People gather around a tribute for shooting victims outside the Bondi Pavilion at Sydney's Bondi Beach, Dec. 15, 2025, a day after a shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
And over the same weekend, federal authorities in the United States said they disrupted a credible terrorist plot of their own. The FBI arrested four alleged members of a radical pro-Palestinian extremist group accused of planning coordinated New Year’s Eve bombings across Los Angeles using improvised explosive devices.
A fifth suspect was arrested in New Orleans in what officials described as a separate but ideologically aligned plot.
Together with the killing of American troops in Syria, the incidents have revived a central question: Is the West prepared for a new era of diffuse extremist violence capable of erupting in multiple theaters at once — from major cities to remote patrol bases?
Political pressure is mounting. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said the Sydney attack underscored the consequences of permissive migration policies.
"The mass migration of Islamic extremists destroyed Europe. Now, we are witnessing it destroy Australia," he warned. "We CANNOT allow it to destroy America."
President Donald Trump has long argued that unrestricted immigration from countries with values he says conflict with the West poses a homeland security risk. During his first term, he designated chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the threat as ideological rather than geographic, saying last week on Fox News: "Radical Islam has shown that their desire is not simply to occupy one part of the world … they want to expand."
Elon Musk amplified the debate further, writing: "Either the suicidal empathy of Western civilization ends or Western civilization will end."
Extremism researchers note that the recent incidents reflect a familiar model of modern Islamist violence: attackers exploiting soft targets, acting with limited preparation, and drawing inspiration from global ideological movements even when they lack direct operational ties. The shootings in Sydney, the foiled plots in Germany and the U.S., and the gunman in Syria each demonstrated how quickly such violence can surface, even in countries with strong counterterrorism systems.
Two U.S. service members were killed in Syria by a lone ISIS gunman on Saturday. (John Moore/Getty Images)
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Makovsky praised the Trump administration’s efforts to confront a rise in antisemitism but warned that the U.S. may be overlooking risks inherent in its partnership with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Shaara, a former wanted terrorist.
"The administration is very invested right now in Shaara, and seems to want to minimize that the killer was from Shaara’s security forces," he said. "There are a lot of bad people still around Shaara."
As investigators in three countries piece together motives and networks, policymakers are confronting a possibility many had hoped was receding: that extremist violence, driven by global ideological currents rather than coordinated plots, may be entering a new phase — one that challenges assumptions Western nations have relied on to keep their citizens safe.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/global-wave-terror-plots-sparks-new-alarms-over-wests-growing-vulnerability