Terror’s New Faces

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to another edition of the Spitalk podcast.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our special guest today is Bruce Hoffman, who I suspect many of our listeners know is one of the world's most eminent scholars.
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[SPEAKER_01]: On terrorism and political violence, he's got some error raising things to say about the state of Al Qaeda and ISIS and other threats 25 years after the 9-11 attacks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But first, let's else going on in our corner
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[SPEAKER_01]: a number of Russian intelligence officers for concocting plots, including in the United States, to assassinate opponents of Vladimir Putin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Would you have to say about that, Mike?
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I found this really significant and didn't get as much attention as I would have expected.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, look, we have known that
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[SPEAKER_04]: of Vladimir Putin's agents have carried out assassinations in Europe, in the UK, in particular, with Venenko, Skripal, or attempted assassination, the case of Skripal.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But this is the first time we've seen actual evidence as alleged by the Justice Department,
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[SPEAKER_04]: that they were plotting to do assassinations inside the United States, which does ratchet things up considerably.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So five people were indicted by the Southern District in New York.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Three of them Russian intelligence officers, another was a Cuban living in Russia and then there was Venezuela.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Or Venezuela and it was living in Russia and seeking to recruit people to carry out these attacks.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We don't know who the Russian dissident was apparently somebody in Brooklyn.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And they were, and the Russians were offering up to $40,000 to eliminate this individual.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But I think if you look at it this in the context of everything else that's been going on.
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[SPEAKER_04]: in the Russian Ukraine war and the clear escalation of Russian sabotage arson and other hybrid war attacks across Europe.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This fits in with that that the Russians are becoming bolder, more aggressive, more determined to attack people in the west who are resisting
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[SPEAKER_04]: it's a pretty scary development.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're really uping their clandestine warfare techniques.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Also military challenges, even to the UK Navy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're really getting ever bolder.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure this under the direct
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[SPEAKER_01]: under the direct orders of Vladimir Putin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This also comes in the context.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is some answer to the Wittkoff Kushner.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, remember that two weeks ago?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So they leave Moscow after saying, all these disgustingly warm things of Vladimir Putin.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Putin rockets.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Big rocket attack on Kyiv and other
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[SPEAKER_01]: and other places in Ukraine.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then, let's add one more fun element into this equation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The weighing of John Jr., you know, fine-hands, in part by a Russian gangster close to Putin.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that was pretty stunning.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The idea that John Jr. would be so clueless as to take money.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by this, you know, She's a good friend.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The oligarch, who happens to be who had just gotten like an order of friendship from Putin.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And it had been,
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[SPEAKER_04]: It had a past as a member of what the Night Wolves motorcycle gang, which was basically a gang of, you know, Hell's Angels type thugs who were supporting the Russian method in Ukraine.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And just one more note to to buttonhole all this.
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[SPEAKER_04]: You know, Putin, like, you know, after saying nice things and offering please extend my gratitude and best wishes to your president.
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[SPEAKER_04]: He says to Whitkov and Kushner and then follows it with a bombardment and keep, you know, right after they leave.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And then Putin goes to this bricks summit in New Delhi where he warns European governs not to deploy any troops, including peacekeeping forces, which has been talked about as one way to guarantee Ukraine's security under any kind of peace deal.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Putin says they speak of contemplating the dispatch of troops to the territory of Ukraine.
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[SPEAKER_04]: this wouldn't mean war with Russia.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So Putin is outright saying, if you put in troops in Ukraine to protect those parts of the Donbass that we haven't yet conquered, that will mean full-scale war.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In this comes at a time of fur, you know, the separation, the the marital split between the United States and the EU and
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[SPEAKER_01]: Canada moving away from the United States to form other trade relations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You had some thoughts about that, Darin.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that if you listen to the Europeans talk these days, members of NATO, members of the EU, other leaders of the countries, they are really concerned about the spread of this war to Europe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Russian forces conducted a drone strike on a train leaving Ukraine and headed to the
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[SPEAKER_04]: exactly on the train was on the train.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, on the train was as an European officials and that was known to be the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, the assessment is that this was actually that they were being targeted by this drone strike.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There have been an uptick in attacks across a border crossings with NATO member states that some have been reported, some are reported afterwards.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the issue is they feel like they're under this incremental warning signs of a larger attack.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the Baltic states have expressed worry meanwhile, you have Ursula von den Leiden, head of the European Union talking about how to handle this and what to do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things they've done is to launch this intelligence unit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: who knows, you know, where that'll go, but this is a way of saying, look, we need to react, the institutions that we have need to broaden and develop in order to react to this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's another sign, though, that they need to do this in a way to get there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're forces together, they're insight together, they're knowledge together, because
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[SPEAKER_00]: They might need to do this without the kind of support from the United States that they've been getting before.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think one of the interesting, you know, carve-outs in this is what Von der Leiden said this week about making Canada an associate member, which doesn't exist as a category, but now it's on the table an associate member and the question is will this actually happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it might or how it would work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they're going to get together in October to talk about what the pieces of it would be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a symbol of the world trying to unite and Europe and NATO and the EU trying to marshal as much as must, you know, unification as they can to think about next steps and how to protect themselves.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This announcement of the EU forming an intelligence unit of their own, I think, seems to me an inflection point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The United States, of course, has dominated intelligence collection and coordination of NATO.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and the EU through NATO, and this deterioration of its relationship to this point where they seem to be going their own way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not that they're going to run intelligence operations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's the idea as to share intelligence, which they have done more or less informally for
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[SPEAKER_01]: for decades, but whether this is an important actually structurally, whether it has any effect at all, enough point here, the point is that they've con public with saying, we're going to go our own way from the United States.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I maybe I'm an unreformable cold warrior, but I just think this is really bad,
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[SPEAKER_01]: They, again, I just dropped my hands and like, what do we get out of having better relations with Vladimir Putin and accommodating him, appeasing him, according to some reporting, you know, it's all about real estate deals that would go off in company, want to do in Russia.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think they fully realize how foreign investors lose their shirt, what they invested
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[SPEAKER_04]: But certainly something Trump has wanted it to for many years.
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[SPEAKER_04]: For sure.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The past building a Trump tower in Moscow.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Goal.
