More than seven years have passed since President Donald Trump proclaimed the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Yet the group’s message remains a potent instrument for drawing in a new generation of Western jihadists. Not only is its ideology and its backers still broadly accessible, but its call for purpose, identity, and meaning continues to attract audiences in societies that many argue fail to provide any of these elements.
Consider the case of Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen who supported the Islamic State and, on March 12, walked into a Virginia ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University and opened fire, killing the instructor, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, and wounding two others. In carrying out this act, he completed a mission that had been years in the making and had already landed him in prison once. The deadly assault, however, also underscored that violent Islamists in America remain a danger, even as the fortunes of the international terrorist network that inspired them have fluctuated.
Jalloh’s entry into jihadism—an interpretation of Islam that prescribes violence to realized an Islamic state—began in his mid-twenties during a 2015 trip to Sierra Leone, his homeland. His father, increasingly worried about his son after he abruptly left a nearly six-year tenure with the Virginia National Guard, took him there. Jalloh would later claim that a speech by American al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki had influenced that decision. By the mid-2010s, ISIS had risen as the more appealing prospect for U.S. extremists, surpassing al-Qaeda largely due to the establishment of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. In Sierra Leone, Jalloh found himself in a region where ISIS’s sway was growing, reached out to militants in neighboring Nigeria, and joined a convoy bound for a newly formed ISIS outpost in Libya. He withdrew from the group before it reached Libya for reasons that remain unclear, returning to the United States by late 2015.
Yet Jalloh’s return did not end his ties to the organization. Online, he cultivated a link with Abu Sa’ad al-Sudani, a prominent ISIS planner based in Syria. Through social media, al-Sudani leveraged his standing within the caliphate to sway Western followers, mentoring and directing them on how to execute attacks. Besides Jalloh, al-Sudani maintained contact with several other American jihadists, and in March 2016 he connected Jalloh to another contact and proposed they meet in Virginia to discuss a potential assault. Fortunately, that contact turned out to be an FBI confidential informant, whose meetings with Jalloh supplied prosecutors with an early warning about the plot.
During conversations with the informant, Jalloh extolled the exploits of past American mass shooters with military backgrounds who targeted soldiers, especially admiring Nidal Hasan, the Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Through persistent surveillance and with the informant’s help, the FBI tracked Jalloh’s plot as it developed. It was not until July 2016, when he attempted to purchase an AR-15, that authorities felt compelled to intervene. He was arrested the following day, and a subsequent investigation revealed plans to attack the July 4 veterans’ parade in Washington, D.C. He was convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and was sentenced to 11 years in prison in February 2017.
Jalloh was released early, likely for good behavior, in December 2024. There is scant information about his activities in the interval between his release and the later attack, but investigators confirmed that he was enrolled in online courses at Old Dominion University. When he arrived on campus and entered the classroom, he twice confirmed with others in the room that the event concerned ROTC before shouting “Allahu Akbar” and opening fire. A group of students thwarted his attempt at mass murder and killed him on the spot.
Jalloh’s attack is among several recent mass-casualty plots linked to jihadists in the United States. Although many plots involve solo operators, that is not universally true.
In November 2025, three men from Dearborn, Michigan—Mohmed Ali, Majed Mahmoud, and Ayob Nasser—were charged with planning a Halloween mass shooting inspired by the 2015 Paris attacks, during which a European ISIS cell conducted coordinated bombings and shootings that killed 130 individuals. Two other unnamed people were identified as key figures in the alleged cell but have not yet been charged. In the Dearborn group’s encrypted online discussions—monitored by the FBI or obtained via court order—they allegedly discussed targets such as nightclubs and LGBTQ venues. They also met in person to scout locations and practiced firing AR-15s and other weapons they had bought at ranges. The conspirators repeatedly professed their support for ISIS, and at least one maintained direct contact with ISIS members in Syria, including a detainee at the Al-Hawl camp.
Even more troubling, court documents indicate that one of the unnamed plotters maintained direct contact with the father of an “Islamic extremist ideologue” based in Dearborn. The father allegedly advised on when to execute the attack. Officials also claim that the plotter frequently posted lectures by the unnamed ideologue’s son on social media, along with works by earlier Western jihadist preachers such as Anwar al-Awlaki.
