No Ideology Required: Drones and the New Domestic Extremist Threat

Abstract

Three domestic terrorism plots. Three ideologies. One weapon. Since late 2024, plots planning to attack a Pride parade, Nashville’s power grid, and the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House have shared nothing except their weapon of choice. Domestic violent extremists across the ideological spectrum are adopting drones as a weapon for their plots, a tactic pioneered by foreign terrorist organizations. This highlights a growing trend with serious implications for the future of U.S. counterextremism policy.

Introduction

Drones have no ideology. They work for different motivated groups and individuals, whether they are motivated by jihad, antisemitism, or anti-government rage. Conspirators in the foiled UFC Freedom 250 plot had planned to use unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) armed with explosives to initiate their attack. This was the most recent addition to an emerging pattern in the United States: domestic extremists importing the drone tactic from the international scene. In October 2024, a 17-year-old in Arizona was arrested for planning to deploy an explosive drone at a Phoenix Pride Parade, inspired by Islamic State videos he had found online. Weeks later, FBI agents arrested a 24-year-old white supremacist from Columbia, Tennessee, and disrupted his plot to use an explosive-laden drone to attack power grids in Nashville.

Three cases, three ideologies, same tactic. The UFC Freedom 250 plot is not an anomaly, but the newest data point in an upward trend. Drones may now be the weapon of choice for extremists, whatever the target, whatever the ideology.

Three Cases, Three Ideologies, One Tactic

The Jihadist

The trend starts with Marvin Jalo, a 17-year-old who plotted to attack the Pride Parade in Phoenix, Arizona, with jihadist motivations. In 2023, Jalo began communicating in online chat rooms with “extremists” who were actively recruiting him to conduct attacks. In these groups, he discussed attack options and shared that he could make his own guns with separate parts ordered from the internet. Jalo also mentioned that he learned how to make triacetone triperoxide, an unstable explosive, through videos made by the so-called Islamic State (IS). He was planning to detonate explosives in buildings close to the parade and deploy an explosive remote-controlled drone to maximize impact.

It was Jalo’s mother who disrupted the plot. She reported her son’s suspicious online activity to the authorities.

The Accelerationist

On November 2nd, less than two weeks later, federal agents arrested 24-year-old Skyler Philippi of Columbia, Tennessee. According to authorities, Philippi was planning to destroy power grids in Nashville with a homemade explosive drone to further his accelerationist ideology. As far back as July 2024, he had contemplated different attack options including a mass shooting at a local YMCA. Philippi was active on Terrorgram, an accelerationist and neo-Nazi network on Telegram.

The Terrorgram Collective and three of its leaders were designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists in January 2025. The group has influenced various attacks globally, including a shooting outside a gay bar in Slovakia in October 2022, a July 2024 attack plan on New Jersey’s energy facilities, and a knife attack at a mosque in Eskişehir, Turkey in August 2024. Philippi’s plot to cause the collapse of the U.S. power grid was also inspired by Terrorgram. Terrorgram has historically shared detailed manifestos about attacks on infrastructure. Their 2022 “zine,” The Hard Reset, devotes nearly 50 pages to instructions on how to conduct such attacks as well as encouragement.

Philippi was arrested by FBI agents at the location of his plot after powering up the drone. He later pled guilty.

The “Vanguard of the Old”

The third plot was the most ambitious—and the most ideologically diffuse. In June 2026, federal agents arrested seven suspects from four states: California, Ohio, Missouri, and Nebraska. The conspirators had allegedly plotted to attack the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House. The group—calling itself the “Vanguard of the Old”—was initially a cell operating on TikTok, which then migrated to Signal. The group showed signs of anti-government tendencies, as well as using antisemitic language.

Their plan entailed deploying a drone armed with an explosive on the White House lawn to force an evacuation. Snipers positioned on evacuation routes would then fire upon “high-value targets.” The gunmen planned to escape by traveling along the Potomac River, if needed. Targeting was based on whether the plotters’ perception of certain Congress members as being funded by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

In the weeks leading up to their arrest, Vanguard of the Old conspirators shared aerial maps of the White House lawn, divided themselves into tiers, assigned operational roles, and tried to crowdfund the $1,300 needed for the operation.

The plot was disrupted after the mother of one of the conspirators called the police.

A Spectrum of Ideologies

What these cases reveal is a shared, preferred tactic with differing targets. Philippi targeted critical infrastructure while Jalo and the Vanguard of the Old focused on public gatherings and politicians, as well as famous figures they deemed to be “high-value targets.”

Lewis and Baumgartner identified the Nashville case as a critical point, arguing that the emergence of the drone in domestic terrorism plots represents a changing domestic extremist strategy. They warn that the U.S. government has been slow to counter this attack vector. They were right. The subsequent UFC Freedom 250 case confirms that the desire to utilize drones and other emerging technologies is not confined to a single ideology and has become an appealing tactic across the ideological spectrum.