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[SPEAKER_04]: It was a pretty consistent one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, anyway, let's get on to our guest Bruce Hoffman who has been a guiding light to all of us here through the decades.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's a professor.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Just for starters, he's a professor at Georgetown University's Wash School of Foreign Service on the Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not the half of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Through his career, he has advised US government agencies and international organizations, on terrorism, insurgency, and counterterrorism.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Serving as a commissioner on the FBI's 911 Review Commission,
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[SPEAKER_01]: and scorn residents were counter-terrorism as the central intelligence agency.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I could go on and on and on, but I'm just going to say Google him and you'll find, quite a legend that he has established over the years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So without further ado, let's get to Bruce often.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce often and welcome to this fight talk is great to have you back again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're a guy can keep me up at night and have for many decades now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Recently, you wrote in a co-author to piece it to counsel for in relation to saying, the US faces a greater array of terrorist threats now than it did on 9.11.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that the US has let down its guard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Could you expound on that happy scenario?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, well, firstly, thank you very much for having me back.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Secondly, you know, I ascribed to the Robert Gates aphorism about analysts that we said when intelligence analysts smell flowers, they immediately think funeral and not wedding.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So,
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[SPEAKER_03]: But I think there's plenty of empirical evidence to back up this pessimistic assessment, because you only have to look back at 25 years ago.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then in essence, we faced one enemy, more or less in one place, which was Afghanistan and Al Qaeda.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Today we have Al Qaeda, but also an even bloodier and more ruthless off-shoot ISIS.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Al Qaeda has now spawned at least two dozen franchises in essence from North Africa to Southeast Asia and from the Caucasus to Central Africa.
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[SPEAKER_03]: As the most recent United Nations monitoring and sanctions team reported, they're also flushed with money.
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[SPEAKER_03]: El Shabab, probably their list, the least technologically proficient franchise, though, through ransoms and hostage-taking is a master-war chess that it's distributing, not only to the other franchises, but replenishing al-Qaeda-central scoffers.
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[SPEAKER_03]: ISIS has about 20, what they call branches or billiets, provinces.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So that's just the Salafi jahadi world.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The Iranian threat network, which one could say is now an omnipresent threat, it may not be any longer.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's probably the good news, his
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[SPEAKER_03]: in listing of ordinary criminals, drug traffickers, biker gangs, teenagers to carry out attacks on their behalf is now something happening with increasing regularity.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then, of course, 25 years ago, we didn't think about domestic terrorism.
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[SPEAKER_03]: The wave of left-wing terrorism peaked in the early 80s and disappeared completely.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But also,
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[SPEAKER_03]: In 2001, I mean, it was, after all, it was only six years after the tragic bombing of the Murr of federal office building in Oklahoma City, where 168 persons were killed.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But the FBI had stomped on violent, far-right extremism.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So we'd have to deal with domestic terrorism.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Now, in terrorism terms, we literally have a waterfront of threats precisely at a time when our national security is distracted by the warning, Ron, China, Russia, North Korea, in other words,
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, peer competitors or rogue states, and in addition, when we're a highly divided nation with a sclerotic Congress, and are so preoccupied with just their internal domestic problems, not least the cost of gas inflation and so on, that it's very easy to take your eye off of the threat of terrorism.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yes, in the new weapons, I think, run the gamut from, let's say, the more prosaic, which are probably drones.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, drones, you know, fillets the $500 or less.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You can buy a drone that can drop, perhaps a small payload of a brick of plastic explosive or a hand grenade or spend more money on drones that can actually drop over a hundred pound ordinance.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Drones that can be deployed in swarming attacks.
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[SPEAKER_03]: As I said, inexpensive, accessible as we've seen throughout history, the weapons used on battlefields inevitably make their way into urban centers.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So drones have been pivotal in the Russian Ukraine war, of course, on both sides, have also been pivotal on all sides in the Iran war and in the Middle East contests.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think it's unreasonable if think that terrorists are going to turn to the
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[SPEAKER_03]: Bills in Congress to expand the authorities of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Justice have just stalled.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So we're completely behind the curve with this threat.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then just in the past couple of weeks, two people that I would rank is amongst, you know, the leading
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[SPEAKER_03]: authorities and former senior government officials on the entire technological spectrum of threats.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So Elizabeth Sherwood Randall, who was president Biden's director of Homeland Security, had an article in Foreign Affairs about how artificial intelligence is going to ease the production and creation of pathogens.
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[SPEAKER_03]: that will be difficult to resist.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And just two weeks ago, Jenny Sterley, the former director of the cyber infrastructure security agency warned, similarly, of the same threat, but also of the threat to our infrastructure.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So this is a very, I think, unfortunately, it's a dangerous place that we're in right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Jen's article was really as alarmist as I've ever seen anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was sort of like you had to like stop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We need to take care of this right away, really.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she's not the alarmist type.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it was extraordinary, actually.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to just ask about, yes, it's one thing to have the capacity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the question is, what are, this is a two-pronged question, okay?
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[SPEAKER_00]: One is, what do we anticipate or what do we worry about in realistic terms in terms of targeting?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are we thinking about targeting in particular with the United States?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are we thinking about U.S. entities and individuals abroad?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are we thinking about our people talking about, you know, some kind of attack against the United States now?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is it more just the global unrest around the world and the damage that can do in the short term and the long term?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And as attached to this question is, how do we understand you're going to like this one?
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[SPEAKER_00]: How do you understand the relationship now when we talk about it between state and non-state actors?
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[SPEAKER_00]: When we're talking about terrorist groups and they're, you know, network.
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[SPEAKER_03]: right.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, those are, sorry.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Those are full questions.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, we, you know, September 10th, 2001, I would have told you we'd have more morning and more indication that, I mean, it's from a layman's perspective, not from the heart of the intelligence community because, of course, present
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[SPEAKER_03]: Bush was briefed, you know, August 6, 2001, been ladden ready to attack the United States.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I think even in the US government, the White House back then, we thought we'd have more warning and more indicators before Al Qaeda was going across that line and attacked the US.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to think today,
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[SPEAKER_03]: another 9-11 attack would be very difficult to pull off.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Although, one has to say that twice in the past eight years or so, members of All Shabbap, the group I just described, the al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, that's probably the least technologically proficient, has sent two of its operatives to undertake the same sort of flight training lessons that the 9-11 hijack pilot has.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, these groups are still thinking,
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[SPEAKER_03]: But what worry me, putting aside the bleak and depressing scenario, I just painted with drones and AI pathogens, you know, a tax on the order or the magnitude of the March 2004 simultaneous bombings of commuter rail trains in Madrid or the July 7, 2005 attacks on London transport.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's something that I don't think is beyond the realm of current terrorist groups within their capabilities to pull off.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, the repercussions would be enormous because every president since president Bush and the war on terror has declared victory over al-Qaeda and over ISIS.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So it would not only be the tragic death toll in injuries that would result, but this would help us as a shock to most people.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And
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[SPEAKER_03]: Let's face the terrorist people I think forget that the fundamental strategy and aim of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction is to get the enemy in react in ways that plan to the terrorist narrative and strengthen the the terrorist grip over people's imaginations and certainly any of those attacks, you know, transport, employees and so on would have certainly have that effect.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, when you're dealing with the multiplicity of threats that I described at a time when there's being, for example, hollowing out of CISA, the agency that Jenny's truly read, cyber and infrastructure, why would we need that capability?
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[SPEAKER_03]: When there's been this mass-accittist of people from the intelligence community, both analysts and officers and operatives,
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, when the entirety of the all half dozen or so of the assistant directors at the FBI, that second level, or similarly fired, I mean, we're in a much weaker position when there's this variety of threats and I'm not saying inappropriately, but when the resources that were once dedicated to terrorism have been clawed back, I mean, there had to be a rebalancing, but worries me is the rebalancing swung from too much in the terrorism too little.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You're the other part of your question, I think, underscores how ambiguous in a way the current threat has become.
