tv Discussion Focuses on Lone Wolf Terrorism CSPAN August 1, 2016 12:00am-2:17am EDT
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who led the marine corps in the late 1980's and a former cia official. this is just over two hours. >> it is 12:00 when i say it is 12:00. it is time to get started. on behalf of our ceo and the potomac center for policy studies, i want to welcome you to our seminar today. we certainly have a superb group of analysts. we could not ask for a better type of group to talk today about some very tough challenges we face throughout the globe.
--s is miss of the lone wolf business of the lone wolf terrorist, you have read about that. complex situation we face in global strategy today with the so-called conflicts and wars, if you will, below the nationstate conflicts that many of us are used to and many of our organizations have been trained to do and the united states and our allies have been good at that. this is a new environment below that level. some people call it the gray zone of conflict and the like. others say we are in a new generation of warfare, the fourth generation of warfare. they talk about that quite a bit. some see that as a framework for the future. there is a lot of discussion. a lot of well-meaning
intellectual thought goes into this challenge. it is not something we are ignoring, but it is doggone hard to get your arms around and determine what to do. in the united states of america in particular, a high level of moral and ethical thought crosses go into everything we do. it is not like some of the other nations, radicals, that kind of thing. this was true in world war ii, for example. we would have difficulty dealing with operations and guerrilla warfare and the like. problems past less of a -- had less of a problem. if they wanted a village occupied, they rounded up villagers and shot them. it was a different era. now, with global terrorist attacks and the things going on, it is more difficult than ever.
there are many different kinds of things behind these kinds of conflicts. that,s religion and all which we are familiar with. certainly, the religious aspect has a great deal to do with formulating what these individuals will do, the so-called lone wolves and the like. it is not relegated to a strictly terrorist activities or islamic-type radicalism or all of that. home-grown kind of thing that can grow up out of the blue, really. they can be radicalized for besidesgion -- reasons religion and the like. we are fortunate to have an extraordinary, experienced group of panelists today to talk about these issues, these challenges we face. hopefully, some of the potential
solutions that are out there to think about. with that, do you want to take over, take charge? glad to see there is no more sling. the arm is getting better. >> i am ready to go to the ring. thank you very much, general, for your brief introduction. generals have the first and last word. he will have another opportunity later on to share some of his longhts based on a very experience. toave a duty as a moderator first recognize our cosponsors. of course, general gray mentioned those specifically, the potomac institute.
they are hosting this and many other events. let me recognize professor don .allace over there director of the international law institute and center for legal studies. that is a cosponsor of this event. the center for national security of the university of virginia school of law. who areeagues supporting our academic work. ourme first introduce panel. a veritable detailed
bio of each speaker. in the interest of time, i would just mention one or two titles and so on. say, during the discussion, we will have other opportunities to try and onerate some dialogue based their work and experience. our first speaker will be to my left. martin, we are delighted to have you again to support our academic work. he ise of you may know, assistant director of the maryland coordination and analysis center in frederick county, maryland's sheriff's
office. he contributed to our work and study on the role of law enforcement to prevent terrorism. he is going to provide some context, particularly in the u.s. environment and the role of the police and law enforcement. the second speaker next to him e. professor lynn she is bringing a very rich background and experience as you can see from her bio of working with the cia for many years. i will not mention how many but at any rate as an executive in operations and positions in
africa and asia and latin america. she is currently professor at georgetown dealing with some of these issues and the private sector. following her, lisa curtis also has very extensive government experience. i won't go into details, it's up to you. but at any rate, what is very important is that she contributes now to economic work on issues of national security and foreign policy of the heritage foundation. rafaeli,er is dr. emeritus center analyst on the middle east media research institute.
i would like to mention that he has extensive experience with the world bank and focusing on the middle east and elsewhere. then to the left of him, is professor dean alexander. he is currently director of homeland security research program and professor at the school of law enforcement at illinois university. i vividly recall his first research and publication in maritime terrorism was ten years before 9/11 and i'm glad to see that he continues with his work.
as always, as i mentioned before , don wallace will bring in a great deal of insight on the rule of law and also in terms of balancing security concerns with privacy and the role of human rights and so on. i would like to also welcome the audience, which includes academics, colleagues from different universities, members of the diplomatic community in washington. them operate here as speakers and so forth. last but not least, i would like to mention the students who are here, particularly the interns who are completing their work for this summer.
will you just stand up at least so everybody can see who you are? we don't have time now to introduce each and every one, but they are the next generation of scholars and we are very proud of them. now, let me just move on, and try to make some footnotes of -- following general grade. in general context i will be very brief on this. i think all of us have to put in some perspective, meaning that the lone wolf threats that we are going to focus on today is clearly one of the many challenges and threats that we are facing all the way from organized crime to terrorism to
cyber threats and weapons of mass destruction, et cetera. the rationale for our discussion today, particularly because of the very dramatic menu of carnage that we have seen in the past few weeks, few months, all the way from orlando to nice to bangladesh and the report yesterday about an attack in japan yesterday by a deranged, crazy if you will, individual but it still had some ideological message we can go into there. now, fundamentally, i think we
have to keep in mind that the issues that are being debated today -- you can see it in the communities and academically and in law enforcement, related to the lone wolf because we are dealing with the question of myth and reality about it and hopefully, our analysts will provide some analytical clarity to the issue. for example, who are the lone wolves from the definition of an conceptual point of view? we can go into details. secondly, the argument that the lone wolf is a nominal threat is something new, obviously we have to go into the lessons and understand that nothing is really new under the sun, including the lone wolf.
we have to look at the motivations that triggers the so-called lone wolf. we have to look at their capacity and capability in terms of modus operandi, of using stones to knives to shooting and what really concerns analysts and policymakers is the escalation, the probability that the lone wolf will utilize some of the weapons of mass destruction. weaponize themselves, for example. the impact and implications nationally and globally. hopefully, we can have some
recommendations of our analysts in terms of what are some of the best practices to reduce the risk from terrorism. i have long believed, which i try to share what we are going to cover, i'm not going to go, each and every issue all the way from the historical lessons of the nation's characteristics, radicalization, intentions, capabilities, case studies. what are some of the strategies to deal with the lone wolf and some conclusions and recommendations for consideration by governments, in democracies at least? i would like to mention number
three and number four because when people talk about the lone wolf, we have to talk about the which generaln, observed, years ago that as long as there are human beings on the planet, we will have challenges all the way from organized crime and terrorism and so forth. even the russian proverb is not complete. we have to talk about the will. -- wolf. the dragons, the snakes in the so-called garden of eden or the universe. the two questions hopefully that we can respond to today is whether or not the worst is yet to come, and for example, if you
follow what the terrorist propaganda is communicating on a daily basis, you will see that one of their next targets is the rio olympics. obviously, everyone is concerned about what might happen in terms of the attack or the impact in that olympics or elsewhere. then of course, can we survive that kind of attack? as democracies, we have to look at the balance between security concerns and human rights. it's a big menu and we cannot cover everything adequately, but it is a beginning of a study and scholarship and not the end of it.
with that, captain, you are the first to share your views. you can come up here. >> thank you. good afternoon everyone. ,the first thing i would like to do is thank professor alexander and general gray for asking me to return this year. i was here about the same time last year talking about the involvement of law enforcement in the fight against terrorism. when i looked at my fellow panel members' bios before i came today, i decided it would be best for me to stick to state and local topics as they are the experts on the international picture in those types of things. i welcome any comments or questions you have. first, just to explain, i am a
deputy sheriff. i am a captain with the sheriff's office. i am employed by the frederick county sheriff's office in the central part of maryland. i am a detail lead to the state fusion center, which is known as the maryland coordination and analysis center in baltimore. there are 78 fusion centers around the united states and in the u.s. territories. what the fusion center purpose is as they were formed after 911 is to help coordinate between federal, state and local entities. i think post-911, one of the things we can all agree upon is that there was a lack of information exchange amongst organizations who had pertinent information that could have helped to possibly prevent some attacks or at least to be a little hotter on the trail than we were that day. the fusion center's role is to create a routine and predictable path for the information flow.
