WASHINGTON — Homegrown radicalized lone wolf actors pose “the most likely terrorist attack scenario” on the US homeland, the intelligence community’s chilling 2026 annual threat assessment report warned.
The intelligence community assessed that while Al Qaeda and ISIS “maintain the intent” to carry out attacks on America, they have “focused more on virtually recruiting US-based aspirants to encourage and enable potential attacks.”
The report cites as examples the New Year’s Day 2025 pickup truck attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, which killed 14 people and injured 57 others; and the June 1, 2025, Boulder, Colo., flamethrower attack on a pro-Israel demonstration, which killed an 82-year-old woman and injured a dozen others.
“These individuals take inspiration from foreign terrorist ideologies and propaganda that often exploit world events such as the Gaza conflict to fuel radicalization and mobilization,” the report read.
“[Al Qaeda] and ISIS release media encouraging US-based supporters to conduct attacks and often offer tactical guidance.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its annual threat assessment on Wednesday to dovetail with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on worldwide threats with top honchos in the intelligence community.
To recruit US-based terror accomplices, ISIS and Al Qaeda appeal to younger Americans through technology and “emotionally evocative and grievance-based narratives rather than on traditional jihadist scholarship,” the report noted.
Technology and propaganda have become critical to two terror groups because of “setbacks to their capabilities that have mitigated the threat of large-scale, complex attacks,” the report found.
ISIS and Al Qaeda still pose the “biggest threat to U.S. interests overseas in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, where these groups operate,” the report found.
“These groups will continue to exploit political instability and ungoverned territory, striving to rebuild their capabilities and relying on the resilience of geographically distant elements,” it added.
Fears about lone wolf or sleeper cell terrorist attacks in the US have been elevated due to the ongoing war in Iran, though President Trump has downplayed the threat level.
“We know where most of them are, we’ve got our eye on all of them, I think,” Trump told reporters earlier this month.