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[SPEAKER_03]: That firstly, we used to talk about state violence wars, non-state violence, which was terrorists, those ablended together.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And we see in the case of Iran, how it's proxies.
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[SPEAKER_03]: have proof and so significant in the Iran more just in the past week, shutting down the main trans Saudi Arabian pipeline, for example, with drones flown from Iraq by proxy.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, that distinction is eroding, but even more so, think back to 25 years ago.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We were laser-focused on terrorist organizations, on terrorist leaders, on commanding control,
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[SPEAKER_03]: The additional threat that we haven't mentioned yet is from, you know, low in actors or rogue individuals that have no formal affiliation or relationship with the terrorist organization.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Have them been trained by them, aren't carrying out anyone's direct orders, but nonetheless,
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[SPEAKER_03]: are inspired, motivated, and ultimately animated to carry out acts of violence and service of that terrorist group's ideology.
22:30.529 --> 22:41.915
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I should, speaking of state actors, I should, we should throw Russia into the mix, given what it's doing in Europe across the board in, uh,
22:42.315 --> 22:51.717
[SPEAKER_04]: over the last year, our since sabotage, we also got new information from an indictment this week about plotting assassinations inside the United States.
22:51.777 --> 22:59.018
[SPEAKER_04]: So that certainly would qualify as state-sponsored acts of terrorism.
22:59.998 --> 23:04.519
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, a skeptic might push back against some
23:09.204 --> 23:11.866
[SPEAKER_04]: We just had the 25th anniversary of 9-11.
23:12.126 --> 23:21.134
[SPEAKER_04]: There hasn't been an externally orchestrated mass casualty event inside the United States since then.
23:21.788 --> 23:27.189
[SPEAKER_04]: Al-Qaeda is a pale shadow of what it was 25 years ago.
23:28.469 --> 23:36.051
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a, we'll get into it's leadership in a moment, but it's clearly not the charismatic figure of an Osama bin Laden.
23:37.811 --> 23:44.872
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, is it, I mean, should we be sounding the alarm quite as loudly as you are?
23:44.893 --> 23:45.013
[SPEAKER_04]: Given.
23:47.653 --> 23:57.297
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the lack of evidence of that al-Qaeda can even pull off a mass casualty event such as night eleven today.
23:59.298 --> 24:03.400
[SPEAKER_03]: No, and those are all of all those points Michael are well taken.
24:04.120 --> 24:10.523
[SPEAKER_03]: What I would argue in response is firstly, terrorists of the consummate opportunists.
24:10.963 --> 24:15.305
[SPEAKER_03]: When they see a vulnerability or where they detect any kind of complacency.
24:15.985 --> 24:23.332
[SPEAKER_03]: they see the opportunity to strike and they will take advantage of it and attempt to deploy that that capability.
24:23.572 --> 24:24.212
[SPEAKER_03]: That's one thing.
24:24.733 --> 24:32.740
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, basically don't know what we don't know, but clearly their intentionality and their interest in doing so or clear.
24:33.200 --> 24:34.321
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know,
24:35.322 --> 24:39.186
[SPEAKER_03]: In addition to all the motivations they had 25 years ago.
24:39.887 --> 24:52.318
[SPEAKER_03]: Right now I think you could just layer right on top of that perhaps the most visceral emotion that human beings have and that's the desire for revenge or vengeance.
24:53.099 --> 24:53.539
[SPEAKER_03]: or honor.
24:53.899 --> 25:01.943
[SPEAKER_03]: Because of course, we spent the past 25 years killing their fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, members of their family, fellow worshipers, and so on.
25:02.544 --> 25:08.747
[SPEAKER_03]: So all those things together means that this is a threat that I would argue we have to pay attention to.
25:09.207 --> 25:17.391
[SPEAKER_03]: How much attention, you know, it's how long as a ball of string, but that's the problem I think we never really had a consistent attention span on terrors.
25:17.531 --> 25:19.512
[SPEAKER_03]: We swing from extremes and unfortunately,
25:20.052 --> 25:26.616
[SPEAKER_03]: when we're in the extreme of lowering our guard is when terrorists see opportunity.
25:27.436 --> 25:31.519
[SPEAKER_03]: I would also say that in your absolutely right, we've had a remarkable run.
25:31.679 --> 25:42.285
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've testified in Congress and described this as a towering achievement because as all three of you will remember, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, we thought there was another wave of attacks coming.
25:43.177 --> 25:46.400
[SPEAKER_03]: at certainly the government believe so, and they never materialized.
25:46.420 --> 25:47.381
[SPEAKER_03]: That wasn't just luck.
25:47.422 --> 25:54.228
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think, you know, only the skillful can be lucky and we frustrated a series of alkair attacks.
25:55.049 --> 25:56.371
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's exactly my point.
25:56.471 --> 26:02.957
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say up until the late 20 teens, we had a very robust
26:03.894 --> 26:09.735
[SPEAKER_03]: I think reasonably resourced counterterrorism, architecture, or superstructure.
26:10.956 --> 26:16.237
[SPEAKER_03]: We realized in vating and occupying countries was not a winning strategy.
26:16.857 --> 26:28.680
[SPEAKER_03]: And we pivoted to having small numbers of whether they're elite special operations forces or intelligence assets, intelligence officers, and support
26:29.500 --> 26:34.561
[SPEAKER_03]: positioned overseas in key nodes where ISIS and Al-Qaeda were active.
26:35.042 --> 26:40.643
[SPEAKER_03]: They were very effective in training host nations, local governments, to resist these threats.
26:40.783 --> 26:45.264
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the archetypal lesson from 9-11, which fight them over there and not here.
26:48.238 --> 26:59.042
[SPEAKER_03]: We also had an intelligence community, a domestic infrastructure against terrorism, that was better populated and better resource than it is now.
26:59.802 --> 27:05.004
[SPEAKER_03]: I would argue, we've clawed back even these very modest deployments of troops, and this isn't bipartisan.
27:05.104 --> 27:12.647
[SPEAKER_03]: Both presidents, Trump and Biden, reduced their overseas military presence that, of course, withdrew from Afghanistan, which is one reason why
27:13.267 --> 27:16.531
[SPEAKER_03]: We really can't figure out what's going on with Alcada.
27:16.591 --> 27:19.175
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have the granularity of on the ground intelligence.
27:19.656 --> 27:21.438
[SPEAKER_03]: We once had there in elsewhere.
27:21.458 --> 27:27.726
[SPEAKER_03]: I would argue, but even in our domestic agencies, I mean, offices have been entirely closed.
27:28.707 --> 27:31.408
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll give you an example in the state department.
27:32.009 --> 27:42.233
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a seven member team in the Bureau of Counterterrorism that was dedicated to coordinating strategy against global terrorism with our allies and friends throughout the world.