generally in the u.s. we have two types of fusion centers, either all crimes, as we are in maryland, or all hazards, places like the western region of pennsylvania called region 13 is an all hazard center so they do hazardous materials, weather-related events as well as the threat picture. our main goal in the fusion centers and the national network of fusion centers is to share information nationally. because we have, unlike some of the european countries in particular, where they have a single police force that covers the entire nation, we have many different police forces and law enforcement agencies. in maryland we have 120 law enforcement agencies. in pennsylvania, we have 1200 law enforcement agencies. you can imagine by the time the officer on the street sees or learns something, it takes a
little bit. you have to make sure the information is getting to the right place, and the fusion centers are that process for getting the information shared. looking at some past lessons, and as i said, i am going to focus on domestic instance based on my experiences. i will give a very quick definition of lone wolf terrorism. from a 2015 doj study lone wolf terrorism is political violence perpetrated by individuals who act alone, who do not belong to an organized terrorist group or network, who act without the direct influence of a leader or hierarchy and whose tactics and methods are directed by the individual without any direct outside command or direction. you the past few years,
have started to hear the terminology morph a little bit to try to account for what's happening. the latest thing that this definition doesn't account for is isil inspired terrorist attacks. that's something that someone is acting as a lone wolf, they're not receiving direction from an outside source, but they are taking inspiration from things they have seen or the call to take action. two of the attacks i was going to touch on today were, and i started writing my notes more than a week ago so i did not include anything that has happened in the past week, which we have all seen on the news. the two that came to mind that i thought were fairly significant for different reasons, the first one was eric rudolph who is the 1996 olympic park bomber from atlanta. if you know anything about him you know that was not his first time of committing an act of that nature. he had been involved in bombing numerous abortion clinics across the south in the previous years
and had not been identified as a suspect yet. also, one of the trademarks of eric rudolph was that he would set secondary devices. so the first device would go off. it would draw in the first responders and then an hour later the second device explodes, injuring the first responders. part of that was his view of these people were coming to help this organization that i'm so terribly against, so that's why eric rudolph stood out to me. also, he was on the run for more than five years afterwards in the hills of north carolina but was ultimately caught when he was going through the dumpster behind a supermarket looking for some food. he was run into by a local rookie officer. the second incident i wanted to
touch on very briefly was from last year in december, the 2015 san bernardino california shooting. there were two people, two suspects, but they were not receiving outside direction, there is no master plan and what they did was they used firearms in order to commit their act. they also had ied's that did not detonate, some at the scene, some in their vehicle, and more at their residence in the searches that were conducted afterwards. those are two pre-9/11, post-9/11 situations we have seen right here in the u.s. the investigation of lone wolf attacks, if it is terrorism in the united states, the fbi has jurisdiction over the investigation of terrorism events. conversely, when someone dialed
911, your call goes into a local communications center. your first responders are people like me who work for local organizations and agencies who come out and we are the ones that begin. they hear the scanner calls that go out. they will call our front desk before they get the first person on the scene. what is going on? they are trying to read the story. it is very difficult to deal with that sort of thing. it takes a while until you are able to determine what is going on. if i could say something about orlando, just a few months ago, that was the case there. they did not immediately say terrorism. we are at a great rush to put the label of terrorism on something because that's the buzzword right now. that's the thing that gets everyone stirred up and watching the news and the coverage and looking for that next report. we have to be careful to examine it closely enough to determine
whether or not it is terrorism related. our federal partners that do international work such as the department of state, the cia have definitions that define terrorism as something that acts intended to influence a government. that's why it really takes a while to determine if someone is trying to influence the government, and we are seeing a paradigm shift where it is not necessarily trying to influence the government as much as to get revenge against the government or revenge against other causes. so anyway, when a federal investigation starts on terrorism, they are going and looking to the local agencies.
the reason for that is the people that commit these acts are in our communities. we might have some background information we are able to provide to get the investigation started. on terrorism -- some indicators of lone wolf anrorism, i guess, in international definition, is about influencing government. what we are seeing is that many times, there is personal motivation to do something. you also have to remember that terrorism, act of terrorism, are a crime. if you break it down to the local level, crimes consist of means, motive, and opportunity. whether itmentioned, is the olympic park bombing or shooting, youo
can find that they have the means because they committed the act. you can find out what their motives is. is it personal? politically motivated? obviously, the opportunity existed because they took advantage. san bernardino was a holiday party at a government facility. and the suspect, who worked there, left and returned with his wife. then the shooting started and the chaos erupted. as far as the future goes, the reason a lot of these things are able to take place is because they are committed by individuals. individuals are much harder to detect than organizations. our federal partners have done an outstanding job in the past 15 years since 9/11 with detecting groups and organizations that are, you know, ramping up, appear to have
the intent to commit some type of act. i would wager to say there are many times that plots are disrupted that we do not hear the story on the backend about what happened. that is for reasons of security and perhaps there are other investigations with that information. so, unfortunately it takes these incidents to happen to learn from them. we do the best we can upfront to figure out how would we approach these things, but until they do, we really don't know we have the best way. some of the things that have resulted, not just from 9/11 but other things like hurricane katrina and hurricane rita, was a national incident management system. that is something we use at the local level. the national response framework and from what were talking about
today, the national strategy for information staring -- sharing. it.federal partners can see there is an information exchange that takes place. federal partners share information about the people who live locally in our jurisdictions. we work together from the beginning. do, if the things we can you have heard of the see something, say something campaign, that is the message alike to deliver. if you see something, say something. please report it. that is the message we pass out to citizens and constituents in the field. let us know if you come across, you know, things that seem out of the ordinary. i remember san bernardino. one of the neighbors thought the shooters were suspicious, but they chose not to report it
because they did not want to appear as though they were profiling them based on their heritage. they did not report it. you see the result. 14 dead, 17 others wounded. 500 rounds of, ammunition that were not expended. it could have been even worse than it was. that is what we are looking for. we are currently seeing a shift in the causes, the motive of lone wolf attackers. a shift in the targets, too. i chose not to focus on the past lawle weeks, but again, enforcement has become one of the targets in the past few weeks. the vast majority of of the public is good and does work with law enforcement, realizing that, here in this country, we are essentially the first line of defense.
when you call 911, it is one of us that shows up. the things that general gray and foreign services have dedicated as, thosees to overse are the things we're trying to do at home too. we cannot do this alone. we depend on the public to be our eyes and ears, especially in these recent times. that is it. thank you. [applause] caller >> first of all, thank you professor alexander and general gray, for inviting me here today. i am especially honored to be here given the caliber of my
fellow presenters, and they showed me the list of some of the attendees and the caliber of those of you in the audience. so i am grateful. thank you. grateful and honored. on the subject of lone wolf terrorism, there are a lot of different definitions of what is a lone wolf. some people even hate the idea of calling them lone wolves because it sort of glorifies them. some say they should be lone dogs but i guess that's an insult to dogs, i suppose. lone offenders. since that is what they are calling it today, i will call it lone wolf. definitions are all over the map. last summer, i led a task force to look at what is a lone wolf. with,finition we came up
not a legalistic definition but one that would help you develop a framework whereby you could analyze the different types of lone actors. we came up with a definition that is, first and foremost, deliberate creation and exportation of fear through violence or threat of violence. so, in other words, they are terrorists. they are terrorists. ideology and a political agenda they are trying to further through fear of violence or actual acts of violence. the second criteria that we came up with was it is a single actor. now, this is different from a lot of other definitions. a lot of people will say that san bernardino couple were lone wolves. tsarnaev brothers were lone wolves.
