Deadly Serious: Trump counterterrorism program kills 370 jihadists in 9 months, official reveals

At least 370 suspected jihadists have been killed in the first nine months of President Donald Trump’s second term, a swift reckoning that has hampered major Islamist groups from Africa to the Middle East and set the stage for stepped up counterterrorism efforts on U.S. soil, the White House counterterrorism chief tells Just the News.

“We're actually turning most of them into red mist,” Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, said in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday as he described the scenes he has watched on closed-circuit military cameras weekly when U.S. munitions strike terror targets.

Gorka shared the names with the Just the News, No Noise television show of several suspected terrorists who were killed by air strikes, drone strikes or special forces since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, including:

• Abu Khadijah, a top Islamic State (ISIS) leader whose death was confirmed by Iraq in the spring
• Ahmed Maeleninine, an ISIS recruiter, financier, and external operations leader who was taken out in Somalia
• Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, a senior leader in Hurras al-Din, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

Gorka said the 370 figure was recently declassified and does not include members of the Iran-backed Houthis rebel group that was struck in Yemen by U.S. forces after launching attacks on Americans and Western assets in the region.

“So outside of the Houthis campaign, we have killed 370 leading jihadists around the globe,” Gorka said. “Those who have blood on their hands have killed Americans or who are planning to kill Americans. So as we say in the National Security Council, America's back in the business of counterterrorism, thanks to President Trump.”

Gorka also issued a stark warning that the FBI, Justice Department and Homeland Security Department are working closely with his team to dismantle terror cells that snuck onto U.S. soil under the Biden-era border policies and to punish supporters funding groups that spread anarchy or plan assassination plots against Americans.

Federal prosecutors last week charged two members of an alleged Antifa cell in Texas with terrorism crimes related to an attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, the first such charges ever against the Antifa organization.

“The statutes are very, very clear. It's called material support to terrorism if you are giving aid and succor, if you are financing violent acts against the constitutional order of the United States, if you're targeting innocent Americans like my friend Charlie Kirk, then we will use all legal tools against you,” he said.

“It's the same, whether it's the mafia or whether it's al Qaeda, whether it's ISIS or Antifa, the newly designated terrorist organization, we follow the money, and we will follow the money,” he added. “And you can bet your bottom dollar that the Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, (Treasury Secretary) Scott Bessent, and everyone in the intelligence community who has a mandate to do so, Kash Patel at the FBI, will neutralize the threats to America.”

Gorka said the strikes against suspected terrorists have been coupled with other major victories, including the liberation of 76 Americans held hostage by terrorists or prisoner by enemy countries as well as the capture of some terrorists to face justice in the U.S. courts, including an alleged participant in the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. troops during the bungled withdrawal from that country.

Gorka said he joined other top administration officials in March when that Abbey Gate suspect, Mohammad Sharifullah, was extradited to U.S. soil.

“It was the night of the president's address to Congress. At 3 a.m. I was on the tarmac with Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, John Ratcliffe, as we waited for the DOJ jet to land with Sharifullah, the Abbey Gate bomb suspect, on board, a priority I'd made for myself," he recalled.

“I had no idea, 41 days into the administration, because of our intelligence professionals, because of the assistance provided by Pakistan, that man would be in a Virginia federal penitentiary now and is going to pay the full penalty for killing our 13 brave servicemen and women in Kabul under the rout of Joe Biden,” he added.

Gorka, who also served in the first Trump administration before launching a successful career in radio and television, said his then-frustrated NSC counterterrorism team made a plea to him in January on his first day returning to the office.

“They said, ‘Can we please be allowed to do our job? Can we return to the rules of engagement from the first Trump administration?'” he recalled.

Gorka said the campaign to erase terrorists zoomed into action a week later when key officials met with Trump.

“Well, day eight, we took that request into the Oval Office, with the then National Security Advisor, with a member of my NSC team,” Gorka recalled. “We put a map in front of the president with a terrorist training camp, an individual, a leading member of ISIS, and we told the president, ‘Sir, we've been tracking this person for 18 months under the Biden administration.’

“The President looked up from the Resolute Desk, and he said to us, ‘what do you mean we’ve been tracking him? Kill him!’” he added. “He took out that iconic Sharpie pen. He ticked the ‘go' box on those operational orders.

“And less than 30 hours later, I was in the Situation Room under the West Wing, … as we watched on these massive screens, this terrorist who killed Americans walking blithely across this terrorist training camp, and suddenly, at 8:45 a.m. on a Saturday morning, he turned into red mist. That was No. 1.”

Gorka said part of the shift in counterterrorism strategies has been eliminating liberal political priorities placed on security agencies during the Obama and Biden years.

“We're not going to allow the politicization of national security,” he said. “We're not going to hunt down Catholics because they go to Latin Mass in Richmond. We're going to go after those who, oh, I don't know, firebomb Tesla dealerships because they have a disagreement with Elon Musk, or those who plot and try to assassinate President Trump, or leading conservatives like Charlie Kirk.

“That will not be allowed to stand in America under Donald J Trump's administration,” he added.