27:42.733 --> 27:44.314
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, it's part of the doge process.
27:44.694 --> 27:46.515
[SPEAKER_03]: They anticipated they would be reduced.
27:46.875 --> 27:50.737
[SPEAKER_03]: Three people might go, four people might go, but they'd still be an office.
27:51.457 --> 27:52.839
[SPEAKER_03]: All seven were basically fired.
27:53.701 --> 27:57.466
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have the strategic coordination that once existed has been reduced.
27:58.107 --> 28:04.957
[SPEAKER_03]: In the Department of Homeland Security, the office that very effectively knitted together federal state local and tribal.
28:06.399 --> 28:15.264
[SPEAKER_03]: restrictions to have both top to top down information, but also get bottom up information on threats was also closed down.
28:15.324 --> 28:21.468
[SPEAKER_03]: So I would argue our success the past 25 years, which is indeed, as I said, a towering achievement.
28:22.308 --> 28:23.088
[SPEAKER_03]: is being eroded.
28:23.689 --> 28:36.113
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the last point I'll make is that the people for the many right reasons, many wrong reasons too, but I'd say more right, assail the United Nations and its performance on this issue.
28:36.133 --> 28:40.455
[SPEAKER_03]: But the one thing that I have seen consistently for a decade and a half now is that
28:41.195 --> 28:56.907
[SPEAKER_03]: the twice annual reports of the United Nations Sanctuary and Monitoring Team of Taliban al-Qaeda, and what they call Daesh, which is the Arabic acronym for ISIS, has firstly, I think, it's drawing on the intelligence of all member states.
28:56.927 --> 29:01.570
[SPEAKER_03]: So they've had the most, you know, I think accurate, big picture terrorism.
29:02.411 --> 29:06.694
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the veracity of their interpretations, which are not
29:08.335 --> 29:15.600
[SPEAKER_03]: They'll backs up an existing threat from these terrorist groups that has to be closely watched.
29:15.981 --> 29:17.582
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not saying we can lower our guard.
29:17.602 --> 29:19.323
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not saying that the threat is past.
29:19.363 --> 29:28.530
[SPEAKER_03]: They're saying we still have, even though nothing terrible has happened in recent years in terms of international terrorism, we can't afford not to be paying attention to this threat.
29:28.550 --> 29:30.071
[SPEAKER_03]: They've been very consistent about that.
29:30.131 --> 29:31.773
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very accurate in their assessments.
29:32.313 --> 29:41.162
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce, I want to ask you about the kind of people that are still being attracted to recruited by ISIS and Al Qaeda, but we have to step away for just a second.
29:45.586 --> 29:46.927
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we're back.
29:47.997 --> 29:55.821
[SPEAKER_01]: The 911 attacks were carried out, not by uneducated jihadis in the mountains.
29:55.861 --> 30:01.384
[SPEAKER_01]: They were carried about very smart people, and the entire scheme showed a lot of imagination.
30:01.404 --> 30:09.789
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just wondering if you can tell us anything about the recruiting processes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in particular.
30:10.309 --> 30:23.445
[SPEAKER_01]: and whether they are attracting smart guys, sending in front of their computers and London to devise very new kinds of imaginative attacks on America or Western European targets.
30:24.346 --> 30:26.489
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we have to take this as a given.
30:28.886 --> 30:45.895
[SPEAKER_03]: Peter Bergen and Swati Pandith about 20 years or so wrote an excellent report that said contrary to popular belief Al Qaeda was deliberately recruiting people with educated backgrounds not necessarily from rural Madrasas, let's say, and that they were recruiting people.
30:46.695 --> 30:57.743
[SPEAKER_03]: from what, after all, the most prestigious faculties anywhere in the world, but especially in the Southern Hemisphere, from basically STEM faculties, scientists and engineers.
30:57.803 --> 31:05.809
[SPEAKER_03]: Several years later, Stefan Harktog and I'm liking on the second name, but came out with the book Engineers of G-Hod.
31:06.854 --> 31:09.535
[SPEAKER_03]: where they also came to that same conclusion.
31:10.436 --> 31:22.582
[SPEAKER_03]: Theo Padnos, when he was a captive of Jabbat al-Nusra in Syria in the early 2010s, from his observation said that Jabbat al-Nusra, which was the al-Qaeda arm in
31:23.963 --> 31:28.324
[SPEAKER_03]: in Syria, that eventually became Hayat Teriyar Ahshah, and the current president of Syria.
31:29.165 --> 31:30.305
[SPEAKER_03]: Al-Quan Al-Shahra leads.
31:30.725 --> 31:44.530
[SPEAKER_03]: Benjamin, theopadnos has written about how Al-Qaeda was recruiting educated people from the west with no criminal records who were skilled in either information technology or an engineering.
31:44.610 --> 31:45.550
[SPEAKER_03]: We know for a fact,
31:46.250 --> 31:53.291
[SPEAKER_03]: in Mosul, for example, when ISIS occupied it in the 20 teens, that they were recruiting science and engineers.
31:53.311 --> 31:57.912
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think this is abated in any sense.
31:58.452 --> 32:08.114
[SPEAKER_03]: And even if they weren't, the problem with artificial intelligence, as Liz Sherwood Randall and Jenny's truly pointed out,
32:15.956 --> 32:35.250
[SPEAKER_03]: even putting aside artificial intelligence, but just carrying out surveillance, for example, acquiring the wearable in a much more condensed period of time to carry out terrorist attacks, and really shortening that window that the authorities have to identify bad guys or
32:38.792 --> 32:42.556
[SPEAKER_03]: Just that technology alone is changing the dynamics of terrorism.
32:42.956 --> 32:50.965
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're asking the people responsible for our safety to do more with less when there are fewer people there and these threats are becoming much more accelerated.
32:51.250 --> 33:05.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Bruce, I just want to follow up on something that was sort of hidden within Jeff's question, which is, you know, when 911 first had happened and we were studying it and trying to put it all together, a lot of attention was paid to ideology.
33:05.520 --> 33:18.729
[SPEAKER_00]: What was wanted, what was the, what did Bin Laden want, he wanted us out of the Middle East, he wanted us at right, and then again, that narrative expanded over time to what we might of thought, you know, further harms to the United States, et cetera.
33:19.309 --> 33:21.811
[SPEAKER_00]: But now we don't hear a lot about ideology.
33:22.852 --> 33:25.494
[SPEAKER_00]: We do hear a lot about geopolitics, right?
33:25.554 --> 33:29.336
[SPEAKER_00]: And how this plays into geopolitics, what is the role of ideology now?
33:29.697 --> 33:43.927
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the reasons I asked this has to do with the recruitment process, when you are targeting people that what is the messaging, what is the goal, what is the, and I get the revenge part, but what's the, is there an ideology, what is, what's a story here?
33:44.733 --> 33:53.381
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there definitely is an ideology because when you think about it, unless the two years al Qaeda is going to celebrate in all likelihood, it's 40th anniversary.