the lone actor, operating really alone, often has a different psychological profile and the means by which you detect a person who truly is operating alone is different and more difficult. and the process of radicalization is also difficult. i will talk about that in a moment. -- pursues change related to a formulated ideology. finally, no command-and-control or material support from an outside organization. that is what we decided for the purposes of our study we would call a lone wolf. we have already talked about the difficulty to detect lone wolves.
notoriously difficult to detect, particularly if they are operating by themselves. the tools of intelligence and the tools of law enforcement really do not work very well if you have an individual that is not talking to anybody else. law enforcement and intelligence use sources. a source is someone who is being talked to, who hears about this. if you have an individual or a couple talking to themselves, very hard to detect. we find out from sources. we find out through communication. if they are not communicating with anybody, it is devilishly difficult to detect. let's see. other findings we had was that you cannot really use profiling as a detection tool. male.f lone wolf's are
are, not all, historically, unmarried. not always, but quite often unmarried. they have also had a brush or two with the law in the past. sometimes minor, sometimes more serious. they often have issues of social isolation or they are not socially very competent. unfortunately, this particular profile fits a pretty large proportion of the general population. so it is not very helpful if you are trying to figure out, you know, if this particular individual is a lone wolf terrorist. let me talk a little about the trends we are seeing in the growth. the last few weeks have been dreadful, what is going on in europe and the united states, in terms of these seeming lone wolf attacks.
i would say lone wolf pack attacks, where it is not a single actor but more than one. first of all, there has been a growth in these lone wolf attacks in the past few decades. in the 1950's in this country, we have on record just a handful of attacks. maybe that is a matter of reporting, but there were not very many. thet 32 attacks during 2000's, more or less, depending on how you count them. i do not have numbers for the next decade. seemingly, these attacks are going up in number. the barrier to entry is really low. get a i have to do is knife or hatchet, i can go over to home depot and buy it and i won't raise any suspicion by doing it. again, anybody can do this.
ie other interesting thing is think as european authorities get better and better at preventing these potential foreign fighters from traveling to syria, the number of in europelone wolves is swelling, growing, because they are stewing and not able to travel. the other interesting trend is that isis has been quick to give attribution. i sort of wonder do they really know whether these guys were motivated by them? do they have any sort of connection? or are they just quick to claim? more study and research and information about the recent attacks in europe will give us a better idea of that. another phenomenon we have all talked about, the use of technology and social media to ctors.ise in lone a
that is a big trend. there are more of these folks self radicalizing and self radicalizing more quickly. personally, the disturbing trend is the increasing use of social media during the attack itself. i mean, it is sort of what i think of, the selfie generation. they are taking selfies of themselves, video of themselves, tweeting it out, communicating with 911. we saw it with omar mateen in orlando. we saw yesterday in that dreadful attack. we saw video of the attack. i think these are some of the trends worth watching. in terms of the actual radicalization process, i will not go into all the details.
there are people who are absolute experts at radicalization. terroristsy, most get recruited basically through others. they have personal associations with someone who is involved. may be their community is sympathetic. maybe they got it from a relative or brother, like tsarnaev in boston. good example of that. with lone wolves, it is more about having that ideology or finding an ideology that is attractive to them. personal grievance. ofre is often a kernel personal grievance or a projection of their anger about historical events with foreign intervention or perceived social injustice that leads to radicalization. so those are some of the trends i see.
point, it is hard to be very optimistic about again,ng them, given, the lack of communication with others. there is one interesting to assist sick -- statistic. even for these lone wolves acting alone, more than 60% of them tell somebody else what they are going to do. there is a neighbor, a relative, a buddy. roof, a little over a year ago, who waged a dreadful attack on the ame church in andleston, who had a blog white supremacist ideology, he went drinking with a buddy a couple weeks before he was going to do it and told him what he was going to do. often when this happens, the buddy dismisses it.
he had a little too much to drink. he is like that. it goes back to see something, say something. another model -- we have another task force the summer that is looking more broadly at violent extremism. one of the models we are looking at is the public health model. secondary, andy, tertiary prevention. if it is heart disease, primary prevention is good diet, exercise, going to the doctor regularly, avoiding stress. secondary prevention is, again, maybe you are starting to get high blood pressure. you are taking medication of some sort to lower your cholesterol. where you have heart disease and you are doing bypass surgery or you are having a heart attack and they are treating you. again, with terrorism, if you look at it, a lot of the causes for radicalization are sort of
the same causes that cause other social ills like drug abuse, gang activity, crime. the cures for those, the primary prevention, again, is opportunity, job training, public health. all those things that go into making strong and healthy communities. now, you will never be able to study and get a metric for that -- terrorism that prevented. but it is easier to catch them when they are ready to throw a bomb. i will leave you with that. [applause] alexander, general
gray, thank you very much for inviting me here today. it is certainly an honor to be with such a distinguished group of panelists. thank you all for coming out on a very hot summer day. thehe more we learn about isis foreign fighter phenomenon, the more we uncover domestic terror plots right here in the u.s. the more we see there is no one path to radicalization. we see it as a complex process, and the motivations for engaging in this activity vary widely. the heritage foundation did a study, bringing together many of our different regional analysts, looking at the isis foreign fighter pipelines and looking at a global approach to dealing with this. what we found is that, initially, when people started looking at the foreign fighter aoblem a year and a half ago, lot of these people were motivated by the atrocities
being committed by the assad regime against the syrian people. however, now what we see is many people motivated by religion, feeling it is their religious duty to fight for the caliphate in iraq and syria or commit terrorist acts in their home country. 9/11, 90 seen, since plots have been uncovered here in the u.s. in just the last year and a half. have hadose 25, 21 connections to isis. this means either people were inspired by isis ideology or, in some cases, they had contact with isis operatives or were directed by isis contact. first, i think we have to understand what contributes to the radicalization process. dr. alexander raised this in his opening remarks.
