US on elevated alert after attacks show Iran links, but DHS funding still frozen

The federal government is probing Iran terror links after attacks in Texas, Michigan and Virginia in the last 12 days, but Department of Homeland Security funding remains frozen, possibly imperiling more lives.

The U.S. raised its terror threat level Friday, Fox News reported, one day after a gunman killed an ROTC professor at Old Dominion University and another man rammed his truck into a synagogue and school in Michigan.

The threat-level change couldn’t be independently confirmed because the DHS website isn’t being maintained during the shutdown, which started Feb. 14. 

The recent attacks, which are being investigated by the FBI, follow the pattern of lone wolves and sleeper agents that act independently, without operational direction. All three attackers have Islamist ties.

The U.S. intercepted encrypted Iranian communications that may serve as “an operational trigger” for “sleeper assets” in the U.S., according to a federal government alert sent to law enforcement agencies, ABC News reported.

The alert said the trigger could be intended to activate prepositioned sleeper agents.

President Trump said Wednesday his administration knows the location of most Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S., adding “a lot of people came in” during the Biden administration.

“We know where most of them are,” he said. “We’ve got our eye on all of them.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said his department was “at a heightened level of awareness. Lone wolves in our experience have been our concern.”

3 dead in Texas, 14 injured 

The deadliest of the recent attacks was a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, now under investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Ndiaga Diagne, 53, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Senegal, opened fire outside a crowded bar on March 1, killing three people and wounding at least 14 others.

He wore a sweatshirt reading “Property of Allah” and a shirt underneath bearing an Iranian flag design.

A search of Diagne’s home turned up an Iranian flag and pictures of Iranian leaders. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force opened a terrorism investigation, CBS News reported.

Diagne arrived on a tourist visa in 2000 and obtained U.S. citizenship in 2013.

Gunman at Virginia’s Old Dominion University 

On Thursday, a gunman walked into a classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, shouted “Allahu Akbar,” and opened fire, Fox News reported. One person was killed and two were wounded.

The FBI identified the shooter as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone and a former Virginia Army National Guard specialist.

Jalloh had confirmed terror ties.

He pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to ISIS, but was sentenced to just 11 years. He was released early from federal custody by the Biden administration in December 2024 after serving eight years, according to WRAL News.

The Washington Times reported the Trump administration argued in 2017 that Jalloh should be given 20 years rather than the reduced sentence that set him free more than a year ago.

Even now, it is unclear why he was released before serving his entire sentence.

Michigan synagogue attack 

Hours later on Thursday, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon, drove a truck into Temple Israel in Michigan before being shot dead by security officers, NBC News reported. He had a rifle in his possession and explosives in the truck, which ignited a small fire.

Ghazali immigrated from Lebanon 15 years ago and became a citizen in 2016.

Islamist connections, with Iran as a likely thread, run through all three cases – which is especially disturbing given the possible attacks U.S. intelligence has been warning about.

It takes on added importance as DHS is crippled by a Democrat-led government shutdown.

Trump was blunt when asked about the importance of homeland security during the operation against Iran.

“One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrat shutdown because as you know, the apparatus that looks into that, [Sen. Chuck] Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down,” he said.

Impact of no security funds

Since Feb. 14, DHS has been unable to process millions of dollars in security grants for nonprofits, leaving Jewish institutions and other vulnerable communities exposed, Cleveland Jewish News reported.

The Nonprofit Security Grant Program – the primary federal mechanism synagogues, churches and mosques rely on to fund cameras, barriers and armed guards – is frozen by the Democrat-led shutdown.

“The main source of security funding, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, is bogged down in the DHS funding bill fight. Congress needs to act on this now,” said Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy for the Orthodox Union.

Even some Democrats are beginning to worry.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from the swing state of Michigan, argued DHS funding needs to be restored separately from a conversation about Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding, to which Democrats are objecting.

Yet, she and other Democrats have repeatedly voted against that funding since January, and as recently as Thursday, citing concerns about ICE.

Thus far it appears the attacks over the past two weeks could be a combination of sleeper cell and/or lone wolf operations. The timing of the domestic terror strikes coinciding just days after Operation Epic Fury launched against Iran doesn’t appear to be simply coincidental.

But whether lone wolf attacks multiply or the Iranian sleeper cell threat grows, the question of who is guarding the homeland becomes harder to answer if DHS funding continues to be frozen by a Democrat-led shutdown.