Five Terrorism Trends to Watch in 2022

The terrorist and extremist threat environment in 2022 will remain complex and dynamic. A new article in Homeland Security Today examines the five likeliest terror trends to monitor this year. Trends to watch include extremists helping extremists, midterm election violence, Islamic terror groups resilience, threats to critical infrastructure, and the disinformation-terror nexus.

Although, extremists learning from other extremists is nothing new, the vast networks of online information and communications make it easier for extremists to learn and emulate past tactics of other groups from across the world. Indeed, groups of differing ideologies have been observed putting aside their differing opinions and learning from one another. As the midterm election approaches, the outbreak of violence remains a concern. Extremists seeking to emulate the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack or other individuals inspired by foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) propaganda could be motivated to violence.

Additionally, FTOs will continue to remain a threat to the U.S. and its global interests. While FTOs don’t have the current capacity to conduct attacks in the homeland, according to U.S. officials, they are actively working towards that goal. The increasing threat to critical infrastructure is another trend to closely follow. Extremists who seek revolutionary goals believe that “physical attacks on critical infrastructure could be a force multiplier – expanding the impact of an attack beyond one targeted location,” according to Homeland Security Today. Finally, the disinformation-terror nexus is a more recent phenomenon that is making it harder to prevent radicalization and easier for terrorist groups to inspire grievance-based individuals to violence. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, “I think that we are seeing, indeed, a greater connectivity between misinformation and false narratives propagated on social media and the threat landscape … it’s very important to state that words matter.” Ultimately, the terror threat environment will continue to evolve, but by analyzing these long-term trends officials can hopefully prevent violent attacks from occurring. Read more at Homeland Security Today.