second, we also have to better understand how isis seeks, fi nds, and nurtures people who have already started down that path of radicalization from their online activities. this brings me to the case of bangladesh. i see we have the bangladesh dcm in the audience. he can probably talk more about it later. say a few words about that horrifying terrorist incident we saw on july 1, when five young bangladeshi men attack a cafe in an upscale neighborhood in dhaka, the capital bangladesh, and murdered 20 people, mostly foreigners. they asked people to recite the koran. when they could not, they were brutally tortured and stabbed to death. what really surprised bangladeshis is that most of
those involved in the attacks were actually from wealthy families. they went to expensive private education institutes. this is something i think has really shocked the bangladeshi nation and something that we need to keep in mind. there was recently a raid two days ago on a local militant hideout, the mujahedin bangladesh. the government says they were behind the attacks. an there also seems to be isis connection. although the government denies a large-scale isis presence in bangladesh, it looks like local militants had some links to isis. we know this because there is a for threehunt on bangladeshi ex-pats that may
have been running recruitment and training pipelines for isis. a recent study from the national bureau of economic research actually backs up this idea that isis is not necessarily targeting those from the lowest echelons of society, a lower economic strata. foundr study by the eu that out of 140 cases of so-called terrorist attacks, only three of those were actual lone wolves. all the others had some sort of contact with radical or extremist groups. i think we need to dig deeper into this lone wolf phenomenon is explore, you know, how isis perhaps tapping into these lone wolves. do they start out as lone wolves
and have some contact, whether virtual or face-to-face? when those investigations move forward and we find out more, that will help a lot and how we address isis globally. the obama administration has been reluctant to talk about the ideological underpinnings of terrorism and the relationship between political islam and terrorism. i think counterterrorism efforts have to take into account this direct connection ideology andist the attacks that are often borne of it. it would be impossible to upper support for islamic extremist ideology unless we can talk about it candidly in our society and political environment. a recent study by the center on religion and geopolitics found that half of 100 violent jihadists surveyed initially came from nonviolent islamic groups. muslimfour came from the
brotherhood or groups associated with the muslim brotherhood. we have to think of political islam as providing fertile ground for extremist terrorist mindsets to grow and develop. outlineame time, associations like the muslim excluding them from the processes of the country in which they are part of, that is not the answer either. internationally, we have to find a way to simultaneously counter islamist ideologies without driving the islamist parties underground. at home, we have to figure out how to counter islamist radicalism without trampling on muslim civil liberties in the u.s. here, i would like to talk about a case. this is a report published by the new york leased department
at 2007 called "radicalization in the west: the homegrown threat." it produced a backlash from the muslim community in new york, who claimed it tried to to profiling and surveillance of mosques. there was a lawsuit brought against the nypd, and they took down the report from their website as part of a website. was ahead of its time. it was in 2007. some of the findings, we should pay attention to. not throw out the baby with the bathwater. what should we do? we heard a lot from captain martin about what local law-enforcement is doing i cannot emphasize how important it is to develop relationships with the muslim communities, you
know, that helps produce intelligence on potential extremist networks and just, you know, continues to keep communication flow going. i will point out an example from australia. many of you remember the december 2014 attacking sydney, australia, when an attack or held hostages in downtown sydney. one of his requests from law enforcement was to have an islamic state flag. as part of the negotiating process, they were trying to find a islamic state flat. -- flag. they contacted members of the muslim community and asked if they could find a flag. after the attack was over the next few days, law enforcement thosely raided homes of
who muslim community members had contacted to get an islamic state flag. obviously, that caused tension between the communities. we can ask ourselves, is it legitimate to worry about somebody who has an islamic state flag? i would say yes. second, when it comes to countering radical messages, it is the private sector that has to lead the way. the government is not credible when it comes to trying to counter radicalization messages. and i think the recently announced department of homeland security program to provide $10 million in grants to private organizations that are working on countering radicalization and violent extremism, this is actually a step in the right direction. i think the state department is moving in the right direction. it is adapting the way it engage s in ideological battles against extremism. in office called
counterterrorism tried to counter radical messaging. it was known that their messages were coming from the state department. they had the state department moniker. they figured out that was not working in achieving the objective. now, they have replaced at that office with the office of global engagement, which focuses on partnering with other nongovernmental groups and other governments in developing counter messaging strategies rather than trying to directly engage online. i also want to highlight the work of a nonprofit organization here in the u.s. called the world organization for resource development and education, or "word." they are operating in montgomery county, maryland. that is a whole other world from
frederick county, even though they are next to each other. this group is doing stellar work in talking about youth radicalization with the muslim communities there. engaging, encouraging a lot of communication with other faith leaders, community groups, law enforcement. they are a small group. what they are doing needs to be scaled up. they can serve as a model for other groups working in the space. i think also we have to consider about talking about radicalization in our schools. we see that children are going online younger and younger. -- wehat terrorists, even see that terrorists, even lone wolves, are getting teenagers, in many cases. if you think about it, the way that extremists prey on younger
minds over the internet is a lot like sexual predators and how they prey on children online. we have to think about the problem in the same way. tingonclusion, thwar homegrown terrorist plots in the understandingan of the extremist ideology that drives them and the condition that islam itself is not responsible for terrorism, rather the people acting in the name of religion. this is important when we talk about upholding our values of religious freedom. it is also important for practical measures in that we need to cooperate with the vast majority of american muslims, who are peaceful and who are fighting the same fight as everyone else is. i will just end by making a quick plug.
the heritage foundation has, on its website, an interactive timeline of the nearly 90 plots that have been uncovered in the last decade. fullach incident has details as part of the interactive timeline. it might be very useful for those of you who are researching this issue. thank you very much. [applause] >> general gray, professor alexander, one of the key principles of economics is competitive advantage. i see my comparative advantage is that i grew up in the middle east and i speak the language of isis and al-qaeda.
by way of introduction, i would like to make two comments. first of all, the symbiotic relationship between the terrorist organizations and the social network including publication of videos that it acts of violence have become the violent weapon in the hands of terrorist organizations in recruiting, training, indoctrinating, encouraging, directing and and glorifying lone wolf terrorist. these organizations have become savvy in warfare. the war against of them can no longer be limited to military action. second, 9/11 was perhaps last of the most strategically well-planned and operationally effectively executed act of terrorism in modern history. where there have been many such
activities on a smaller scale since then, we are now beginning to witness smaller but more frequent operations carried out by lone wolves who may or may not be associated with terrorist organizations. in fact, today the "washington post" captured the change in an article on page one about the amateur attacks. the new strategy leading terrorist organizations is to achieve maximum terror results with minimum input of resources and man power. i'll mention briefly three terrorist acts, one in the u.s.
and two recent ones in europe to underscore the importance of social media and the role of the lone wolf. the first is a bombing on boston marathon in april 2013. the second is the attack in nice, and the third is the attack on train commuters in germany. the last two were carried out in july 2016. the marathon bombing investigation had revealed that the two brothers involved in the carrying out of the bombing were inspired by al-qaeda magazine, ironically called inspire, which published an article in 2010, how to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. the article was found with the terrorists. following the bombing of al-qaeda, following the bombing, al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula, this is one of the branches of al-qaeda, posted a special issue of the magazine,
"inspire" on the "blessed boston bombings." the magazine contained pages of glory and praise of the brothers, but it hit an emotional crescendo on page 26 with a photo of the two brothers against a background of heaven, designer sunglasses, the clouds behind him. ayman al-zawahiri also released a video in which he praised the boston bombings and rallied lone wolves in america to carry out similar operations. these dispersing strikes he said can be carried out by one brother or small number of brothers. a brother here means muslim brothers. such tactics will bleed america
economically by provoking it to ending its massive expenditures on security. i should also point out that the "inspire" magazine uses the word jihadology as a clearinghouse for jihad. i look now at the second case in nice, and lone wolf terrorist by the name of mohammed, a french tunisian, runs a truck into a large crowd celebrating bastille day and the city of nice. the islamic state also referred to as isis, sometimes isil and daesh in arabic publishers an electronic magazine called depth. in an article addressed to isis fighters, and i quote the english translation, "now, my brother come let us be honest with one another. let me tell you the truth. there are not many of us here, but there are enough of us for the infidels. allah be praised.
we're facing the beast. we are breaking its teeth and we hope to chop off its head. but we are in the belly of the beast, my brother, so if you want islam to be victorious, why would you want to come out of the beast and face its fangs when you could tear out it's heart and its liver?" since the nice attack on july 15, supporters have posted several of banners on various telegram channels gloating over the terror attack and asserting isis will continue striking
france until it conquers the country, raises its light over the eiffel tower and on the rules of paris, most notable landmark. the third case is the one in germany on july 19. isis and the news agency released a video featuring a message by the perpetrators on the train attack recorded a day before the attack. isis claimed responsibility for that attack, which was carried out by a 17-year-old afghan refugee. the video identified the attacker as mohammed riyadh, explaining how he planned to attack the unbelievers while living on german soil and vows to perpetrate an attack greater in magnitude than that in france. the social media is also used by the terrorist organization to
encourage action by lone wolves. al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula published on july 19, 2016, on telegram channel a piece that will inspire the believers which identified a list of 17 targets for lone wolf attacks in the upcoming 2016 the summer olympics. the post included an english-language schedule of events for the olympic games. it encourages lone wolves by claiming that the traveled to brazil is relatively cheap and easy. and i quote, lone wolves from anywhere in the world can move to brazil, sorry, tickets and travel to brazil would be very easy to get, it said. god willing. end quote.