33:53.601 --> 33:59.006
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't be sustained as a terrorist group if you don't have some replenishment of its rags.
33:59.626 --> 34:05.432
[SPEAKER_03]: And also that you don't have a purpose that other people find appealing and attractive that resonates with them.
34:06.092 --> 34:09.856
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say whether it's al Qaeda or ISIS, they have the same ideology.
34:10.316 --> 34:15.460
[SPEAKER_03]: They've got the same strategy, they're tactics different, and I think they're tactics different style and substance.
34:16.001 --> 34:20.064
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, ideology, I think the fact that these groups still exist.
34:20.124 --> 34:29.873
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, don't forget, in the case of ISIS, you had a 90-plus country coalition array against them, that still took five years to defeat them.
34:30.947 --> 34:37.051
[SPEAKER_03]: arguably the greatest counter-terrorist campaign in history has been marshaled against Al Qaeda, and they're still here.
34:37.631 --> 34:51.741
[SPEAKER_03]: So in addition to an ideology that's appealing, they can claim divine sanction that how else could they have lasted if what they're doing wasn't divinely sanctioned and therefore appealing.
34:51.761 --> 34:56.344
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, superimposed on all this is Gaza.
34:57.394 --> 34:58.634
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, think about it.
34:59.235 --> 35:08.038
[SPEAKER_03]: We've had al Qaeda on the ropes, at least twice before, after 9-11, and then our invasion of Iraq revived al Qaeda.
35:08.078 --> 35:09.098
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this is document.
35:09.138 --> 35:10.979
[SPEAKER_03]: This is nothing that anyone can debate.
35:11.639 --> 35:16.921
[SPEAKER_03]: And al Qaeda in Iraq basically became the point to end of the spear for al Qaeda for many years.
35:18.221 --> 35:25.704
[SPEAKER_03]: Then just as they were weakening, as a result of the search and a result of the Sunni tribe awakening, we had
35:28.834 --> 35:38.420
[SPEAKER_03]: the Arab Spring and the uprisings that transitioned into a terrible civil war in Syria that breathed new life into jihadism.
35:38.440 --> 35:39.080
[SPEAKER_03]: We know it's a fact.
35:39.120 --> 35:43.543
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's where ISIS and Jabbat al-Nusford gained new adherence.
35:44.344 --> 35:47.706
[SPEAKER_03]: And in my view, Gaza's becoming that extra issue.
35:47.746 --> 35:50.808
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was what was so important about the 52 minutes.
35:52.109 --> 36:01.346
[SPEAKER_03]: video tape that I'll call it a dropped last Thursday on September 9th that really said that it had a father that really hasn't been widely reported and no one's paid much attention.
36:01.787 --> 36:04.111
[SPEAKER_03]: Be loud and always talked about the palesteadians.
36:04.856 --> 36:07.479
[SPEAKER_03]: and always talked about their suffering.
36:08.781 --> 36:12.885
[SPEAKER_03]: This videotape, the latest propaganda release, just picks up on that theme.
36:12.905 --> 36:17.430
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, doubles down on it because they have even more ammunition, which is Gaza.
36:17.450 --> 36:18.732
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's the ideology.
36:19.052 --> 36:21.915
[SPEAKER_03]: But you really get the nail on the head because
36:23.004 --> 36:27.307
[SPEAKER_03]: We can debate whether the U.S. succeeded or won the war on terror, whatever.
36:27.327 --> 36:29.329
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, one reason be there's no terrorist attacks.
36:29.929 --> 36:33.091
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think anybody's going to debate that we lost the war of ideas.
36:33.311 --> 36:39.396
[SPEAKER_04]: And don't forget, after 9-11, President Bush said that this would be as much a war of ideas as a kinetic war.
36:40.240 --> 36:41.562
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was never resourced.
36:41.602 --> 36:44.185
[SPEAKER_03]: It was never given the attention it deserved.
36:44.985 --> 36:57.840
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the problem is the terrorist groups have kept their firm grip on the narrative that continues to be a source of radicalization and recruitment otherwise these groups wouldn't exist anymore.
36:59.021 --> 37:00.022
[SPEAKER_04]: So I mentioned.
37:01.123 --> 37:08.147
[SPEAKER_04]: earlier that Al-Qaeda doesn't have a charismatic leader like Bin Laden anymore.
37:08.328 --> 37:26.539
[SPEAKER_04]: But it does have a defacto leader who I'm kind of fascinated by, Sifel, on all the former Egyptian army officer who was charged with trying to kill Mubarak and migrated to Afghanistan, became a leader of Al-Qaeda there and then eventually found
37:30.122 --> 37:37.992
[SPEAKER_04]: currently residing according to the FBI, and yet we hear almost nothing about him.
37:38.858 --> 37:48.505
[SPEAKER_04]: And what he's up to, can you shed any light on what we know about what he's what he's been doing?
37:49.005 --> 37:54.289
[SPEAKER_04]: What are the circumstances of his residents in Iran?
37:54.349 --> 37:57.031
[SPEAKER_04]: What is his relationship with the IRGC?
37:58.352 --> 38:00.554
[SPEAKER_04]: There's just a whole host of questions that
38:01.334 --> 38:15.960
[SPEAKER_04]: And also the fact that the United States government has said nothing about his presence in Iran during a time we've been waging war against Iran, you would have expected they might have thrown that into the mix.
38:16.680 --> 38:17.560
[SPEAKER_04]: Please enlighten us.
38:18.121 --> 38:37.330
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that last statement could hardly be comforting to anyone when you've got the even if he's only the titular leader of El Qaeda sitting in somewhere in Iran at this particular junk for a history, you know, it's is hardly reassuring any sense, you know implicit in your question is that firstly he's a survivor and he's very shrewd.
38:38.010 --> 38:45.914
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a warrior too, and you mentioned he's a Egyptian army officer trained in special operations, in surgeon operations, subversion.
38:46.994 --> 38:49.135
[SPEAKER_03]: He is the forced gump of al-Qaeda.
38:49.175 --> 38:53.237
[SPEAKER_03]: He is being present at every major turning point in al-Qaeda's history.
38:53.618 --> 39:04.643
[SPEAKER_03]: He instructed, as you said, the Majadim in the 1980s on had to use surface terror missiles that of course proved decisive in the campaign against the Soviet
39:07.344 --> 39:22.947
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, he was in Mogadishu where he trained the forces of the warlord Muhammad Far ID and had a use rock of a pelgernese because they didn't have surface terror missiles to shoot at the rotor, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the tail rotors rather of helicopters.
39:23.788 --> 39:25.869
[SPEAKER_03]: Mark Bowd's book Black Hawk Down in the film.
39:26.290 --> 39:28.391
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, thank you, Cyphalautal.
39:28.531 --> 39:29.532
[SPEAKER_03]: That was what he taught that.
39:30.072 --> 39:33.254
[SPEAKER_03]: He trained the bombers to carry it out at the 1990s.
