Lone actors in the U.S. and other Western countries could be motivated by a growing network of online propagandists that promote Iran’s extremist interpretation of Islamic Shia ideology and anti-American rhetoric to conduct attacks in their home countries, according to a recent report from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Indeed, as WaterISAC has previously reported, the U.S. government still assesses that Iran and its proxies, such as the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, seek to conduct attacks against the homeland due to an enduring anti-American ideology and, more specifically, in response to the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in early 2020. In the past, Iran and its proxies have targeted critical infrastructure and planned attacks against U.S. based military facilities. Besides Iranian state sponsored activities targeting the West, the think tank report notes, “alongside regime-led efforts, a parallel development emerged in which individuals with no formal ties to Iran or its agencies or proxies took it upon themselves to carry out attacks of the types encouraged by the Islamic Republic and its supporters.”
Therefore, despite Iran’s desire to attack the U.S., the government still assesses the greatest most immediate international terrorism threat to the homeland stems from Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs). HVEs are people located and radicalized to violence primarily in the U.S., who don’t receive individualized direction from foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) but are inspired by them. Accordingly, the think tank report defines Shia HVEs as individuals who are inspired or influenced by state actors such as Iran, foreign terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, or Shia militant groups, but who do not belong to these groups and are not directed by them. The report highlights two cases of recent alleged Shia extremist attacks in the U.S., including last year’s attack on the writer Salman Rushdie. Furthermore, the report analyzes the online networks of Shia extremists propagating the Iranian regime’s ideology and other extremist tenets. The report states “these networks target U.S.-based Muslim communities, feeding off disaffection in marginalized communities and often highlighting law enforcement abuses as being emblematic of a [evil] state.” Ultimately, the authors advocate for closer tracking of online Shia extremists’ networks, which can better help analysts determine when online propaganda might lead to real-world violence. Read the full report at the Washington Institute.