suggestions for attacks include attaching a small explosive on toy drones, perpetrating a knife attack against americans and israelis, and entering bars and pubs in the area to attack, kidnap or rob drunk patrons. social media is also used to recruit volunteers for new initiatives. on february 20, 2016, isis announced the creation of the islamic state scientists and engineers. they stressed that members of a bse in must have mathematics or a chemical field. dangerecisely the committing from the lone wolves
that has become the source of great concern to agencies dealing with terrorism in general and lone wolves in particular. serious question for the future which is how does one noture someone who has contact with any organization. most significantly is the fear of self radicalized assailants, which i would call terrorist entrepreneurs, have little affiliation with terrorist groups that could be intercepted by intelligence agencies. -- one comment
was the difference between al qaeda and the islamic state. al qaeda from the very beginning was organized to attack western targets. ans by contrast is organization determined to and toterritory introduce islamic sharia into those under its occupation. ofkeeping with the practice prophet muhammad, isis demands that those who come under the declare an oath of
allegiance to the head of the organization. what is the arab reaction? world has beenb concerned by the emergence of islamophobia as result of the actions in the west by organizations like isis. saudi writer, who wrote an article on the crime of terrorism.e root of i quote here that contemporary terrorism is largely associated with islam. this is a fact. many nations and peoples have thised in terrorism but in moment of human history, the vast majority who practice
terrorism are those who claim islam as a religion. one more quotation on the significance of education and the relationship between education and terrorism. published -- by an academic by the name of a. admit -- on muslims to he is indeed tied to islam and establisheson implicit support for isis. work to uproot the phenomena -- must first of all education in our schools lays the foundation for implicit isis-ism.
it is the largest and most important source feeding the isis-ism that has managed to acquire weapons and -- that was not given a chance to express itself. the glorification of the lone person killed, a in the line of duty is considered a martyr. i have one particular case about which i wrote an article. detonated a car bomb in the front of the south ofg station baghdad. the explosion killed 132 people and injured 120.
work of the was the head of the branch from iraq. eventually killed by u.s. forces. familycalled martyr's under the act by holding a festive family known as the wedding of the martyr. in arabic, to symbolize his wedding in paradise with 72 virgins. on these occasions i guess -- the guests congratulated the family for the sons of martyrdom. these kind of weddings are performed often. thank you. [applause]
>> i appreciate the opportunity to show some perspectives, also honored to be on the panel, these distinguished individuals. in light of the background that was set out by my colleagues, i thought it might be helpful to focus on a few different issues, what a particular trying to find -- one in particular, trying to find these lone wolves. in particular islamic state inspired individuals in the u.s. but some of the same lessons can be utilized with transnational jihadists or same thing with lone wolves here, either with traditional crime or other
political extremism. so with the type of topics i'm going to be covering, they are many-fold initially the with a few cases of isis inspired attacks year, as professor flynn noted, the issue of lone wolf is complex him in some cases you're talking about a unitary unit, one person individual and in some cases you have a cobol, designated as lone wolves but generally speaking focusing on the former, not the latter but we will talk about some other issues as well. a couple of items. next, my contention in others as well, they don't operate in a vacuum so some of these folks are discoverable and these are some methodologies that can be utilized. there are eight types of terrorism that in some cases people follow step-by-step whether it's lone wolves are
or more complex into this. we've also seen unfortunates signs. it's not a monday morning quarterback but the are some examples where some people were monitored by law enforcement either here or abroad, subsequent giunta took attack. again it's impossible to find all lone wolves all the time. there are also charges of having so many radicals. according to withstand, there are more than 10,000 radicals in france and obvious a limited manpower your people cannot be monitored 24/7. in some cases using electronic bracelets as a saw with one or two perpetrators with the attack yesterday at the church. also noted other mechanisms to come across these folks are use of leveraging traffic stops. also the use of informants and undercover agents, also leveraging community orienting and policing, dennis will
then, as well, reaching out to the private sector. nonprofits, ngos, some discussion on the cd and then leveraging as well international operation. i was told i have an hour to speak -- just kidding -- on this last night i will touch lightly on these different topics. as we saw in the attack in orlando, omar mateen, by many accounts lone wolf, some discrepancy regarding what motivated him, the fbi a we go -- the fbi a week ago noted he appeared to be not involved with any homosexual activity, and then by and large obviously he called 911 saying he had done
the attack on of the islamic state. he referenced some other individuals or other groups we negotiated with the law enforcement in any case that is viewed as a lone wolf attack. we will see there were some missed signs, to investigations of him but obviously by the fbi but there wasn't adequate evidence to prosecute. we will get to those issues as well. so 49 killed, more than 50 injured. and then we have attack undertaken in university of california merced, perpetrated college students. he undertook the attack, took a knife to a classroom, stabbed several of his classmates and then several others. he was openly killed by a police officer at the campus. according to law enforcement, he was radicalized on line. so again we need to weigh the issue of whether someone declares their undertake an attack on behalf of ideology x, y or z. obviously, these folks in many
cases have conflicting issues, some cases perhaps mental challenges as well but we can't discount when these folks say they are undertake an attack on behalf of x or y ideology. then we have attack against police officer in philadelphia. also undertaken on behalf of the islamic state. again areas backgrounds. the individual came from an affluent family. mr. mohammad came from an affluent family. mr. archer had a criminal record. so there is not want cookie-cutter by which you can say of the wolf comes from this background. they may be marginally dashed in some cases they come from the affluent backgrounds. again as i as a note that don't operate in a vacuum. they are not phantoms. in some cases they are but mostly they are not their friends, family.
they articulate sometimes their animosity to the target. they're online or off-line which we'll get you. they are active. they shop. they have credit cards because of cases they purged component parts for weapons but in some cases we'll see the private sector comes across these folks and in some cases notes some peculiarity and in reaches out to law enforcement. the omar mateen case, and when is it they didn't have enough information about him so they were concerned about his interest in buying a large amount of ammunition and bulletproof vest but they didn't have come they didn't get his name. they didn't get his phone number they didn't get his license plate. so give law enforcement could only work with the content as provided by the private sector and others. these folks as well go to school, and recreational centers and religious institutions.
we'v seen sometimes the role of various religious institutions, concerned about radicalization in their own communities and reach out to law enforcement. so we see several dozen cases whether muslim community in u.s. has been concerned about operatives and to contact law enforcement could sometimes be a sting operations or other meetings with the operative. they also leave economic footprints in some cases. we have seen in some cases they have a real desire to articulate their radical tenants, either off-line or online. sometimes in a very non-sophisticated manner.
only once they plan the attack, they are more circumspect regarding their activities. in some cases radicalization process occurs quickly, some cases it can take that much more elongated. and in some cases these lone wolves are not lone wolves. they're impacted, talking about terrorist lone wolf, impacted ideologically. they are impacted by a content that has been disseminated by various extremist groups. online and offline may be lone wolf in terms of acting but their context they're imbibing is coming from an outside actor. we noted the marginalization and the mental issues. so, in terms of offramp, we can talk about later. there's indeed this notion of having a mental health professional becoming more involved in the cde process and that's helpful as well. and sometimes fighting or moving pre-attack or post attack --
we'll talk about the signs of terrorism as well. as some of others noted about the active use of online materials by isis and other groups, disseminating 24/7. different languages, different web sites, leveraging social media. utilizing telegram and other mechanisms that are sometimes difficult to discern. also modes for discovering by law enforcement or tips from the community. so, a lot of content regarding different modes of radicalization, recruitment, two to target, what operation to utilize. these lone wolves are impacted. a couple of examples. this one case in kansas, we have mr. booker, while he was in the u.s. military, he reached out concurrently on facebook saying he wanted to become a martyr, then the fbi met with him and
subsequently he interacted with an informant and tried to drive a van on to fort riley, kansas, and commit a suicide bombing. he also received $100 quote-unquote loan from a man he met at the mosque. his colleague knew he was planning on utilizing this money to undertake the attack put he did not want to participate. the lone wolves are not completely singular. another incident, mr. flores, he reached out online through facebook, invited different individuals to join islamic was a tip from a recipient to sheriff's deputy in florida, and then they contacted jttf and did a sting separation and he was arrested trying to place an explosive on a beach, and kill dozens. so, there other opportunities for discovery. also offline, online and offline
are the same places where people become radicalized. we won't focus on all of these but including prisons, at religious institutions, also we see during investigations for traditional crimes, opportunities to come across individuals that may be undertaking a traditional crime in order to erase another one. -- to raise funds. eight signs of terrorism, whether done by a lone wolf or capital or a directed attack by a group, either here or abroad, are these. conducting surveillance vis-a-vis the target. gathering intelligence, can be done online or in person. it it's done in purpose, higher propensity for discovery. testing security. again, to see what level of security exists, may include some dry runs later. raising funds as was noted by some of the panelists.
