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. 

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EUROPE TO FACE TRIAL IN NEW YORK 

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." 

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URGES TRUMP TO SEND STARK WARNING 

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. 

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. 

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-counterterrorism-strategy-scores-b
ig-wins-global-terror-threats