FBI says Hamas attack will inspire most ‘significant’ terror threat to US since Islamic State

FBI director Christopher Wray at a hearing on homeland threats at the Capitol in Washington on 31 October 2023. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock

The attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October will inspire the most significant terror threat to the US since the rise of Islamic State (IS) nearly a decade ago, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, said at a congressional hearing in Washington on Tuesday.

Wray said that since the start of the Israel-Palestine conflict earlier this month, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the west, significantly raising the threat posed by homegrown US violent extremists.