_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
A series of security incidents across the United States and beyond has raised concerns about threats following the recent US military action in Iran. The Iranian government initially called for jihad against its enemies. Now, threats and acts of violence are spiking in the Western world.
In the United States, there have been multiple scares — one at an airport and another during a flight — and radicals have hurled homemade bombs at anti-Islam protests in New York. In Canada and Europe, synagogues have been attacked.
As the security situation grows more tense, Republicans in Congress are expanding their anti-Sharia coalition to combat Islam’s influence on American soil.
_THE FACTS_
Kansas City International Airport evacuated an entire terminal onto the tarmac on Sunday after a threat was reported.
A Southwest Airlines flight from Nashville was diverted to Atlanta on Friday night over a bomb threat.
Videos from the flight showed passengers ordered to keep their heads down and hands up as four police officers removed and handcuffed a suspect.
The NYPD arrested Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi for allegedly throwing improvised explosive devices into a crowd during an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion — the New York City mayor’s residence — on Saturday, though the devices never exploded.
Balat and Kauymi have parents who emigrated from Turkey and Afghanistan and became naturalized US citizens.
Police then found a suspicious device in a vehicle about six blocks from Gracie Mansion.
It also recently surfaced that NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's wife, Rama Duwaji, liked multiple Instagram posts celebrating Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, including posts justifying it.
In Canada, three synagogues in the Toronto area were hit by gunfire within a week.
In Belgium, an explosion damaged a synagogue, with the mayor investigating the incident as a possible terrorist act.
Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) posted that the Sharia-Free America Caucus has now grown to 46 members from 22 states.
_OUR TAKE_
From US mosques being owned by a terrorist-associated trust to rising jihadi threats from Iran, the threats are becoming more serious. And as seen in the New York incident, there are threats and challenges posed by legal immigration to the US, not just illegal.
Most prominently, the rise in Islam in the West threatens Jews, as seen with the synagogue attacks not just in the past week, but in the past decade in the US and Europe. But radical Islamist ideology also poses a broader challenge to traditional American values like freedom of speech, association, and religion.
As the US confronts its enemies in the Middle East who oppose American interests, those regimes will look to exploit divisions at home and, when possible, target Americans directly.
