Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The US State Department is actively reviewing the records of foreign speakers at the upcoming People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit for potential ties to terrorism, The Algemeiner has learned.

A spokesperson for the State Department told The Algemeiner that officials have “noted” the conference, which is set to take place from Aug 29-31, and will also watch out for visa applications for invited international speakers, citing a preponderance of “terrorist sympathizers” on the program’s lineup. 

“Given the public invite lists seems to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the spokesperson said.

“In every case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission,” the spokesperson added. 

The People’s Conference for Palestine will feature dozens of anti-Zionist activists, academics, artists, and political organizers, including US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Tlaib’s appearance at last year’s iteration of the conference sparked intense backlash, with critics pointing out the event’s connections to Wisam Rafeedie and Salah Salah, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.

The conference is convened by a coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. Several of these groups have maintained ties with PFLP, openly supported boycott efforts against Israel, and called for an arms embargo in the wake of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The programming highlights sessions on “Documenting Genocide” and “Breaking the Siege,” rhetoric that critics argue mischaracterizes Israel’s actions as it seeks to defend itself against terrorist attacks following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

The Detroit gathering is expected to attract thousands of attendees, with dozens of speakers and activists scheduled to participate. Among the roster are well-known anti-Israel figures such as Linda Sarsour, Miko Peled, and Chris Smalls.

The planned presence of several alleged “foreign terror sympathizers” has sparked outrage among observers.

Abed Abubaker, a self-described “reporter” from Gaza, is expected to make a physical appearance at the Detroit conference later this month. Abubaker has repeatedly praised the Hamas terrorist group as “resistance fighters” on social media and won a “journalist of the year” award from Iran’s state-controlled media outlet PressTV. In a January 2025 social media post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker argued that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.

Since returning to the White House earlier this year, the Trump administration has launched a major overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials have described as an effort to root out individuals sympathetic to terrorism or those espousing antisemitic views. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas. 

The Trump administration’s sweeping visa crackdown has ensnared high-profile foreign academics and students, fueling outrage among pro-Palestinian activists. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese professor at Brown University, was deported after officials flagged content on her phone as sympathetic to Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and green-card holder, was arrested and assigned criminal charges for alleged ties to Hamas before he was released. At Tufts University, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained after co-authoring an opinion piece on Gaza.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.

Hezbollah has once again rejected calls to disarm, urging mass anti-government protests in response to mounting pressure from the Lebanese government.

“We will not relinquish the weapon that protects us from our enemy,” Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said in a televised speech on Monday.

“Those who want to disarm us are like those who seek to take our soul from us, and then they will witness our might,” the terrorist leader continued.

According to Qassem, Lebanon cannot hold talks on a national defense strategy until Israel honors the Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement between the two countries brokered by the US.

On Monday, Israeli officials said their country is “ready to support” Lebanon’s efforts to disarm the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah and will carry out a phased reduction of its military presence in Lebanon as a “reciprocal measure.”

“Israel will not be able to remain in Lebanon. The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] may occupy, kill, and destroy, but we will confront it so that it does not settle,” Qassem said during his speech.

“This is within our capability. The role of resistance now is greater and stronger,” he continued.

The terrorist leader also accused the United States of endangering Lebanon, claiming it seeks to destabilize the country through “sabotage and sedition.”

“Resistance is faith and will, it is nationalism and honor, it is pride and resilience, and it is a condition opposite to humiliation, surrender, and submission,” Qassem said. “It is a reaction to aggression, confronting it and obstructing its objectives.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah urged its supporters to protest in Beirut this week against recent government actions to disarm “resistance groups,” describing the moves as harmful to Lebanon’s national interests and the principle of coexistence.

In its statement, the Shi’ite Islamist group said the protests are meant to defend Lebanon’s sovereignty, uphold the legitimacy of armed resistance against Israel, and reject what it called “external pressures” on the Lebanese state.

“This stand is an affirmation of our right to preserve our arms, which have proven capable of breaking the enemy’s power, and of our right to resist Israeli aggression and occupation,” the statement read.

Earlier this month, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun approved a US-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah, under which the group would fully lay down its weapons within four months in exchange for Israel halting airstrikes and withdrawing troops from positions it still occupies in southern Lebanon following last year’s war.

Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s attacks on the Jewish state — which Hezbollah claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas amid the war in Gaza.

In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.

Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.

However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.

Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — describing such activity as “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

People walk near a mural of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, in Tehran, Iran, June 23, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

The prospect of Iran attacking the US homeland remains a serious threat as it maintains many avenues to pursue should the Islamic regime in Tehran seek to retaliate against Washington for bombing Iranian nuclear facilities in June, according to a new report by a top counter-terrorism analyst.

In the August 2025 issue of CTC Sentinel, a publication of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, Matthew Levitt, the Fromer-Wexler senior fellow and director of the Reinhard program on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, detailed the nature of the threat.

“The 12-day Iran war [with Israel] may be over, but the threat of Iranian reprisal attacks now looms large, and will for the foreseeable future,” Levitt posted Friday on X, summarizing his findings. “Potential pathways for an Iranian attack on the US include deploying Iranian agents, criminal surrogates, terrorist proxies, or actively seeking to inspire lone offenders to carry out attacks within the homeland.”

Following the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, law enforcement agencies across the country ramped up surveillance of Iran-backed operatives amid growing fears of retaliation.

Levitt explained that “Iran and its proxies have spent years investing in a ‘homeland option.’ In just the past five years, US authorities have disrupted at least 17 Iranian plots in the United States. These have included both Iranian operatives as well as criminal proxies. Other cases that fell short of plotting for a specific attack include a Hezbollah operative in Texas who purchased 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an explosive precursor, and another who carried out surveillance missions in New York and Canada.”

Iran has also sought to inflame anti-Israel activism.

The CTC Sentinel analysis cited a US Department of Homeland Security report from October 2024 which stated that “Iranian information operations have focused on weakening US public support for Israel and Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack [against southern Israel]. These efforts have included leveraging ongoing protests regarding the conflict, posing as activists online, and encouraging protests.”

Levitt noted that top targets of terrorism could include government officials, Iranian dissidents, Israelis, or Jews. “If there were ever a time Iran would want to activate its homeland option, this would be it,” he stated. “But even if the next few weeks pass without any attack, the threat will persist.”

In June, US Attorney General Pam Bondi warned in congressional testimony of the threat posed by Iran-directed terrorism. “We are working hand in hand with all of our agencies to protect Americans and to keep us safe,” she said.

Tehran’s ability to coordinate or inspire attacks on American soil has long been a concern for US law enforcement and intelligence officials — especially the role of so-called “sleeper cells,” covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.

Levitt described terrorism as “an extension of foreign policy” for Iran, enabling strikes against enemies with superior military capabilities. He quoted a CIA report that stated, “Tehran has used terrorism increasingly to support Iranian national interests.”

However, he also noted that religious fundamentalism still guides the leaders in Tehran too, again citing the CIA which stated the country’s leaders believe Iran “has a religious duty to export its Islamic revolution and to wage, by whatever means, a constant struggle against the perceived oppressor states.”

On Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed this theology which undergirds his regime’s genocidal quest to murder Jews and conquer Israel.

“They want Iran to be obedient to America. The Iranian nation will stand with all of its power against those who have such erroneous expectations,” Khamenei said in a speech, according to Iranian state media. “People who ask us not to issue slogans against the US … to have direct negotiations with the US only see appearances … This issue is unsolvable.”

Khamenei added that “the enemies, after facing the steadfast unity of the nation, officials, and armed forces, and after suffering heavy defeats in military attacks, have realized that Iran and the Islamic system cannot be subdued by war or forced into obedience.”

Levitt noted a Homeland Threat Assessment for 2025 from the Department of Homeland Security which stated, “We expect Iran to remain the primary sponsor of terrorism and continue its efforts to advance plots against individuals — including current and former US officials — in the United States.”

The Jan. 3, 2020, targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), remains a feature of Iranian propaganda with vows to strike at the US officials involved in the decision.

Analyzing a video put out by the regime, Levitt described how “the screen soon pans to a bulletin board covered in images of US officials, including President Trump, former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, and about a dozen others. The picture fades, the music crescendos, and text appears on a black screen: ‘The perpetrators of general Soleimani’s martyrdom will be punished for their actions.’”