Not New, But Newly Dangerous

Domestic extremists did not pioneer drones as a means of maximum destruction, but imported it.

International non-state actors spent decades developing and refining drone weaponization. Hezbollah was the first group to establish a UAS program, with significant support from Iran. The group conducted surveillance missions over Israel back in 2004, later expanding their program to carry payloads against Israeli targets. Hamas also showed early interest in UAS for reconnaissance and attacks. The militants likely re-engineered Israeli drones shot down in Palestinian territory to further their own UAS capabilities.

The mid-2010s saw an acceleration with the rise of the Islamic State, which transformed commercial drones into multi-purpose tools for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, strikes, and propaganda. The terror group pioneered the large-scale use of drones, on which others would later build. With significant backing from Iran, the Houthis—similarly to Hezbollah—took it further. Beginning in 2018, they conducted attacks against U.S. military assets, regional governments, and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The use of drones to carry out attacks has proliferated from the battlefield to the backyard, and the aspiration to use them within the United States predates these three plots.Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in September 2011 for plotting an attack using a remotely controlled aircraft armed with grenades. The attack would have been followed by a ground assault on the Pentagon and the United States Capitol. Ferdaus had already been designing and making detonation devices with cell phones and supplying them to undercover FBI employees. He believed the detonation devices were being used to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, as well as train al Qaeda members. His attack was disrupted by the FBI, and he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. But his plan would later bear a striking resemblance to the UFC Freedom 250 plot, with far more external resources available and fewer technological barriers.

Like Ferdaus, Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said was arrested in May 2025 for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command facility in Warren, Michigan. Said hoped to assist Islamic State, either abroad or within the United States, and contemplated travelling to IS-controlled territory earlier in 2024. His plot included flying drones to surveil the grounds prior to his intended attack.

Said was arrested by law enforcement shortly after launching the drone.

Different Plots, Different Learning Models

The three cases reveal distinct pathways from radicalization to operational planning and thus, different learning processes.

Though inspired by Islamic State, Jalo is believed to have self-radicalized. He learned from publicly available information and became further radicalized in online chat rooms. Furthermore, his young age and lone wolf status made early detection and disruption difficult.

The network provided him with both an ideological and technical base, as well as motivation and guidance for acquiring the capability to carry out an attack. Given his involvement with a known terrorist collective and association with other violent extremists, the trajectory Philippi followed is generally easier to track for law enforcement. Counterterrorist agents can effectively disrupt the plot through the use of advanced surveillance and undercover employees.  Moreover, an undercover FBI operative was able to render the explosive device Philippi planned to use inert

Lastly, the UFC Freedom 250 plot introduced a new model. The Vanguard of the Old was a crowded, busy cell, highly active on chat groups. It distributed the necessary motivation and expertise among its many members. The accused seven were motivated by a variety of grievances, spanning from antisemitism to antigovernment rage, which informed the different layers of their attack planning. The cell also possessed technical expertise: one of the conspirators allegedly used his prior drone manufacturing knowledge to provide the UAS capabilities. The group’s migration from TikTok to Signal (an encrypted application) and internal sourcing of technological knowledge made detection more difficult.

Policy Responses

Legislators and policymakers have been proactive, making good progress in safeguarding against the UAS threat from extremists. The Safer Skies Act of 2025 expands the use of counter-UAS (cUAS) to State, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement and correctional agencies with strict reporting requirements. CUAS authority has been concentrated within certain federal agencies, and the rollout of that authority—although within strict boundaries—reflects the growing importance the government attributes to the growing UAS threat.

The Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) was established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to coordinate counter-small UAS efforts across agencies. The task force aims to better align resources and authorities to combat the quickly evolving UAS threat. The creation of the task force comes partly amidst the intensive use of drones by state and nonstate actors in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, JIATF 401 also addresses homeland security concerns and provides guidance for countering the threat in the homeland. The DoD fills the gap of a centralized effort to oversee UAS threats at home and abroad, aiming to accelerate testing and procurement. The most recent cUAS manual, published on July 8, goes beyond military guidance and offering a practical resource for local law enforcement.

While the Safer Skies Act covers public gatherings, the implementing regulations took effect on July 1 of this year. The operational aspect is yet untested. Similarly, the $500 million contract supporting JIATF 401 demonstrates willingness and policy momentum, but its efficacy is not guaranteed. The challenge for both initiatives will be the scattered threats that can emerge from any ideology and platform against any target.

Conclusion

Drones are the new weapon in the arsenal of any extremist. The three cases only converge at one point. Not at an ideology or a target, but at their weapon of choice.

When a new tactic becomes common across the ideological spectrum, ideology stops being an effective indicator of the nature of the threat. All three drone attacks were disrupted before they were executed by fortunate interventions: two by a mother’s phone call, and one by undercover FBI agents.

The Safer Skies Act, JIATF 401, and other cUAS efforts demonstrate policy progress, but operational capacity must keep pace. Another drone plot with drones will emerge, and law enforcement must be ready.