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Americans woke Friday to grim proof that the threat of Islamist-inspired violence is not a distant headline but a present danger inside our own institutions, as a classroom shooting at Old Dominion University and a simultaneous attack on a Detroit-area synagogue put the country on high alert. Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent James Gagliano and other national security voices are warning that these were not random acts but the kind of ISIS-inspired “lone wolf” violence our intelligence community has long feared.
The Old Dominion attacker has been identified as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a onetime member of the Army National Guard who had previously pleaded guilty to attempting to aid the Islamic State and was released from prison less than two years before opening fire in a classroom. Witnesses and officials say he shouted “Allahu akbar” before the attack, which left one person dead and two others wounded before ROTC students subdued and killed him — a brutal reminder that radicalized individuals can strike even after serving time for extremist crimes.
Compounding the outrage, investigators say the gun used at Old Dominion had its serial number obliterated, making the weapon’s chain of custody harder to trace and raising urgent questions about how a convicted extremist obtained a firearm after release. This is not merely a failure of paperwork; it’s a failure of policy and enforcement that allowed a known risk back into the public sphere with deadly consequences.
At the same time in Michigan, a man drove his vehicle into Temple Israel and reportedly opened fire in what federal authorities described as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community, with the assailant ultimately killed at the scene. Communities of faith are supposed to be sanctuaries, not soft targets; the coordinated nature of these incidents demands that we treat them as part of a broader pattern of ideologically driven attacks.
We should be grateful the ROTC students at Old Dominion acted with courage and stopped further carnage, but gratitude does not substitute for accountability. Veterans and trainees stepped up where the system failed them, and their bravery underscores the moral bankruptcy of policies that let dangerous actors slip through supervision, rehabilitation, and release without proper safeguards. Former federal agents like Gagliano are right to warn of more ISIS-inspired lone wolves; politicians who ignore that warning are gambling with American lives.
The remedy is clear to any patriot who puts safety first: tighten the justice system’s handling of convicted terrorists, restore real accountability to federal monitoring, and prioritize counterterrorism resources rather than partisan theater. We must also secure our borders and vet entry and release processes so that those who have shown intent to aid jihadist groups cannot return to our streets with weapons in hand and malice in their hearts.
Congress and the Biden administration owe the families of the dead and every American an honest plan to prevent more attacks — not platitudes or press conferences. Support our law enforcement, hold weak officials accountable, and demand that policymakers heed the warnings of experienced agents like James Gagliano before another classroom or house of worship becomes the next headline.
