
One security guard was struck and injured. All 140 children in the attached preschool were safely evacuated. At least 30 law enforcement officers were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
Ghazali had entered the United States in 2011 on an immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen.
An IDF drone strike on March 5 in his Lebanese hometown of Mashghara had killed two of his brothers, reported to have been part of Hezbollah’s rocket unit, along with two of their children.
Ghazali had been flagged by a government watchlist for contact with suspected Hezbollah members but was not identified as a member.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue reported in March 2026 that ISIS’s capacity to conduct physical operations in the U.S. remains limited, and the group instead relies on its digital ecosystem to enable self-radicalization and encourage lone-wolf attacks.
In 2025, ISIS supporters carried out two successful attacks in the U.S., the first in eight years, along with five disrupted plots and six arrests for providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Of 11 actors across seven incidents in 2025, eight were teenagers, four of them aged 17 or younger, continuing a pattern from 2024 in which six of eight incidents involved at least one teenager.
Law enforcement sources told CBS News that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and pro-Iranian groups have intensified recruiting and calls for violence online over the past 18 months, with efforts stepping up further since the Iran war began.
Iran has a documented history of using proxy organizations and front groups to carry out attacks abroad, sometimes allowing them to appear briefly and disappear after an operation.
Meanwhile, radicalization through social media from Iran, ISIS, and other groups is now taking hold among young naturalized citizens, or in some cases the children of naturalized citizens in the US and Europe.
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