[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ISIS POST-CALIPHATE: THREAT IMPLICATIONS FOR AMERICA AND THE WEST
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 23, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-66
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
32-927 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Mike Rogers, Alabama James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
John Katko, New York Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Will Hurd, Texas Filemon Vela, Texas
Martha McSally, Arizona Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
John Ratcliffe, Texas Kathleen M. Rice, New York
Daniel M. Donovan, Jr., New York J. Luis Correa, California
Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin Val Butler Demings, Florida
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Nanette Diaz Barragan, California
Thomas A. Garrett, Jr., Virginia
Brian K. Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania
Ron Estes, Kansas
Don Bacon, Nebraska
Debbie Lesko, Arizona
Brendan P. Shields, Staff Director
Steven S. Giaier, General Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 2
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 3
Prepared Statement............................................. 4
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas:
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Witnesses
Hon. Ryan C. Crocker, Former Ambassador of the United States:
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
General John M. ``Jack'' Keane, (Ret.-U.S. Army), Chairman of the
Board, Institute for the Study of War:
Oral Statement................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 13
Dr. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow, Foundation for
Defense of Democracies:
Oral Statement................................................. 16
Prepared Statement............................................. 18
Dr. Joshua A. Geltzer, Former Senior Director for
Counterterrorism, National Security Council:
Oral Statement................................................. 27
Prepared Statement............................................. 28
Appendix
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Ryan C.
Crocker........................................................ 55
Questions From Honorable Shelia Jackson Lee for Ryan C. Crocker.. 55
Question From Honorable Kathleen M. Rice for Ryan C. Crocker..... 55
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for John M.
``Jack'' Keane................................................. 55
Questions From Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee for John M. ``Jack''
Keane.......................................................... 55
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Daveed
Gartenstein-Ross............................................... 55
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Joshua A.
Geltzer........................................................ 56
Questions From Honorable Kathleen M. Rice for Joshua A. Geltzer.. 57
ISIS POST-CALIPHATE: THREAT IMPLICATIONS FOR AMERICA AND THE WEST
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Wednesday, May 23, 2018
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:47 a.m., in
room HVC-210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Michael T. McCaul
[Chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives McCaul, Rogers, Perry, Katko,
Hurd, Ratcliffe, Gallagher, Fitzpatrick, Estes, Bacon, Lesko,
Thompson, Jackson Lee, Langevin, Keating, Vela, Watson Coleman,
Rice, Correa, Demings, and Barragan.
Chairman McCaul. The Committee on Homeland Security will
come to order. My apologies, I was questioning the Secretary of
State that made me a little bit late to this hearing. But the
committee is meeting today to examine the near-term and long-
term homeland implications of the recent terrorist losses by
ISIS, including the current state of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The heightened threat posed by the foreign fighter Diaspora,
the growing role of ISIS affiliates, and the significance of
the virtual caliphate.
Let's take a moment to welcome also the newest Member of
our committee, Mrs. Debbie Lesko, representing Arizona's Eighth
Congressional District. Welcome, it is good to see you.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you.
Chairman McCaul. I now recognize myself for an opening
statement. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 took the lives of
almost 3,000 innocent people, and left our Nation in shock. In
the aftermath, it was clear that serious changes need to be
made to keep our homeland safe. While I believe we are safer
today, terrorist threats persist. Terrorists and their
followers are still killing innocent people and attempting to
destroy our way of life. This has been made clear by the recent
attacks against the West, London, Paris, Nice, Madrid,
Manchester, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, and even New York have
been targets of vehicle homicides, shootings, bombings, and
stabbings.
They are clearly following Sheik Adnani's call to kill by
whatever means necessary, wherever they are. Although many
jihadists are resorting to small-scale attacks, the thwarted
plot to take down an airliner in Australia last summer was a
reminder that our aviation sector is still their crown jewel of
targets.
I continue to be concerned about the security at last-
point-of-departure airports throughout the Middle East. Many of
the world's most dangerous terrorists are only one plane ride
away. They will not halt their blood-thirsty campaign to take
innocent life unless they are directly challenged. Fortunately,
we have had some recent success on the battlefield. Our
military victory over the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria
was a great achievement. However, there are remnants that
remain in the Middle East and foreign fighters who have
scattered throughout Europe and parts of Africa.
Comprehensive strategy is needed so ISIS cannot rally,
regroup, and rebuild from a new location. The strategy should
address root causes that breed terrorists, including a lack of
economic opportunity and good governance structures. We must
also keep our eye on al-Qaeda. In recent years, al-Qaeda has
expanded its global presence, and now is comprised of tens of
thousands of fighters across 2 dozen branches. They, too, want
nothing more than a devastating attack against the West.
