Islamist attacks in the US: the record since 9/11

The short answer. Islamist attacks in the US since 9/11 have killed far fewer people than in Europe, but they have been deadly. New America's running count, last updated in April 2025, is 121 deaths from jihadist attacks inside the US since 9/11, which appears to include the 14 killed in New Orleans on 1 January 2025.¹² Its count for far-right terrorism is 137, and US intelligence now judges that the likeliest Islamist attacker is a lone offender inspired online.¹³

Key facts #

• On 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda hijackers killed 2,977 people in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, the deadliest terrorist attack in US history.⁴⁵
• New America counts 16 lethal jihadist attackers since 9/11 (to September 2021). It found one case of a foreign group directing or training a deadly attacker: Pensacola, on 6 December 2019.¹
• The Global Terrorism Index 2026 ranks the US 28th of the countries it scores for the impact of terrorism.⁶
• On 1 January 2025 Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove through a crowd in New Orleans, killing 14. The FBI said he acted alone and was "100% inspired by ISIS".²
• On 12 March 2026 a man previously convicted of supporting ISIS shot dead one person at Old Dominion University in Virginia. The FBI is investigating it as terrorism.⁷

How deadly have Islamist attacks in the US been since 9/11? #

New America counts 121 deaths from jihadist attacks inside the US since 9/11, against 137 from far-right terrorism. Peter Bergen and David Sterman wrote the text in September 2021, but the figures are updated as they go: the page is dated 21 April 2025, and the 121 appears to include New Orleans. It does not include the Old Dominion shooting of March 2026.¹

The Global Terrorism Index counted 13 incidents and 28 deaths in the US in 2025, of all ideologies, including political killings such as that of Charlie Kirk.⁶ CSIS found that 57% of the 893 US terrorist plots and attacks from January 1994 to May 2020 were right-wing and 15% religious.⁵

What were the deadliest Islamist attacks in the US? #

The deadliest was 9/11. The table lists it and the main later attacks that US authorities tied to jihadist ideology or a foreign group. It is not complete: New America's total also includes smaller attacks.

Orlando is the hardest case to classify. In a 911 call Mateen pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Islamic State, and he told a negotiator the US should stop bombing Syria and Iraq.¹⁶ Islamic State said it was behind the attack, but the BBC reported that its involvement was unclear.¹⁷

What happened in the New Orleans attack of 2025? #

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, an Army veteran from Houston, drove a rented pickup truck into crowds on Bourbon Street on 1 January 2025, killing 14 people and injuring at least 57.¹⁸⁶ The FBI's Christopher Raia said Jabbar acted alone, had posted videos declaring his support for Islamic State, and carried out "an act of terrorism".²

Investigators found an Islamic State flag on the truck and coolers holding explosive devices on Bourbon Street. Jabbar had visited New Orleans in October and November 2024 and spent nearly two weeks in Cairo in mid-2023, trips the FBI was examining.¹⁸

The 2026 intelligence assessment gives the death toll as 15; the FBI, the Global Terrorism Index and Fox 8 count 14 victims.³ The UN reports that Islamic State's spokesman named New Orleans in a February 2026 message urging "lone lions" to strike Europe and America.¹⁹ See our Islamic State guide.

Which recent US attacks were Islamist, and which were not? #

Authorities have tied the notable attacks of 2025 and 2026 to different causes, not all Sunni jihadist. I label each only as officials did.