While the documents do not disclose the father or his son by name, they reference an academic study that identifies the son as Ahmad Musa Jibril. It is not surprising that the plotters were drawn to Jibril; he remains the most popular extremist speaker among American jihadist sympathizers and has a long record of endorsing jihadist violence, predating even the 9/11 attacks. He produces hours of scholarly talks that lay out the core tenets of al-Qaeda and ISIS ideologies, including the imperative to establish an Islamic state, the dangers of ignoring the obligation of jihad, and the importance of cultivating and maintaining a fiercely chauvinist, sectarian Sunni identity in the face of liberal and pluralist ideas in the West. He avoids explicit calls to violence and does not affiliate with any specific organization, instead operating at the line between overt incitement and ideological legitimization. Jibril’s online audience clips his lengthy lectures into TikTok- and Instagram-friendly snippets for easy consumption and circulation.
Islamist ideology, of which jihadism is the most violent branch, weaves a compelling tale of a chosen people with roots traced back to the era of Muhammad, guided by God toward a radiant age of conquest and the creation of a morally pristine utopia under divine law.
The Old Dominion and Dearborn plots form part of a modest yet noticeable rise in jihadist activity inside the United States over the past two years. Available data covering 2014 through 2025 shows 272 individuals were federally charged in ISIS-related cases, and by January of this year 225 had been found or pleaded guilty. The yearly docket, which had been trending downward around 2019 as ISIS’s fortunes waned in Iraq and Syria, has begun to creep upward again in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The appeal of ISIS from 2014 to 2019 stemmed largely from its successful caliphate in the Middle East. Unlike al-Qaeda, which framed the caliphate as a long, generational project unlikely to be realized in most members’ lifetimes, ISIS manifested a tangible, immediate reward: the opportunity to enact God’s rule on earth. Prospective jihadists no longer faced a distant, theoretical dream; the payoff was tangible and imminent.
The caliphate also injected a sense of urgency into ISIS’s message. The August 2014 seizure of the Northern Syrian town of Dabiq carried symbolic weight for recruiters, described in the hadith—a collection of the Prophet Muhammad’s reported sayings—as a crucial initial step toward the Day of Judgment. Time, it seemed, was short, and Muslims could not delay choosing sides. Their chance to secure heavenly ascent by aiding the project was now within reach, and many chose to forego it at their peril.
With the international military campaign that eroded the terrorist group’s grip in Iraq and Syria, ISIS and its message lost some of their appeal in the West. Yet the trend of terrorism-related cases in the United States has begun to show a modest rebound. From 2023 to 2025, counts of 8, 12, and 17 were recorded, respectively. This uptick likely reflects a broader post-October 7, 2023 wave of terrorism across Western nations. The magnitude of the Hamas-led assault on Israel energized a range of extremists, while the ensuing war in Gaza has supplied them with propaganda openings to voice grievances and exploit the moral outrage and polarization it has generated.
Beyond the specifics of doctrine and the recent events, other, more intricate social and political dynamics underlie Americans’ continuing draw to jihadist ideology.
Jalloh’s courtroom testimony offered limited insight into why he wished to kill Americans in the name of jihad. We likewise lack many details about those involved in the Dearborn plot. Yet Jalloh’s praise for Nidal Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, along with the alleged link between the Jibril family and Dearborn, help illuminate parts of the picture. At the heart of Awlaki and Jibril’s messages is an appeal to Western Muslims seeking meaning and belonging in a modern world that many feel fails to provide either.
In examining the challenges modern secular liberal democracies face in offering individuals a sense of meaning and a firm, well-defined identity, Francis Fukuyama highlights Islamism as an attractive contemporary alternative. Islamist ideology, with jihadism as its most violent expression, presents an alluring tale of a chosen people with ties to Muhammad’s era, guided by divine authority into a glorious epoch of conquest and the creation of a morally pure utopia under divine law. The perceived enemies of this order are viewed as liberal, secular societies that have ushered in an era of moral decay and godlessness, alongside supposed Jewish conspiracies to destroy Islam specifically.
Fukuyama also notes a similar appeal in modern ultra-nationalism. While it may differ in hue from Islamism, the core messages and promises are remarkably alike. The creed appeals to estranged, unsettled white youths by telling them they belong to a superior in-group with deep roots and by articulating aspirations to restore a glorious, legendary past that liberals and Jewish power allegedly deprived them of.
What Jalloh and the alleged Dearborn cell reveal is that the jihadist threat in America can remain dangerous without a functioning caliphate, large organizations, or direct overseas command. All it takes is a small cadre of vulnerable individuals, a durable online canon of ideologues and martyrs, and a political climate that keeps grievance, identity, and moral outrage at the forefront. ISIS may have lost the territory that once made its project appear inexorable in historical terms, but the deeper draw that sustained it—the promise of belonging, purpose, transcendence, and revenge—continues to be accessible to new recruits.