39:33.294 --> 39:34.334
[SPEAKER_03]: Stafford Cabamins.
39:34.354 --> 39:39.798
[SPEAKER_03]: He trained the bombers to carry it out the attack on the USS Cole and then critically
39:40.852 --> 40:01.691
[SPEAKER_03]: in the fall of 2001, being laden and Zoahari turned to safe allotl to organize the rear guard that enabled them to escape to Pakistan and then safe allotl again being this remarkable survivor had his own escape route mapped out that wasn't the Pakistan we thought that was too vulnerable so you went to Iran.
40:02.618 --> 40:19.845
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that lots of accounts of how he was treated and Iran, that he was under house arrest true, that he may have been tortured, but at the same time, he helped to orchestrate the 2003 elk, fortunately short lived, but al-Qaeda terrorist campaign in Saudi Arabia.
40:20.045 --> 40:25.047
[SPEAKER_03]: So whatever he was doing there, the Iranians weren't sitting on him and forbidding him from being active.
40:25.767 --> 40:29.250
[SPEAKER_03]: There he was the tutor and the guardian of Homsubin Laden.
40:29.731 --> 40:36.577
[SPEAKER_03]: The only one of B-Lodans children that really wanted to follow their father's footsteps into G-Hod.
40:37.337 --> 40:37.918
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's true.
40:37.998 --> 40:39.119
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants to survive.
40:39.239 --> 40:42.562
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's not like, I mean, B-Lodan, you know,
40:44.415 --> 40:45.656
[SPEAKER_03]: Love being in front of the camera.
40:46.357 --> 40:55.164
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm in Alzoahari, didn't, but I'm in Alzoahari, put his stamp very, I think, uptrusively on Alqaeda.
40:55.824 --> 40:58.166
[SPEAKER_03]: Safe a lot of hovers in the background.
40:58.286 --> 41:10.136
[SPEAKER_03]: He has, for the past 30 years, very good relations with Alqaeda's African affiliates, because he spent so much time there and speaks to the languages, and of course, is an African himself from Egypt.
41:11.016 --> 41:13.579
[SPEAKER_03]: Unlike Bin Laden Alzoahari, he's not a racist.
41:14.699 --> 41:24.323
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, a lot of Nalzari races, they, the African affiliates served their purpose, but they're always looked down upon, safe a lot, always treated them as equals.
41:25.223 --> 41:36.368
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think he's pursuing a quieter strategy, and that may explain why this 52-minute video that was released last week is so ambiguous about al-Qaeda's leadership.
41:36.688 --> 41:40.490
[SPEAKER_03]: Is whether Homsibhin Laden is alive or dead, he'd been as early 30s, now,
41:41.685 --> 41:42.125
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure.
41:42.185 --> 41:48.286
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think it does matter, but the point is, safe a lot of is smart enough to know that he meets an avatar.
41:49.127 --> 41:58.348
[SPEAKER_03]: That he's someone to be the face of Al Qaeda and who better than Homsa Bin Laden so that safe a lot can be in the background and can milk the bin Laden.
41:58.869 --> 42:05.230
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the video that you mentioned before that plays up Gaza.
42:06.035 --> 42:19.403
[SPEAKER_04]: a bit, which seems to make sense if you're in Iran having been attacked by the United States and the Israelis, you would want to return the subject to Gaza.
42:19.443 --> 42:30.089
[SPEAKER_04]: But do we know how do you explain the lack of the United States government has said nothing about his presence in Iran
42:33.960 --> 42:36.381
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, inexplicable.
42:36.861 --> 42:37.342
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
42:37.582 --> 42:41.243
[SPEAKER_03]: It may be that, um, like ghosts.
42:41.343 --> 42:44.065
[SPEAKER_03]: If you don't think about them, they would scare you.
42:45.525 --> 42:48.747
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I don't want to popularize him anymore.
42:49.724 --> 42:52.808
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that that presumes that they're thinking about it.
42:52.928 --> 42:58.034
[SPEAKER_04]: I might my guess is the people who are there now have almost no historical memory.
42:58.454 --> 43:01.217
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't read and listen to Bruce.
43:01.878 --> 43:04.521
[SPEAKER_04]: And are barely aware of his presence.
43:04.561 --> 43:07.885
[SPEAKER_04]: The guy was charged of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent.
43:08.245 --> 43:13.911
[SPEAKER_04]: was obsessed with Israel and you know paid almost didn't even want to go to war with Iran.
43:14.411 --> 43:21.398
[SPEAKER_04]: He's probably unaware that the leader of al-Qaeda is protected inside Iran.
43:21.734 --> 43:22.795
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, look at this way too.
43:22.815 --> 43:29.839
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, our negotiations with Iran on, let's say, you know, top line issues are so fraught and so complicated.
43:30.499 --> 43:32.040
[SPEAKER_03]: This is probably the last moment.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Anyone wants to introduce this additional complication, which we need enormous one.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And don't forget, too.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we often, you know, neglect the fact that Iran provided critical assistance in training to Al Qaeda in the mid 1990s when Bin Laden was in the Sudan.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It was the IRGC, it was his beloved, it was in my momia, and guess who was the liaison between Alcott and the Iranians 30 years ago, say Faladal.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So you're absolutely right, Michael, he's a very dangerous character and kind of focusing attention on him raises all kinds of complications.
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[SPEAKER_04]: I should bring out that he is under indictment in the United States over the embassy bombing.
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[SPEAKER_04]: There's something like a $10 billion rewards for justice bounty on his head.
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[SPEAKER_04]: which would suggest that the government, at least historically, had an interest in getting a back and bringing up to justice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think what was the bottom line, what's like to know, you have your, you have your ear close to the ground, you were a scholar in residence at CIA, you get around a lot, are we at any level of red lights flashing about the ability and desire or the motivation of one of these groups to attack big time attack on the United States.
44:55.486 --> 45:10.659
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I mean, it's hard for me to assess because, you know, in a career that I started as an analyst in 1981, I mean, I have, and always work closely through, ran with the federal government, for example, I mean, I have no contact.
45:10.819 --> 45:14.062
[SPEAKER_03]: So I couldn't tell you I have no idea how to, how to answer that.
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[SPEAKER_03]: This is, you know, an anomalous period.
45:17.233 --> 45:31.765
[SPEAKER_00]: So Bruce, I just want to follow up on that, though, because you started out by saying how the institutions we built to handle counterterrorism and to know what was going on in terms of the terrorist network and to monitor it have basically been dismantled.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some of it from doge, some of it afterwards, some of it very recently.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so the kind of go-to places and the go-to people that you or I or anybody would trust to say, what's going on, what is there, you know, et cetera,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Most of them are no longer there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nor are the offices that they populate it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So my question is the private sector.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of people in the private sector, yourself included, the people at RAM, the people at a number of the thing tanks who are paying attention, front and center, to what's happening with terrorism around the world, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Largely with open source information, sometimes with more than that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My question is, is this
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[SPEAKER_00]: How valuable can this be going forward?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do we have a backup, which is when we find we suffer in trouble, when there might be lights flashing, are we going to be able to call in these experts, many of whom are former government officials, many of whom have always been in sort of the academic interstices.
