FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia on How the Terror Threat Has Evolved Since 9/11
September 11, 2026 · FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation · 0:02:53
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
Marking 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, the report said the FBI warned the threat from foreign terrorist organizations has not gone away and in some ways is more challenging to stop. FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia said the bureau sees people getting radicalized from the comfort of their own home through social media and the internet, and that those are the people who keep him up at night because they are so much harder to detect, as he stated it.
The report said that while the FBI is better positioned to stop a large-scale, sophisticated attack like 9/11, al Qaeda and its offshoot ISIS have evolved to develop so-called lone wolves in the homeland, and it cited the arrest three weeks earlier of a 35-year-old accused of plotting to bomb the state capitol in Albany in the name of ISIS. In the past year and a half, the FBI has arrested at least 16 people in the U.S. for allegedly plotting or supporting plots to kill Americans on behalf of ISIS and al Qaeda, according to the report.
Raia pushed back on reports that the FBI has been distracted by immigration and other Trump administration priorities, saying the bureau’s footprint on immigration policy is very minimal and that it has the resources it needs — while adding it always wants more — and that it has not done anything different from previous years, as he stated it. He also warned that turning technology into weapons, such as drones packed with explosives, is a coming challenge the bureau is trying to stay ahead of, and said 9/11 remains a motivating factor for would-be terrorists, according to the report.
Why it matters
Raia’s assessment defines the FBI’s current counterterrorism posture: the main threat is online self-radicalization, and the bureau publicly rejects the claim that immigration work has diluted that mission.
Sources: FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Deputy Director Raia on how the terror threat has evolved”, 2026-09-11 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-09-11). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.
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