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By Brigette Gabriel – March 13, 2026
A disturbing trend is gripping our country—one that strikes at the heart of who we are. We must confront it head-on and prevent it from spreading further.
Just yesterday, we witnessed the shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The gunman, identified as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, was a former Army National Guardsman who had previously been convicted in 2016 for attempting to provide material support to ISIS and had served more than a decade in federal prison before being released in 2024. Authorities say Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sierra Leone, opened fire inside Constant Hall, killing one person and injuring two others before he was ultimately stopped and killed. The attack is now rightfully being investigated as a potential act of terrorism and raises serious questions about how someone with a known history of supporting ISIS was able to return and carry out violence on an American campus.
Also on Thursday, at Temple Israel—a large Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan—a male suspect intentionally rammed a pickup truck through the front doors and into the building causing the vehicle to catch fire and fill the area with smoke. The attacker, armed with a rifle, exchanged gunfire with on-site security personnel after breaching the interior (driving down a hallway in some accounts). Security fatally shot the suspect, who was later confirmed dead. One security guard was injured after being struck by the vehicle but is expected to recover. The FBI is involved in the ongoing investigation into the motive and suspect’s identity, with reports of possible explosives found in the vehicle. The details of this “act of violence” are still unfolding at this time, but the message is clear.
This follows the events of last Saturday, where two young men from the suburbs of Pennsylvania decided to wage war on their own country. Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, both U.S. citizens, drove into Manhattan carrying homemade bombs loaded with the same volatile explosive that jihadists have used to slaughter innocents around the world. They targeted a lawful protest called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City, Stop New York City Public Muslim Prayer.” About twenty brave souls had gathered to speak the truth about the radical ideology flooding our streets and our institutions.
These two Americans shouted “Allahu Akbar,” and hurled their IEDs directly into the crowd. They told police afterward they were aligned with the Islamic State. The bombs failed to explode. No one died this time. But make no mistake: American citizens tried to murder American citizens for the crime of opposing Islamic conquest in our greatest city. In fact, it was reported that they intended for the attack to be larger in scale than the Boston Marathon bombing.
This is not foreign terrorism sneaking across a border. This is homegrown. These were our neighbors’ sons, radicalized right here on American soil, choosing the black flag of ISIS over the Stars and Stripes. And now their lawyers are attempting to claim that, due to their age, they didn’t know what they were doing.
Terrorism is not new. Just this past Sunday, a powerful bomb ripped through the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway — a “terror bombing,” authorities called it, intended “to take lives or cause significant damage.” Norwegian police arrested three brothers, all Norwegian citizens in their twenties with Iraqi heritage. The blast caused damage but no casualties. Yet the pattern is unmistakable: radical ideology, whether it strikes in Manhattan or Oslo, is relentless.
What has changed — and what should terrify every freedom-loving American — is the rise of homegrown terror. We are no longer just fighting enemies abroad. We are fighting enemies we ourselves have raised, nourished, and refused to confront.
Instead of facing this reality, some in the media chose lies. CNN’s Ana Navarro and Abby Phillip rushed onto airwaves to declare the NYC Incident an “attempted terror attack against” Mayor Zohran Mamdani — painting the jihadists as victims of “Islamophobia” and the protesters as the real villains. They had to issue humiliating corrections and public apologies because the facts were devastating: the bombs were thrown at anti-Islam demonstrators, not at the mayor’s residence. The attackers were ISIS fanatics, not right-wing extremists. Twisting the truth to protect a narrative only empowers the enemy and endangers us all.
And while we’re talking about inconvenient truths, let us speak plainly about what happened in American mosques just weeks ago. As the free world breathed easier after the elimination of Ayatollah Khamenei — one of the most blood-soaked tyrants on earth, a man who crushed women, hanged dissidents, and funded Hamas and Hezbollah — mosques in Manassas, Virginia, and Dearborn Heights, Michigan, held formal memorial services. They called him “our leader.” They mourned his “martyrdom.” They gathered for potluck iftars and eulogies while Americans wept for the loss of a man who embodied everything antithetical to individual liberty.
Let that sink in. On American soil, under American protections, citizens publicly grieved a monster who spent decades exporting death.
This is the reality we face.
We cannot afford denial. We cannot afford political correctness. We cannot afford another generation taught that noticing jihadist ideology is “bigotry.”
We must stay vigilant. We must keep our eyes and ears open. If you see the signs — the sudden obsession with ISIS propaganda, the isolation from American values, the glorification of martyrdom — you must be bold enough to say something. Speak up. Refuse to be silenced by fear of being called names.
Our republic was not built by the timid. It will not be preserved by the silent. The enemy is not at the gates. The enemy is inside the gates — and some of them carry American passports.
