From the Editors
From March 15 to May 5 of this year, the United States conducted a major aerial and naval campaign against the Houthis—Operation Rough Rider. In this month’s feature commentary, Gregory Johnsen takes stock of the offensive and considers what might come next following a ceasefire between the United States and the group. “The Red Sea crisis is far from over,” he writes. “The Houthis will take away two lessons from Operation Rough Rider. First, the group continues to understand exactly how disruptive it can be to the global economy by targeting commercial shipping. Second, it knows—or at least seems to believe—that it can outlast the United States in any bombing campaign.”
Our feature interview is with Richard Feakes, former Australian ambassador for counterterrorism. As he tells us, “Because of a combination of very concerted and successful CT campaigns and operations in the region, but also the undermining of ISIL in the Middle East, the landscape in Southeast Asia is probably as good as it’s been for some time. But there’s certainly no room for complacency. The region’s extremist fringe is still present, and terrorism is not going anywhere. And we know if we take pressure off, then the threat can build back quite quickly.”
Suat Cubukcu, Eoin Healy, and Adam Blackwell—using data from the Global Terrorism Trends and Analysis Center—examine terrorism trends in the Middle East one year before and one year after the October 7th terror attack against Israel. Their “analyses reveal a dramatic rise in drone, rocket, and missile attacks—particularly by Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—against U.S., Israeli, and maritime targets. Despite the volume, these attacks caused limited casualties due to advanced U.S. and Israeli defenses, signaling a broader shift toward low-cost, high-frequency stand-off warfare, causing disruption over decisive outcomes.”
Erik Hacker offers an in-depth look at the threat from minors involved in Islamist terror plots in Europe between January 2022 and March 2025. Across such variables as weapon selection, target selection, and group sympathy, Hacker compares minor plotters’ profiles to their adult counterparts. He finds that “underage terror suspects’ extensive digital footprint and their seemingly weak or absent ties to formal terror groups and cyber coaches have likely contributed to the high failure rate of minors’ plots in Europe in recent years.” “However,” he cautions, “recent increases in propaganda around operational security by the Islamic State and its ecosystem of unofficial supporter outlets, advising followers on how to evade authorities online, may change the course of this trend.”
Finally, this issue marks a new chapter for CTC Sentinel as we take up editorial leadership of the publication from Paul Cruickshank, who grew and developed it skillfully over the last 10 years. Though the top of the masthead may have changed, we remain as committed as ever to delivering objective, relevant, and rigorous content in these pages.
Don Rassler and Kristina Hummel, Editors