• Old Dominion University, 12 March 2026 (Islamic State). Jalloh, 36, a former National Guardsman, killed one person and wounded two. He had been sentenced to 11 years in 2017 and was released in December 2024 under a federal drug-treatment provision.⁷ The UN says three of the four attacks in North America and Europe in its period were by people with earlier terrorism convictions.¹⁹
• New York mayor's residence, 7 March 2026 (Islamic State, alleged). Two Pennsylvania teenagers inspired by ISIL tried to detonate several bombs at a protest outside it, the UN reports.¹⁹
• West Bloomfield, Michigan, 12 March 2026 (Hezbollah). Ayman Ghazali, a naturalised citizen from Lebanon, rammed a truck into Temple Israel and died by his own hand. No one else was killed. The FBI called it a "Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism" and found no co-conspirators.²⁰ Hezbollah is a Shia group backed by Iran; see our Hezbollah and Iran guide.
• Salman Rushdie stabbing, 12 August 2022 (Hezbollah, Iran's fatwa). A federal jury convicted Hadi Matar on 29 July 2026 of attempting to support Hezbollah and two other terrorism counts. His lawyer argued he acted independently.²¹
• Boulder, Colorado, 1 June 2025 (antisemitic terror, no group link found). Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national living in the US without documentation, firebombed a march for Israeli hostages. Karen Diamond, 82, died. The Justice Department called it an "anti-Semitic terrorist attack". Sentenced to life in May 2026, he told the court his act "is not according to the teaching of Islam".²² The intelligence assessment groups Boulder with New Orleans as a lone-offender attack inspired by foreign terrorist ideologies.³
• Washington, DC, 26 November 2025 (no motive stated). Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died when two National Guard members were shot. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, came from Afghanistan in 2021 and has pleaded not guilty. By August 2026 prosecutors had stated no motive, so I do not call it Islamist.²³

How does Islamist violence compare with far-right violence? #

Apart from 9/11 itself, far-right attacks have killed more people than jihadist attacks. New America counts 137 against 121 since 2001. CSIS counts 335 right-wing deaths from 1994 to May 2020, against 3,086 from religious terrorism, of which 2,977 were on 9/11 (109 without it, my arithmetic).¹⁵

The worst far-right attacks were:

• Oklahoma City, 1995: 168 killed, 19 of them children, "the worst act of homegrown terrorism" in US history, said the FBI.²⁴
• Charleston, 2015: a white man killed nine black worshippers.²⁵
• Pittsburgh, 2018: 11 killed at a synagogue by a man with a record of antisemitic posts.²⁶
• El Paso, 2019: 23 killed after a post warning of a Hispanic "invasion" of Texas.²⁷
• Buffalo, 2022: ten killed in a racially motivated attack.²⁸

The Global Terrorism Index adds that over two decades in the West, far-left attackers carried out more attacks, but far-right attacks caused more deaths, almost all by individuals.⁶ Neither threat cancels the other. The jihadist toll is smaller but includes the worst attack in US history.

How do Islamist attacks in the US compare with Europe? #

Islamist attacks have killed several times more people in Europe than in the US, but the periods and counting rules differ, so treat the gap as rough.

Bergen and Sterman say the US is "a hard target" for foreign terrorist organisations. They credit layered defences: tips from local communities and the public, and widespread use of informants.¹ In Europe the worst attacks, Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016, were Islamic State operations run from Syria.

The gap has narrowed. In 2025 the US recorded 28 terrorism deaths of all ideologies, roughly half of the West's 57 (my arithmetic).⁶ The EU's completed jihadist attacks that year killed five people.²⁹

Who are the attackers, and what cuts the other way? #

• Lone, young and online. Bergen and Sterman say the likeliest threat is a lone person or a pair whose planning gives defenders little to detect.¹ The intelligence assessment says teenagers were a significant part of 2025 plotting, such as a 16-year-old from Virginia who wanted to join ISIS and rammed a stolen vehicle into a police car in New Jersey.³
• Muslim communities supply tips. Charles Kurzman found Muslim Americans were the source of the first tip in 52 of 140 Muslim-American terrorism suspect cases where the source was known (as of 2012). He did not separate community leaders from other members.³⁰ See our radicalisation guide.
• Stings can inflate the numbers. Human Rights Watch reported in 2014 that nearly half of more than 500 federal terrorism convictions came from informant-based cases, and almost 30% of those were stings where the informant played an active role. It also said many prosecutions properly targeted real plotters.³¹
• No single profile. The sixteen lethal attackers included three African Americans, two white converts and immigrants; only the Pensacola gunman was a visitor.¹

Is political Islam a security threat in America? #

Political Islam in America is a legal and political argument more than an attack record, because none of the sources I checked ties the attacks above to a Brotherhood-linked organisation. The dispute concerns organisations, not Muslims as a group.

