Trump’s counterterrorism strategy scores big wins against global terror threats
Last month, Iranian proxy Kataib Hezbollah terrorist Mohammad al Saadi was arrested in Turkey and extradited to New York City, where he was charged with planning and executing terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S. Al Saadi was accused of firebombing the Bank of New York Mellon in Amsterdam, stabbing two Jewish victims in London, and shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto. He was also allegedly targeting Ivanka Trump for assassination.
Al Saadi, who reportedly received training from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), posted a picture of the Kushner home in Florida on social media and boasted that he was "currently in the stage of surveillance and analysis...our revenge is a matter of time." Al Saadi sought to assassinate Ivanka Trump because he wanted to avenge the kinetic strike President Trump launched during his first term, which eliminated IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani.
Al Saadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi national who was on his way to Russia when he was arrested, established a travel agency, which specialized in religious trips and gave him cover to travel around the world to connect with terrorist cells. When he was arrested he had an Iraqi Service Passport, a special travel document issued to Iraqi government employees only obtained with the consent of the Prime Minister.
In another successful overseas counterterrorism operation last month, the U.S. and Nigerian Military forces killed senior ISIS terrorist leader Abu Bilal al Manuki, a Nigerian national, who was responsible for global terrorist operations and had also planned terrorist attacks in West Africa and the Sahel. Specific details about how the U.S. and our Nigerian partners found, fixed, and finished al Manuki have not been released.
The Biden administration designated al Manuki as a global terrorist in 2023. According to Nigerian military officials, al Manuki was responsible for supplying ISIS with weapons, explosives, and drones.
These two exquisite kill/capture counterterrorism operations followed the path set out in the Trump administration's Counterterrorism Strategy, which was released in early May 2026 and emphasized the priority of targeting terrorists including al Qaeda and ISIS with external operations capabilities. The Counterterrorism Strategy reflects the president's commander's intent to "identify terror actors and plots before they happen" so that the U.S. government can undertake preemptive measures, thereby denying the terrorists the opportunity to inflict harm on our citizens and homeland.
Since 9/11, the U.S. has developed highly sophisticated counterterrorism tactics by fusing the work of our intelligence agencies with law enforcement and elite U.S. military capabilities. Additionally, as the Counterterrorism Strategy highlights, "there are a number of nations around the world whose militaries, law enforcement agencies, and intelligence units have become the United States' close CT allies and partners." That includes Africa, where according to the Counterterrorism Strategy, the U.S. strategic objective is to "guarantee that none of the Jihadi groups can build a base of operations that allows them to plot and execute attacks against the United States and American interests around the world."
Both of these impactful counterterrorism operations went off without a hitch because our foreign partners - Nigeria in the case of al Manuki and Turkey in the case of al Saadi- served as powerful force multipliers for our counterterrorism mission. The foundation for our success was the human intelligence on which we relied to find and fix the targets. We will still need to be alert for the possibility that remnants of al Saadi's network might seek to follow through on his terrorist attack plans and the same holds true for al Manuki's ISIS terrorist network, who no doubt will continue to plot and plan against us.
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Bottom line, there should be no safe haven for terrorists who seek to do us harm. And that means we need a forward deployed small footprint of U.S. intelligence and military focused relentlessly not on nation building but on our sacred counterterrorism mission. Geographic separation no longer grants us immunity from terrorist threats because the world is so interconnected. If we fail to deal with terrorist threats over there, then those threats will materialize on our shores over here.
As World Cup begins, there is no question that terrorists have in their crosshairs these high profile soccer games and their massive fanbase. Expect the U.S. Intelligence Community, law enforcement, and the U.S. military together with our foreign allies and partners to be mounting a full court press to ensure the games go on safely and securely.
That's what implementing an effective Counterterrorism Strategy is all about.