the barrier to entry for some attacks are low. if you purchase a knife, it's relatively inexpensive so the need garner funds is quite low in contrast to much more sophisticated attacks. then gathering supplies and some cases the individuals acting suspiciously. either on the way to undertake the attacks, as we saw with the nice attack where the individual did a dry run. he had the truck along the path of his attack, and police interacted with him. he said he was going to distribute ice cream at the event but from what i recall they didn't check the back of the truck. so there are opportunities for law enforcement and the public to interact with lone wolves.
they are not phantoms. then in some cases you have the dry run, as i noted, or deployment of the assets. sometimes you get tips from security guards or the public, as we saw the suicide bombing a day or two ago in germany, where a security guard had some interaction with the suicide bomber in germany and dissuades him from entering the location. some of the other signs, we talked tot omar mateen, two tips. fbi investigated both. again, same thing with the tsarnaev brothers, tamer lynn was an investigation by the fbi. we're not blaming anyone but just to show that there are examples of some interaction with these perpetrators, and given the threshold that the law provides not possible in some cases to arrest or prosecute individuals. so, the bledsoe case. he was u.s.-based individual. radicalized while he was in yemen, and came back to the
u.s., met with the fbi, they monitored him for a period and then he undertook attacks in arkansas in 2009 against an army recruiting station. with the nadal hassan incident in fort hood. you had two separate investigations by the fbi and the d.o.d. recording his radicalization, while he was in the u.s. army he was interacting online with al-awlaki. equivalent to being in the u.s. army and interacting with one of spokesman or propagandist for the islamic state. another example, a traffic stop. an individual stopped in michigan. the same time of the traffic stop, he actually had a -- two undercover agents interacting with him online regarding different plots. the traffic stop, the individual
had a weapon as well as a marijuana. he is currently being detained. and some weapons charges. then in relation to calls for service, you had mr. sullivan. his parents called 9-1-1 in relation to him trying to burn down the home, and within about four weeks he interacted with informants in relation to undertaking an attack in north carolina. another example, utilizing informants, mr. cornell, and he planned to undertake an attack against the u.s. capitol. so, again, while these folks may be marginalwided or may have mental issues they're not doing these activities on an island; they do enter act and want some camaraderie. sometimes they development but sometimes they do. then with reference to finding these folks utilizing undercover agents, many cases discover
these -- individuals have been prosecuted in the past two and a half years in connection with isis activities. some of them have been discovered through online activity, about 50% of the cases had string operations. so in this case he had an undercover agent interacting with mr. wolfe. he a was arrested at the airport with his wife and children. he was planning on joining the islamic state. leveraging the community, and getting the capacity which they have, building bridges, also, allowing for opportunities to insert informants, undercover agents there is some tension between on the one hand reaching out to the community and then concurrently targeting them, but that's at least the approach that's being utilized at the point. also different cve programs and
again, there are a number that have been utilized both here and internationally with mixed success. some attempts to offer offramps for these folks that don't allow for an nexus with law enforcement, there's a higher likelihood. a example calms, mr. anaji did two trips to syria and provided different military supplies and other assistance to the islamic state, and was actually a tip from the muslim community in new york, saying that this guy was very aggressive, trying to find other adherens to the islamic state. then the role of the private sector. these people are not phantoms. they need to buy different products and services, depending
on the complexity of the plot. sometimes may try to acquire very large chemicals, large amounts of chemicals and otherwise, or purchased weaponry or renting storage facilities. so no outreach as there has been in the past by the fbi to raise eight wareness by the private sector. amongst some two dozen business sectors, including storage facilities and otherwise. the report and provides guidance regarding suspicious activities and purchases or appearance of the purchaser. so, again, not to have hysteria regarding every commercial transaction but have congruity of reaching out. as well, utilizing nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations that have some connections and credibility in the communities and leveraging them, have some insights and contacts that can be utilized. also have some bridges with the community that perhaps government may not have and also
not viewed as a credible actor as miss kurtis mentioned in some cases as well. lastly, more or less focus on the need to leverage international cooperation. a lone-wolf issue is a global issue and we also have seen some of the participants, 300 u.s.-linked individuals who have traveled to iraq and syria trying join the islamic state. some have been killed there. some have tried to return here. so the other some 30,000 plus foreign fighters. so, there are opportunities for various entities, interpol, europol, and the database regarding stolen weapons, passports, foreign fighters that can be disseminated and the law of ewes law enforcement and different instrumentalities. cia and others. fbi and others.
providing contacts and garnering information and leveraging it here at home and internationally. so, in conclusion, a couple of points to leave you with. some of these folks can be found prior to these attacks but some of them obviously can't for various reasons. very important role that the public sector and the community can play in relation to fileddens these lone wolves. the propaganda and the tools that isis is disseminating 24/ 24/7 -- very impactful, both here and abroad. currently there are 900 isis related investigations in the u.s., all 50 states, and how do you designate the tomorrow lone-wolf? in relation to terrorism or in terms of traditional crimes. these folks have significant
mental challenges and have been called the quote-unquote loon wolf. i'll take comments and questions later. thank you very much. [applause] >> in the interest of time we want to develop dialogue, and -- let me mention three or four areas that were mentioned. one in terms of the terminology, definition, if you will. i recall that going all the way back to the 1970s and '80s, some of the academics wanted to make
life simpler in terms of the enemy so we had the three cs. one, the crazies. two, the criminals. three, the crusaders. well, the first two, we are looking obviously at other religions and ideologies. so, the point i'm trying to make is, when we talk about who are the perpetrators, and number two, what is their motivation? what triggers individuals to resort to violence in the name of some higher -- or whatever,
and thirdly, the modus operandi, range from primitive to more sophisticated. and finally, the discussion about what kind of tools do we have as a society on the public level and the private level to dealt with it. some of you mentioned the role of education, which i endorse, the community relations. again, as a participant for many, many years, it seems to me that somehow we're not focusing on the role of the media in terms of trying to classify and to deal with that, but because even going back 50 years, 60 years, as i recall, we still have a problem in -- when the media uses interchangeably
different terms and concepts. all the way from fighters, to commando, soldier, perpetrator, or so on. the same goes now to the question of the lone wolf, and we don't have time to provide a long list, even some leaderless offenders are going to terrorism and so on. so, it seems to me that because the public and policymakers influence the way by the media, so the question is, can we provide a bridge between the media and the law enforcement and the public in general and ngos and so on, to provide some clarity, what are we dealing
with? so, what i'm really asking the panel maybe to react to that or to some of the other issues. start with you, captain. >> say that the -- that was one of the reasons why i tried to provide some type of definition right at the beginning of my portion of the presentation, was just because literally playing from the same sheet of music is so important and having informed discussion because terms that mean one thing to me might mean something different to someone who is currently working in the academic field. so, in terms of having apple to apples discussion, i don't have a specific preference on terminology, but whenever i do hear something, i think one of the examples i'd given was about -- we used to simply say, lone-wolf actor, lone-wolf
terrorist, and now we have added in that -- the media has added in a caveat, isis-inspired. so that it's like at least we know it's not an individual grudge that the person might have, that is coming from some other source and social media or the publickization of the acts that tapes around the world are uninfluencing things that take place here in our own backyard. >> it's interesting. when you said "the media" i initially jumped into my mind not the issue of the different uses of different terminology but, rather, what role does the media play in exacerbating this problem? we see again through this use of social media to broadcast their intentions and real-time during
the act, sort of a desire among these people to publicize what they're doing, to achieve some kind of fame, and is the media playing into that by publicizing these so greatly? of course nowdays the media is not a monolithic thing. much more of a democracy because of social media because anybody can contribute to the discussion. and unfortunately, the -- every time you see "trending by top of to screens it's the extremes people pay attention to which again feed this generation of more publicity for these type of offenders. on the terminology, i think terminology is important for a couple of reasons. one, it gives you a framework for analyzing and studying the different type of actors. it also in the law enforcement world, laws are based on certain terminology, and so, again, it's
important for that reason. >> i would just highlight what carol has said and focus on social media when we talk about media. she talked about this real-time posting of photos as attacks are ongoing. this is exactly what happened in bangladesh in the dacha attack. they posted pictures of the people they had just killed. and in fact i know of people who identified friends that had been killed by the pictures on social media they saw. long before the authorities had gotten in touch with anybody. and so we simply have to find a way to prevent the terrorists from being able to highlight what they're doing, and to glorify what they're doing through social media. theirs a group called the counter-extremism project, which i know fran townsend is involved
in and they are calling another facebook, instagram, twitter, naming and shaming, brought to their attention things that need to be taken down or death with and if they don't do it, pointing that out. so i think we do need to have this dialogue and i think you're right. the private sector can play a role in bringing the company leaders together other experts to prevent the terrorists from exploiting social media. >> has a large portfolio of reports and videos on terrorism and jihaddism if anybody is interested. you can consult this. i just want to make one comment about professor alexander's three cs.
