The Middle East remains a zone with the highest level of threats. Besides a high-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland and a major cyber-attack on critical infrastructure, the biggest concerns are increased fighting between Kurdish groups and Turkish forces, aggravated by the Syrian Civil War; as well as a deterioration of the Israel-Palestine conflict; political instability in Libya and Egypt; and Iraq's disintegration as a result of ISIS activity and the Sunni-Shiite conflict. An issue related to these topics that appeared for the first time on this list is the possible political and social instability in Europe amid the immigration crisis.
The third tier of threats includes possible controversies that haven’t been in reports before: political instability in Saudi Arabia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the possible growth of Islamist militancy in Russia, mainly in the North Caucasus. This also shows a type of increased activity on the part of Washington in regards to problems related to the Islamic world and the Middle East.