46:29.250 --> 46:44.232
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, how do you, do feel some kind of trust in this as, okay, when we get our act together and begin to, and revive this either because of threat or because it's just good practice that, that there's still, we're still building the knowledge we need to build somehow.
46:44.813 --> 47:02.362
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, firstly, we're in a period now that some more accentuated version of similar periods in the past, where in the immediate aftermath of a major terrorist death act, this tremendous attention focused on the threat, tremendous resources, or dedicated to it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Governments is focused on it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then over time, especially if there's no attacks, that those efforts just naturally do great.
47:12.830 --> 47:20.940
[SPEAKER_03]: as we're in a kind of a hyper-accentuated version of that now, but now I think it's great that I can say something positive.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's brought me, you know, especially this month where there's so much attention generated by the 25th anniversary, as how many people
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[SPEAKER_03]: with the expertise are still dedicated to this mission, not a mission like as if you're in government, but dedicated to continuing to follow and study.
47:41.283 --> 47:47.126
[SPEAKER_03]: This, even if no one in government may be listening to their assessments or review their assessments.
47:47.706 --> 47:49.527
[SPEAKER_03]: How many people that have left government?
47:50.475 --> 47:53.956
[SPEAKER_03]: or waiting to become re-engaged and have it lost faith.
47:54.097 --> 48:06.802
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that to me is the most tremendously heartening things that people's patriotism and people's dedication to serving this country, even though they have every reason in the world to want to turn their back.
48:07.162 --> 48:13.485
[SPEAKER_03]: I found consistently every conference panel that I've been on, you have individuals that
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[SPEAKER_03]: as soon as their ass will get back into it.
48:16.626 --> 48:28.830
[SPEAKER_03]: So, no, not all is lost, but in this interregnum and right now when I think it is entirely appropriate to reflect on 25 years after 9, 11, where are we?
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[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think 25 years ago would ever have imagined we're in the present situation that we are now.
48:36.412 --> 48:40.236
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, look, the Netflix intelligence council, basically doesn't exist anymore.
48:40.476 --> 48:41.918
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, how can this be?
48:41.938 --> 48:52.088
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that was created in 1951, precisely because when the CIA was founded three years earlier, there was this need for analytical brain power.
48:52.448 --> 48:58.735
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, we're just at a very different place, but one has to have the faith that we'll recover from this.
48:59.685 --> 49:21.003
[SPEAKER_04]: So to take you back from the, from the positive to world of negativity, we've talked a lot about, on Kaita, but ISIS K in Afghanistan seems to have been a pretty robust organization in recent years.
49:21.443 --> 49:24.946
[SPEAKER_04]: According to that UN report, they've got training camps in Afghanistan.
49:24.966 --> 49:25.987
[SPEAKER_04]: They did pull off.
49:26.647 --> 49:37.092
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, the largest external mass casualty event in recent years a couple of years ago, uh, in Moscow, where they killed over 200 people at a concert hall.
49:37.812 --> 49:45.855
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, but nothing of that caliber or extent, uh, since then, um, what?
49:46.756 --> 49:49.357
[SPEAKER_04]: What do we know about the current state of ISIS K?
49:50.128 --> 49:51.630
[SPEAKER_04]: in Afghanistan.
49:51.870 --> 50:08.051
[SPEAKER_04]: Are they focused on the West, on Russia, on regional attacks in Asia, give us a sense of where they are and what we know about them right now.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so you wanted to return to the more depressing information.
50:14.005 --> 50:15.446
[SPEAKER_03]: It's our business.
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[SPEAKER_03]: They have, well, first of the going back to an earlier question that Karen asked, they've been very effective at recruiting Central Asians.
50:23.209 --> 50:27.891
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was Central Asians who actually carried out the Crocus All-Music attack that you referred to.
50:28.471 --> 50:31.253
[SPEAKER_03]: Or 130 persons were killed in March 2024.
50:33.618 --> 50:58.380
[SPEAKER_03]: When, even before we left Afghanistan, we tended to brush off the threat of ISIS case and entirely local phenomena that was, you know, basically in its box and landlocked Afghanistan, I think back, I mean, one of the most significant global terrorist incidents or attacks since 9-11 was the simultaneous suicide bombings on Easter Sunday, 2019 in Sri Lanka, where unbeknownst to anyone,
50:59.552 --> 51:00.774
[SPEAKER_03]: under everyone's eyes.
51:00.954 --> 51:05.379
[SPEAKER_03]: Sri Lanka had lots of domestic internal terrorism but very little international terrorism.
51:05.920 --> 51:17.895
[SPEAKER_03]: Somehow, I believe it was ISIS-K, just because of the geography was able to radicalize and talk multiple entire families in Sri Lanka with the Muslim population is about 5% of the country.
51:19.056 --> 51:21.577
[SPEAKER_03]: to carry out these terrible acts of terrorism.
51:21.597 --> 51:37.606
[SPEAKER_03]: And then as you point it out, 2024 was kind of a wake up here, because it wasn't only the Moscow attack in January, they attempted to blow up a church in Istanbul, unfortunately, Turkish policemen deployed outside of the church toward that attack.
51:38.226 --> 51:50.218
[SPEAKER_03]: But they also staged dual suicide bombings for the memorial service for Kusem Sulamani, the IRGC leader who the United States killed in a targeted assassination in January 2020.
51:50.258 --> 51:51.900
[SPEAKER_03]: Think about it.
51:52.520 --> 51:57.445
[SPEAKER_03]: Russian Iran and my viewer police states, they're buttoned down in security no matter what.
51:58.435 --> 52:11.068
[SPEAKER_03]: at this, you know, this would have been the fourth anniversary of Sula Mani's death, not one but two suicide bombers are able to penetrate the observance at his graveside and carry out these attacks.
52:11.769 --> 52:17.374
[SPEAKER_03]: And then for good measure, ISIS K reaches into the United States and radicalizes the man in Texas.
52:18.676 --> 52:28.724
[SPEAKER_03]: Shamsun Jabar, Jabar, U.S. Army veteran who carries out the vehicular homicide attack on New Year's Day morning 2025.
52:29.385 --> 52:39.033
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think there was also the woman in Albany, New York a couple of weeks ago who was inspired by ISIS to be plotting an attack that was stored in FBI.
52:39.593 --> 53:01.291
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I think a lot of their activity in that period has put a lot of pressure on the group, but as you just point it out, they're still plotting and planning, attempting to radicalize and invade all individuals to carry out attacks on their bath, while doubtlessly they're attempting to deploy their own assets as well to carry out attacks.
53:03.573 --> 53:04.774
[SPEAKER_01]: Karen, you get the last word.