the three c is crusader. be ware not to use the term because this is a term used by the terrorist organization to designate the christian countries. the crusaders. i wouldn't say that a terrorist is a crusader. >> well, absolutely. absolutely. there is no question but -- the point now is how they try to -- the conflict, the war, between the civilizations and that's really the major challenge that we are facing, and particularly after this attack yesterday in france, we can see exactly what it can lead to. then you have one -- with reference to social media we see now a trend of litigation lawsuits against twitter,
facebook, and other entities that are disseminating content, and you have civil suits but they're utilizing the statute of material support, saying that by disseminating the content, they're essentially directly providing material support and should be held civilly liable. so, that's also an emerging issue. >> professor wallace, this point, comments? >> i usually thank yona for putting together very rich panel but today i want to thank his son for an extremely rich presentation, dean. he was once my research assistant. several observations. i think i'm trying to guess what you think. this is an overwhelming set of phenomenon, number one.
overwhelming set of phenomena put most of the discussion comes after the fact. post attack analysis. the question is, what can you do in advance? it's cop seeable we'll not be able to deal with everything in advance. are there any sort of solutions? i think that's what my wife would ask, my kids would ask, what i ask. i never liked mr. snowden because i think intelligence, surveillance of the nsa variety, with all of its dangers was indispensable. another thing is if you see something, say something. i think this has come up before in our programs. goes to the heart of the matter. is goes to us, our society. are we prepared to change our behaviors in such a way that we'll snitch more. that's what call it, snitching.
the proof of the matter is -- this i annoys my wife -- many of the people -- they're different time service some a radicalized, some are murders and not caught up ideaolal motivation. many come from muslim communities but not all do. but usually there's a parent who knows, a brother who knows or a sister, and they think it's bad for them to talk. or in our culture, we are sympathetic to people with problems. i'm anything but a trumpist, i can assure you, i'm a republican but dislike him intensely. his approach is, just get tough, get organized, but that goes against the very nature of our society in many ways. we're soft in a nice, civilized way. and i think this -- dean had an awful lot of dat but it's post hoc, after the fact. the french say that 10,000 suspects in france, they can't stop them all. made some numbers. nine billion people on the earth, one and a half bill are muslims. talking about muslims often. would say ten million adults,
ten million muslim adults who might be in or outside the range of suspects. there's no way, unless we change our society profoundly. another answer might still be stoicism, being tough, sucking it in. my wife is english. indecipherable stoic, and we're not in america. but i'm afraid that's also part of it. our culture is really a melon waiting to be ripped apart and we are very lucky it hasn't happened yesterday. i wonder -- i always admired general gray enormously, very can-do attitude. he used the word "warfare" before. this is a straining war and maybe war is not the right term. it is a definitional issue. what is lone wolf, what is war? those categories are not going to capture this. even in france, the same, i think we have to live with some
of this even though we get better with what is coming down the road. jonas says the worst is yet to come. you have to have the power of denial and just not focus on all of this, just on your personal life you shouldn't focus on your problems. focus on your possibilities. i think this is really -- you have set up a very difficult challenge, with even your son will not solve completely. >> professor wallace? >> we would like to open up the discussion and dialogue and get the audience involved. we would appreciate, number one,
if you identify yourself for the record. incidentally. we are grateful to c-span for covering our event, to bring it to a wider audience in the united states, and abroad, and secondly, please ask a brief question and not make another speech, and i would like to develop that and then we will have another chance to respond to that. yes? please. >> from the potomac institute. one question i have not understood is whoa there's a ramping up or speeding up of these attacks?
if you take -- after 2011, a lot of material that al qaeda put out on encouraging much more systemic, instructions how to do it. granted most of it was in arabic and french so the man in yemen -- but you see this phenomenon in the u.s., the speeding up and see it in saudi arabia today. many more lone-wolf attacks. why now? it's not as if there was no encouragement, no direction, no instruction before, and -- al qaeda was every after 9/11. you can't find as much now. very little. >> i think one answer to that is the pressure that isis is under in its strongholds in iraq. that may be contributing. they may be calling out and looking to people overseas to
conduct attacks because the four -- before the u.s. and iraqi forces were going after their strongholds, they seemed content to be building the islamic caliphate there. so i think that's a contributor. and then secondly, i would just say, you probably have the issue of copycats and that's probably what we have seen over the last few weeks, is copycat type of activity. >> i would agree with all of that. i add one other thing, as isis loses actual territory, their caliphate is becoming more of a virtual caliphate online. >> i agree with the two speakers. as isis loses territory, they're extending their activities overseas. but i think we should look at two other factors as to why
terrorism is extending so rapidly across the middle east. one is political, and the other is economic. politically, 17 governments have no physical legitimacy. except tunisia, which is a democracy, but the rest of them are disintegrating states, and economically, we have 30 to 40 percent of the young people between the age of 16 and 24, according to figures of the international labor organization, are unemployed and likely to be employed anytime during their lifetime. there's nothing for them to lose except to make some sacrifices. >> next question. dr. murphy right here.
>> lone wolves. i mentioned to a a couple of you before i have been watching ever since september 11th for a pro american or anti-terrorist rally by american muslims, and i have yet to hear of a single one. if they would organize something like that it it would do a lot to diffuse the attitude of americans towards muslim. i also suspect some of the muslim leaders are afraid of being taken out by isis if the try something like that. do you have any comments? >> i can't -- >> the same sort of thing. not a rally -- you get it. >> i can only speak about american muslims bum if you read the arabic papers, find numerous articles on a daily basis, disassociating the arab regimes from terrorism, condemning this act of terrorism and concern
about the rise of islamophobia in the west and how it will affect the relations between the arab countries and the western countries. anyone else? okay, we have right -- there in the back. >> thanks. i've heard from several people dissatisfaction with the tomorrow "lone wolf" partly because it's too broad and includes loonies and these are not lone people. the ones we're concerned with apt the loonies. they're the ones with the shared ideology and the shared loyalty to some islamist or terrorist movement. so it seems to me we're talking about a self-organizing isis adherent or self-organizing islamist terrorist or some variation on that, and i wonder if all of the several people who
are dissatisfied with the term "lone wolf" could get together and come up with a better terminology that doesn't divert us and minimize the issue and at the same time doesn't distort the issue. >> i'd like to take a stab at that. not so much on the terminology of "lone wolf." but in terms of how we looked at lone wolves, we said, yes, they must have an ideology and a political objective but doesn't have to be anyone else's. the unibomber. we would cull a lone-wolf terrorist. he had a political alleged, operated alone and used violence to try to further his objective. and anders breivik in norway, the one who mounted a shooting attack against the student camps, summer camp. he had his own individualized
ideology but he had a political objective. so i want to distinguish between some of these lone wolves do have their own videoedology. others have borrowed an isis ideology or white supremacist ideology or an antiabortion ideology. just depends. >> basically talking about single issue, and again, there's alexander tried point out, it's not only the religious inspiration or direction, but also the antigovernment, let's say, motivations. or the racist, let's say, or right-wing and so on. so, it is a broad, i think, -- that encourages people to rise
up and, of course the copycats, as jill mentioned, before -- let move on to one more -- i saw in the back. the other person. >> hi. paul from the potomac institute. i want to respond to claim there have been no muslim community rallies that are anti-terrorism rallies. the was one held in lon den yesterday and today and there are a few articles on that and i pulled up a "washington post" article from -- titled "anti-terrorism rally in washington." >> yes, please.
