The ISIS-linked attack in New Orleans highlights how extremism online and political divisions at home have created “the perfect storm” for radicalization in the US, experts say, as authorities find it increasingly difficult to detect threats.

Access to extremist communities online has never been easier, the threat has never been stronger and the ideology of those carrying out attacks has never been more diverse, according to experts, NBC reports in an analysis.

“What the FBI and law enforcement in general are facing right now is a threat landscape that is both diverse and complex,” said Seamus Hughes, senior research fellow and policy fellow at the National Center for Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education in University of Nebraska Omaha. “That makes things a little more difficult for law enforcement.”

“We have a level of polarization in the U.S. that is a major factor,” he said. “The online environment has algorithms set up to fuel outrage. And all of this contributes to a perfect storm of factors that lead to an increase in radicalization.”

According to the federal government, the main terrorist threat to the US now comes from lone wolves inspired by the ideology of extremism. These ideologies vary widely. The majority of attackers are placed on the far right.

But sometimes, as in the New Orleans attack, the ideology that motivates the perpetrators is radical Islam. Occasionally, it is also positioned on the far left or fueled by opposition to Trump, as was the case in the 2017 attack on Republican members of Congress and officials, and the attempted assassination of the incoming president in Florida last year. Other times it’s a mix of ideologies, what FBI Director Christopher Wray called “salad bar extremism.”

But the majority of people who are radicalized will never commit a terrorist act.

“Radicalization is not the problem. … The problem is the mobilization to violence,” said John Horgan, a psychologist and director of the Violent Extremism Research Group at the University of Georgia. “There are some common denominators, but we haven’t made much progress in trying to predict who will engage in terrorism.”

For those who do go from radicalization to violence, the ideology they espouse is often secondary, say experts in the psychology of terrorism.

“We’re seeing more and more people choosing the ideology that fits their grievances,” Horgan said. “They’re looking for a reason to justify what they’ve already decided they want to do.”

The evidence that has been revealed so far about the shooter in the New Orleans attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, seems to fit this profile. Jabbar had not been radicalized to Islam for a long time. According to authorities, he posted videos online before the attack in which he declared his support for the Islamic State terror group while revealing that he initially planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned that headlines would then not focus on him. “war between believers and unbelievers,” and so he decided to kill foreigners instead.

While authorities have yet to confirm a motive for the bomb that exploded in a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump hotel in Las Vegas on the same day, experts noted the political symbolism and parallels to the attack in New Orleans — carried out by a veteran , using a rented vehicle as a weapon.

“Both attacks have symbolism,” noted Christopher O’Leary, a former FBI counterterrorism official. “An ISIS flag was found on one, but on the other it is possible that a Tesla vehicle parked in front of the Trump Hotel was used intentionally.”

The real motivation for most such attacks is “the desire to generate interest,” said Ari Kruglansky, a psychologist and co-director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. “This desire is believed to be satisfied through an act of violence for some cause. … The content of the ideology, the content of the narrative does not matter.”

Why people are radicalized

Experts agree that there is no one profile for those who commit extremist attacks and that terrorism today is more diverse than ever. But the process and risk factors for radicalization have been analyzed.

“Radicalization is a process of adopting an increasingly negative view of opponents and seeking approval to carry out increasingly harmful actions against them. People are more prone to radicalize when they face uncertainty or problems in their lives, such as losing a job or the death of a loved one, but this is not always the case,” said JM Berger, extremism researcher at the Center for Terrorism.

Societal trends in recent decades, from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis to the pandemic, have exacerbated these destabilizing conditions that many people experience, Kruglanski said. “When people feel disempowered because of immigration, because of economic disparities, because of losing their jobs in the pandemic, or whatever, they’re motivated.” It is then that one may be driven to take violent action on behalf of a radical ideology.

Recent research has begun to focus on how veterans in particular—like the perpetrators in both New Year’s incidents—may be susceptible to the transition from radicalization to violent extremist action, pointing to military experience as a potential risk factor for terrorist attempts.

“It’s because veterans are capable. It is because they are skilled. It’s because they care about people other than themselves,” explained Horgan, who testified to Congress about the dangers posed by veterans in 2022. These qualities make them not only vulnerable, but also easy targets to recruit. . “These are the qualities that are attractive to terrorist groups. We warned Congress about this two years ago and it just fell on deaf ears.”

The details that have emerged so far about Jabbar follow a familiar pattern of how a veteran can become radicalized, experts say.

While it is not yet clear exactly how and when Jabbar became radicalized to ISIS as he claimed in the videos en route to the attack, his methods follow a pattern for ISIS attacks, experts said.

After several years of declining activity in the US, 2024 saw an increase in Islamist terrorist attacks, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, which tracks extremist attacks and confirmed plots across the country.

Over the past five years, the FBI has stepped up its efforts to combat domestic terrorism based on these growing threats. The agency had for a decade consistently conducted about 1,000 investigations into Islamic extremism a year, but more than doubled its investigations to include threats from political extremists, mainly from the far right, from 2020 to 2022, increasing from 1,000 to 2,700 investigations annually.