McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Brett Holmgren got woken up early on New Year’s Day by alerts that a driver had plowed into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans.
The rampage, which killed 14 people, was the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in years and was inspired by the Islamic State group. The National Counterterrorism Center, which Holmgren leads, sprang into action to help the FBI run down information on the culprit from Texas and his plot.
It was a rare recent example of a mass attack motivated by religious extremism to hit the U.S. homeland. But it didn’t occur in a vacuum, coming at a time when a terror threat that has waxed and waned in the two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is decidedly on the rise around the world…