right here. >> if i'm allowed to make a brief answer. >> why don't you come up to the podium for a second. it's okay. >> that's a unique honor. thank you. i have a bit of difference with the terminology, particularly when we say foreign fighters. the word "fighter" i'm not at all comfortable with. fighter is a very positive word. bangladesh, earned its independence through the war of liberation, and we call them freedom fighters. don't -- i do not call a terrorist a fighter. these are isis terrorists.
al qaeda terrorists, or any organization, whether it's muslim brotherhood, these are terrorists. the reference to what happened in bangladesh, certainly unprecedented, particularly the attack in the catholic restaurant on 1st of july. and the way immediately the photographs went to the social media. but social media practiced particularly by these elements is certainly not a democracy. it's demo-crazy. we need to really look at that very seriously globally how to -- i wouldn't use the word control but -- if i may cite an example what wellis was saying. what do we do to prevent, if i
understand you correctly, sir, post event analysis of course it can go at any length, any depth. before hand, what could be done? certain things we perhaps need to look at. among the muslims globally. it's debatable but roughly 50%. not a very impressive figure. in some statistics it's even up to 60% of the illiterate. the literacy is 40%. 72% of the global population, being muslim, produce basically five percent of the gdp. so, there are figures that we
perhaps need to look at carefully. and analyze before hand. i'm not a religious person. that's all on the eve day, after the fasting month, i just went to see, not really say my prayers, just to see what is happening in one of the congregations. what i saw was very important. the prayer was held in a -- and next to that was a synagogue and the voluntary officers, their parking lot, for their muslim friends and brothers and sisters who came there to pray. we need to conceptualize that. their interfaith unity, bonded, how to strengthen that. religion in many people's and scholar's opinion has been very divisive since the very
beginning of -- since the very inception. that's the reality. we need to reckon with it and address it. to address that we need to do a to address that we need to do a seven lot of research, but a very valid point by professor wallace, certainly agree, we need to do the research, how to prevent this before it happens. let us try and invest our resources more into that. muslim brotherhood and islami reference made by lisa, i beg to differ with the notion that they are actually political parties. they are not political parties. they're terrorist organizations that must not be confused as political parties. if we continue to allow the public political face to be used and utilized by these platforms, we know what is going to happen. islami is in bangladesh, about
four percent of public support. i'd be the last person to see that entity going to what other organizations, like muslim brotherhood did. that's not our goal. terrorist organizations must be branded as a terrorist organization. there is a fear, a narrative, that if those organizations are banned legally, they would go underground and perhaps create more offshoots and create havoc in this society, and we really don't have the time to -- i'd be very happy to be -- by any of the members in the audience and the distinguish el panelists. i can discuss that privately
informally, but i do not think that to buy that narrative. i have one question for the panel. anybody can enlighten me. what we have seen, particularly in bangladesh that most of the terrorist were from the weldy families, out it's not only in the ma -- the poor segment of the society. they were in private schools, they went to private will universities. one even studied abroad. and this is something new.
it's not only in bangladesh but also happen in other parts of the world. why this radicalization is attracting those young, bright, brilliant, wish educated -- well-educated, muslim youth? any thought on that? thank you. >> this certainly -- your question deserves a special seminar, and we're not going to go into it except to say, as i mentioned before, before me, nothing is new.
i think the concept that if we only eradicate poverty, then we eliminate terrorism, and the weird examples going all the way to carlos in terms of the background, the affluence of those who became involved in and became leaders, and there are many, political and sociological and psychological reasons for that. but i really think the key is that we have to expect the unexpected. from both the lower echelon of the community, to the upper echelon of the community, and therefore we shouldn't be surprised again by the surprises, and when professor wallace indicated that clearly we have to try to prevent, we learned a lesson of the law. and the intelligence community;
we just had an event here last month. sharing intelligence. so it's not that we surrender and we don't have some of the alternatives and some of the responses, so, again, academically, i think you are absolutely right. we have to go into that, but again, in the interests of time, we have to conclude this so-called. we're running much further than academic -- and we're going to ask now general gray to have the last word. >> we need a leader. that's why. panel andto thank the
the audience as well. this has been a superset of discussions and viewpoints. i could not help but think that cultures are important here. we have to understand the cultures of america and the democratic environment, and related governments, and the cultures we have grown up with and understand there are other cultures out there that are equally important and certainly different that we will never get the first face in this challenge without understanding the cultures, the cultures of the mideast, the cultures and languages that they speak. i will give you a simple example. it is difficult if you are
intercepting or listening to social media conversations by terrorist activities affiliated with isis. linguist how great a you were you can understand what they are talking about unless you understand their cultures. the words are different. the meanings are different. the generation of people doing this are totally different. proponento be a big of the younger generation. listening tort them and understand how they learn and do things. this is a new educational environment. old guys like me to stay out of
it. we don't understand. we have to get smarter. we need to understand you're never going -- america in particular -- we like to be risk-averse. we like to get rid of uncertainty. be in anoing to uncertain world and you better learn how to operate in chaos and make uncertainty your friend. this business of dancing around the topic is ridiculous. the sooner we get over this kick and decide to determine who these enemies are and how they strategizebegin to appropriately, completely and
with adaptive take me, we are going to make much progress. we have to get our act together. you have to know the enemy to know how he thinks. --are still the of fights neo fights in the information warfare. you may be talking today about long wolf type of things but the whole environment is here. all of these kinds of things are critical today. it's part of the whole process. we have a lot to do and we don't have to do it alone. public, for example , the american public needs to learn how to play the what if
game. i used to tell my marines we need to get streetsmart and think about things. that came froms the east side of chicago that were always playing the what if game. they never stepped on any bombs. the people who triggered those were from nebraska. these streetsmart guys didn't do that. you learn to play the what if game. this business of seeing and talking makes a lot of sense. we have got to be much more observant and do more along these lines.
today. wrap it up thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]
>> we will hear more about threats abroad tomorrow, hosting a discussion on religious extremism in africa. one of the speakers is a state department official. live at 1:30 p.m. on c-span 2. before that he will speak tomorrow at the u.s. chamber of commerce. you can see that live here on c-span. >> the c-span bus is in
<div class="tv-ttl">Discussion Focuses on Lone Wolf Terrorism<div>CSPAN August 1, 2016 12:00am-2:17am EDT</div></div>
The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies hosts a discussion on recent attacks by so-called "lone wolf" terrorists in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as what can be done to prevent future threats
Isis 30, Bangladesh 11, Alexander 7, Fbi 7, Maryland 7, France 6, Islam 6, Wallace 4, Germany 4, Syria 4, Iraq 4, Boston 4, Washington 4, San Bernardino 3, Brazil 3, Orlando 3, Europe 3, Africa 2, Olympics 2, Potomac Institute 2
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Uploaded by TV Archive on August 1, 2016