Al-Qaeda’s franchise groups, affiliates, and regional branches have ebbed and flowed in strength, but at the moment, both al-Shabaab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) in the Sahel are on the ascent. Terrorist groups like the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) benefit from leveraging artificial intelligence to facilitate their propaganda, thus freeing up more bandwidth for militants to plan external operations. It will soon be the rule, not the exception, that terrorists use emerging technologies in one or multiple aspects of the attack planning cycle. The litany of challenges is occurring against a backdrop of budget cuts related to counterterrorism capacity, which could make the U.S. more vulnerable to a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil perpetrated by any number of hostile actors.
Assessment of the Global Terrorism Threat Landscape in Mid-2025 – The Soufan Center
