The United States believes the situation in Gaza, as well the Israel-Hezbollah and Israel-Iran dynamics, will remain volatile, according to the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.
The 31-page report, which was published on Tuesday, dedicates sections to threats from Iran and Islamist terrorism, Russia, China, and North Korea.
According to the threat assessment relating to the Israel-Hamas War, the US believes “even in degraded form, Hamas continues to pose a threat to Israeli security.”
“The group retains thousands of fighters and much of its underground infrastructure, and probably has used the ceasefire to reinforce and resupply its military and munitions stock so that it can fight again,” the report said.
Hamas has the ability to resume “low-level guerrilla resistance and to remain the dominant political action in Gaza for the foreseeable future,” it said.
There are “low expectations on all sides that a ceasefire will endure,” the report said, adding that “the absence of a credible post-fighting political and reconstruction plan portend years of instability.”
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Interestingly, the report notes a decline in support for Hamas among Gazan civilians but a consistently high level of support among Palestinians in the West Bank, especially the Palestinian Authority.
“The long-term Israeli-Palestinian relationship also hinges on the trajectory of an increasingly unstable West Bank,” the report said. “The PA’s weak and declining ability to provide security and other services in the West Bank, Israeli operations in the West Bank, violence from Israeli settlers and Palestinian militant groups including Hamas, and a potential leadership transition in the PA are likely to exacerbate governance challenges in Ramallah.”
The future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hinges significantly on how Israel deals with post-conflict Gaza, it said.
Threat from Iran, proxies
Iran also poses a significant threat, the report said, adding that its impact is felt in the US and not just in Israel and the Middle East.
“During the Gaza conflict, Iran encouraged and enabled its various proxies and partners to conduct strikes against Israeli and at times US forces and interests in the region,” it said.
Part of the threat comes from Tehran’s attempts to “leverage its robust missile capability and expanded nuclear program, and its diplomatic outreach to regional states and US rivals to bolster its regional influence and ensure regime survival,” it added.
In terms of weapons, the report cited Iran’s bolstering of the lethality and precision of its domestically produced missile and UAV systems as a threat, and said Tehran “has the largest stockpiles of these systems in the region.”
While the report stressed the US’s stance that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” it did say Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “remains the final decision-maker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.”
Iran very likely aims to continue developing chemical and biological agents for offensive purposes, the report said.
“Iranian military scientists have researched chemicals that have a wide range of sedation, dissociation, and amnestic incapacitating effects, and can also be lethal,” the report said.
Other sources of threat are direct targeting of individuals by the US regime, it said, and “unconventional warfare operations,” such as the disruption of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz via the use of small boats and submarines.”
The report raised the question of whether a “degraded Hezbollah, the demise of the Assad regime in Syria, and Iran’s failure to deter Israel have led leaders in Tehran to raise fundamental questions regarding Iran’s approach.”
Nevertheless, it said, Iran’s proxies remain a threat, and Khamenei continues “to desire to avoid embroiling Iran in an expanded, direct conflict with the United States and its allies.”
The intelligence assessment cited the role of the Houthis, Iraqi Shia militias, and Hezbollah in inflaming regional tensions.
“The Houthis have emerged as the most aggressive actor, attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, US and European forces, and Israel,” the report said. “Iraqi Shia militias continue to try to compel a US withdrawal from Iraq through political pressure on the Iraqi government and attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria.”
“Further fighting between Hezbollah and Israel would threaten Lebanon’s fragile stability and any political progress begun by the election of a president in January after years of trying,” it said. “A resumption of protracted Israeli operations in Lebanon could trigger a sharp rise in sectarian tension, undermine Lebanese security forces, and dramatically worsen humanitarian conditions.”
While weakened, Hezbollah “maintains the capability to target US persons and interests in the region, worldwide, and – to a lesser extent – in the United States,” it added.
Iranian cyber threat
“Iran’s growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations also make it a major threat to the security of US and allied and partner networks and data,” the report said. “Guidance from Iranian leaders has incentivized cyber actors to become more aggressive in developing capabilities to conduct cyberattacks.”
The report cited a June 2024 cyberattack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on an email account associated with an individual with informal ties to then-former president Donald Trump’s election campaign.
“That account [sent] a targeted spear-phishing email to individuals inside the campaign itself,” the report said. “The IRGC subsequently tried to manipulate US journalists into leaking information illicitly acquired from the campaign.”
The new Syrian regime
Regarding Syria, the report said: “The fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime at the hands of opposition forces led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a group formerly associated with al-Qaeda – has created conditions for extended instability in Syria and could contribute to a resurgence of ISIS and other Islamist terror groups.”
The US intelligence community believes governing Syria will remain “a daunting challenge amid the country’s economic problems, humanitarian needs driven in part by millions of internally displaced Syrians, rampant insecurity, as well as ethnic, sectarian, and religious cleavages,” the report said.
It cited the use of violence and extrajudicial killings against Alawites and Christians since the beginning of this March, which have resulted in more than 1000 deaths. While HTS claims to want to cooperate with Syria’s array of ethno-sectarian groups, many of these groups remain skeptical of HTS’s intentions, especially considering the leader’s past al-Qaeda association.
The report also highlighted Israel’s position on the regime change in Syria. Israeli government officials remain skeptical of HTS claims and intentions, “expressing concern that historical HTS objectives against Israel persist,” it said.
Al-Qaeda
The report stressed that al-Qaeda maintains its intent to target the US and American citizens, using its global affiliates.
The leaders of al-Qaeda, some of whom are based in Iran, “have tried to exploit anti-Israeli sentiment over the war in Gaza to unite Muslims and encourage attacks against Israel and the United States,” the report said.
“Al-Qaeda’s media apparatus issued statements from leaders and the group’s affiliates supporting Hamas and encouraging attacks against Israeli and US targets,” it said.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has relaunched its Inspire guide with videos and tweets that encouraged attacks against Jewish targets, the United States, and Europe, the report said.
“Inspire provided instructions for making bombs and placing explosive devices on civilian airliners and gave religious, ideological, historical, and moral justification for such attacks,” the report said.
Additionally, despite claims that al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Hurras al-Din, was disbanded by Tehran, US intelligence deemed that Hurras al-Din members were actually advised not to disarm and instead to “prepare for a future conflict, noting their continued fight against the Jews and their supporters.”
Much of the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its offshoots is felt on US soil, the report said.
“Most of these groups generally have targeted local governments in recent years, while Lebanese Hezbollah has continued to pursue limited targeting of primarily Israeli and Jewish individuals in and outside of the Middle East,” it said.