53:08.304 --> 53:17.226
[SPEAKER_00]: My last word, Bruce, is one of the things that I, this is a big picture question, so as if the other ones weren't.
53:18.667 --> 53:23.668
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of my questions is that the networking of all of these groups.
53:26.249 --> 53:29.131
[SPEAKER_00]: really seems to have taken a leap forward.
53:29.531 --> 53:35.916
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of, you know, we used to distinguish with them, with their shield, where they were soon, whether they were from this part of the world, or that part of the world.
53:36.296 --> 53:43.021
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an interconfectivity now that I guess it's been growing, but I actually surprised as me when I look at it.
53:43.041 --> 53:47.965
[SPEAKER_00]: It could just like, what is the actual story here?
53:48.105 --> 53:49.566
[SPEAKER_00]: And how much is it expanded?
53:50.106 --> 53:53.929
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you read that in terms of upping the threat?
53:54.702 --> 54:09.276
[SPEAKER_03]: That certainly is an additional complication because we'd like to look at the world and have it neatly compartmentalized and have she and Suni, for instance, as never cooperating is being having this unsteady enmity, but we've seen.
54:10.790 --> 54:17.212
[SPEAKER_03]: in October 7th, here of 2023, those attacks could not have been perpetrated without a Iranian support.
54:17.712 --> 54:26.354
[SPEAKER_03]: Wall Street Journal reported 500 commos, for example, trained in a water war train, at least at minimum by the IRGC, for example.
54:27.074 --> 54:31.476
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that safe a lot will a Solafi Jahaadi, which is supposed to have the deepest profound
54:32.896 --> 54:39.280
[SPEAKER_03]: distrust dislike of the shea has had a relationship with Iran for many years.
54:40.000 --> 54:46.585
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think a lot of the stereotypes of the past are clearly empirically eroding.
54:47.485 --> 54:53.329
[SPEAKER_03]: And at a time, which I think would bimes them all together, is that like sharks, they're smelling blood in the water.
54:53.369 --> 54:54.610
[SPEAKER_03]: They see US weakness.
54:55.470 --> 55:04.012
[SPEAKER_03]: and they see a precious time to shine the limelight on themselves through terrorism and to undermine our hasten that weakness.
55:04.753 --> 55:20.097
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not necessarily saying that the United States is as weak as they may think it is, but the impression they're getting is that the United States is consumed by internal political divisions is more concerned about inflation and high gas prices than anything else
55:26.139 --> 55:37.555
[SPEAKER_03]: They're shared hatred of the United States, which is longstanding, not recent and historical, that this is the ideal time to sharpen their spears and soorts and stick it to us.
55:38.512 --> 55:45.776
[SPEAKER_01]: I just watched the last episode of the new season of THOWERDA, the counterterrorism drama.
55:47.597 --> 56:01.665
[SPEAKER_01]: The Hamas militants try to organize a big terrorist attack on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks, which is remembrance day in Israel.
56:07.460 --> 56:19.484
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, as I said earlier, I think Gaza has become such a huge issue and such a profound motivating force amongst lots of political currents, not least terrorism.
56:19.504 --> 56:22.265
[SPEAKER_03]: And don't forget, terrorism doesn't occur in a vacuum.
56:22.685 --> 56:32.448
[SPEAKER_03]: It reflects the concerns and the tensions in society, and as I said earlier, terrorists of the consummate opportunists also seizing on issues that enable them to burnish their own
56:37.610 --> 56:58.205
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the other element of terrors of the history of terrorism is that they see great symbolic value and striking on certain occasions that only firstly demonstrate their power to pierce even the heightened security in a remembrance day or particularly significant
57:05.010 --> 57:11.012
[SPEAKER_03]: Fortunately, terrorists always seem to overstep and they believe their own propaganda.
57:11.032 --> 57:26.378
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they believe their capabilities to an extent that often is impossible, but that's also that overreach is also why they seize on symbolic occasions, because they think that will only heighten their coercive and intimidatory power, if we'll open attack then.
57:26.778 --> 57:32.120
[SPEAKER_04]: I should point out that I know there's, whether or not they're planning something for October 7th,
57:33.123 --> 57:54.994
[SPEAKER_04]: the concern I've heard among people in the counterterrorism world is a few weeks later the Israeli elections which I think is October 27, 28th and you know you could argue that it might be in Hamas's interest to do something particularly bloody on the eve of those elections
57:56.435 --> 58:00.597
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it's arguably in their interest to have BB-9 Yahoo win again.
58:01.717 --> 58:06.960
[SPEAKER_04]: Because Israel will be even further isolated and condemned internationally.
58:07.040 --> 58:09.501
[SPEAKER_04]: So weirdly,
58:11.382 --> 58:14.925
[SPEAKER_04]: That could be a motivation for Hamas.
58:14.945 --> 58:17.927
[SPEAKER_03]: You're so right, Michael, in 1996, that was a motivation.
58:17.967 --> 58:22.590
[SPEAKER_03]: Shemon Paras was ahead in the polls in the first time BB Netanyahu ran for Prime Minister.
58:23.270 --> 58:29.054
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Hamas unleashed a suicide terrorist attacks, because they preferred a hard line.
58:29.134 --> 58:37.139
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's also, I think, which is not widely understood, is that the greatest enemies of terrorists aren't other extremists, but they're moderates, if people want peace.
58:37.979 --> 58:38.560
[SPEAKER_03]: And they will.
58:39.882 --> 58:52.103
[SPEAKER_03]: attempt to spoil an election or a peace process in order to bring down that infrastructure and to guarantee ongoing enmity that just sort of strengthens their narrative that plays into their narrative.
58:52.949 --> 59:12.738
[SPEAKER_01]: one can only hope that cash retail and John Ratcliffe, you know, shed their daily fear of retribution from Trump and call back the Iranian specialists in particular to the government to keep to heightened our ability to intercept these plots.
59:13.359 --> 59:14.879
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce, thanks so much for coming on.
59:14.899 --> 59:18.581
[SPEAKER_01]: And by talk podcasts, you've educated us again.
59:18.621 --> 59:19.682
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it.
59:19.702 --> 59:20.722
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
59:24.290 --> 59:25.972
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's it for this week's by-talk.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple or wherever you get your podcast.
59:31.196 --> 59:46.069
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you haven't already, do check out thespitealk.co news site on Sub-Sack, where we offer steady diet of scopes and original analyses from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, and military operations.
59:46.109 --> 59:47.390
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59:47.931 --> 59:49.612
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59:50.473 --> 59:59.560
[SPEAKER_01]: This edition of the SpyTalk podcast was smoothly produced, as always by Cani, and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media.
01:00:00.321 --> 01:00:01.862
[SPEAKER_01]: See you around, I'm Jeff Stein.
01:00:02.242 --> 01:00:03.043
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I close to Goff?
01:00:03.323 --> 01:00:04.183
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Karen Greenberg.
01:00:04.684 --> 01:00:05.585
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.
01:00:06.565 --> 01:00:14.953
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