On 13 January 2026 the US Treasury designated the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and the State Department designated the Lebanese chapter a Foreign Terrorist Organization, for supporting Hamas. The whole movement was not designated.³² See our Muslim Brotherhood guide.

The March 2026 intelligence assessment says Islamist ideology, in some cases led by Brotherhood-associated people who have supported Hamas and Hizballah, "poses a fundamental threat" to Western freedoms.³ That is a judgement about an ideology, not a count of attacks.

In the Holy Land Foundation case a jury convicted the charity and five leaders of supporting Hamas in 2008, with sentences from 15 to 65 years. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in 2011.³³ Prosecutors' 2007 list of unindicted co-conspirators named the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was never charged. In 2009 Judge Jorge Solis found "ample evidence" of associations between CAIR and the foundation and Hamas, but also that the government had shown no legitimate interest in naming CAIR publicly.³⁴ CAIR says it has always condemned terrorism.³⁵

Texas designated the Brotherhood and CAIR on 18 November 2025, and Florida followed in December.³⁶³⁷ On 4 March 2026 federal judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against Florida's order, saying the First Amendment barred it.³⁵ I found no federal designation of CAIR as of October 2026.

Questions people ask #

How many people have Islamist attacks killed in the US since 9/11? #

New America's running count is 121 deaths from jihadist attacks inside the US since 9/11, excluding the 2,977 killed on 9/11 itself. Its page is dated April 2025 and appears to include New Orleans; the Old Dominion shooting of March 2026 brings the total to about 122 (approx.). It counts 137 deaths from far-right terrorism. Treat every total as an estimate.

What was the deadliest Islamist attack in the US? #

The deadliest was 9/11, when al-Qaeda hijackers killed 2,977 people. Since then it was the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June 2016, which killed 49 people, or 50 counting the gunman. His motive was mixed: he pledged to Islamic State but also complained about US bombing in Syria and Iraq.

What happened in the New Orleans attack in 2025? #

On 1 January 2025 Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented truck into crowds on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people. The FBI said he acted alone, had posted videos supporting Islamic State, and was inspired by the group. Police shot him dead. An Islamic State flag was on the truck.

Is far-right or Islamist terrorism the bigger threat in the US? #

Both are real. On New America's count far-right terrorism killed slightly more people since 9/11 than jihadists (137 against 121), and CSIS found most plots and attacks since 1994 were right-wing. Jihadists caused the worst attack, 9/11, and US intelligence still expects lone offenders inspired online.

How do terrorist attacks in Europe compare with the US? #

Europe has suffered more jihadist deaths since 2004, over 600 (approx.), against about 122 in the US since 9/11. Europe's worst attacks, in Paris and Brussels, were run from Syria. New America found only Pensacola in 2019 where a foreign group was behind a deadly attack in the US.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood or CAIR a terrorist group in the US? #

Not as a whole. In January 2026 the US designated the Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese Brotherhood chapters, and later the Sudanese one, but not the movement itself. I found no federal designation of CAIR. Texas and Florida issued state orders against both in 2025, and a federal judge blocked Florida's in March 2026.

Related guides #

• Islamist terrorism worldwide: the global picture.
• Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe: the deadliest attacks.
• Islamist terrorism in the UK: attacks since 7/7 and MI5 figures.
• Islamism in Australia: Bondi and ASIO.
• Islamic State: the group behind much inspired violence.
• Muslim Brotherhood: the movement and the designations.

Cite as: The Analyst, "Islamist attacks in the US: list, numbers and context", Fighting Islamists, updated 13 October 2026. https://fightingislamists.com/islamist-terrorism-us.html

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