Mitigating the terror threat from these groups has always
been one of my top priorities. At my direction, we established
multiple task forces to discover ways that we can prevent
terrorist entry into the United States. As a result of their
work, we strengthen the Visa Waiver Program, enhanced our
intelligence collection, and bolstered coordination to stop
terrorist travel.
Currently, we are examining ways that special interest
aliens and potential foreign fighters are exploiting illicit
pathways into our country from South and Central America. Just
yesterday, ICE Director Thomas Homan, confirmed to me that,
``Many known terrorists,'' are taking this path as well.
America is facing threats from all directions. To keep our
homeland safe, we need to be prepared to confront each one. So
I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us. Each of you
have served as, or advised as, America's top National security
officials. Every Member of this committee is grateful for your
service to our Nation, your time, and your expertise. I look
forward to the discussion.
[The statement of Chairman McCaul follows:]
Statement of Chairman Michael T. McCaul
May 23, 2018
The terror attacks of 9/11 took the lives of almost 3,000 innocent
people and left our Nation in shock. In the aftermath, it was clear
that serious changes needed to be made to keep our homeland safe.
While I believe we are safer today, terror threats persist.
Terrorists and their followers are still killing innocent people and
attempting to destroy our way of life.
This has been made clear by recent attacks against the West.
London, Paris, Nice, Madrid, Manchester, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin,
and even New York, have been targets of vehicular homicides, shootings,
bombings, and stabbings.
They are clearly following Sheik Adnani's call to kill by whatever
means necessary, wherever they are.
And although many jihadists are resorting to small-scale attacks,
the thwarted plot to take down an airliner in Australia last summer was
a reminder that our aviation sector is still their ``crown jewel'' of
targets.
I am continually concerned about the security at last points of
departure throughout the Middle East.
Many of the world's most dangerous terrorists are only one plane
ride way.
And they will not halt their bloodthirsty campaign to take innocent
life unless they are directly challenged.
Fortunately, we've had some recent success on the battlefield. Our
military victory over the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria was a
great achievement.
However, there are remnants that remain in the Middle East, and
foreign fighters who have scattered throughout Europe and parts of
Africa. A comprehensive strategy is needed so ISIS cannot rally,
regroup, and rebuild from a new location.
This strategy should address the root causes that breed terrorists,
including a lack of economic opportunity and good governance
structures.
We must also keep our eye on al-Qaeda. In recent years, al-Qaeda
has expanded its global presence and is now comprised of tens of
thousands of fighters across two dozen branches. They too, want nothing
more than a devastating attack against the West.
Mitigating the terror threat from these groups has always been one
of my top priorities.
At my direction, we established multiple task forces to discover
ways we can prevent terrorist entry into the United States.
As a result of their work, we strengthened the Visa Waiver Program,
enhanced our intelligence collection, and bolstered coordination to
stop terrorist travel.
Currently, we are examining ways that Special Interest Aliens and
potential foreign fighters are exploiting illicit pathways into our
country from South and Central America.
And just yesterday, ICE Director Thomas Homan confirmed to me that
many known terrorists are taking this path as well.
America is facing threats from all directions. To keep our homeland
safe, we need to be prepared to confront each one.
I would like to thank all our witnesses for joining us this
morning. Each of you has served as, or advised, America's top National
security officials.
Every Member of this committee is grateful for your service, your
time, and your expertise.
I look forward to our discussion and to working with you to
strengthen our homeland security.
Chairman McCaul. With that, I now recognize the Ranking
Member.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank our
witnesses for their appearance today. Today, the committee is
meeting to examine a threat posed by ISIS to America and the
West. While ISIS has suffered significant losses in the wake of
attacks by U.S.-led coalition forces under both the prior
administration and the current one, the so-called caliphate is
not yet gone. Indeed, even as ISIS has lost territory, funding,
and fighters, its threats to the United States and our allies
persist, albeit in new forms.
As the so-called caliphate has shrunk, you and I both know
ISIS has turned to the virtual space and its affiliates and
followers to recruit and radicalize new members around the
world. Rather than planning or directing sophisticated attacks
carried out by individuals traveling from overseas, ISIS can
inspire lone wolves right here at home on-line with few
resources and relative little effort.
This more-dispersed asymmetrical threat will be harder for
the United States and our allies to combat. It is essential for
the Trump administration to ensure a careful coordinated effort
among all elements of our National security apparatus,
military, and intelligence assets, diplomats working with
foreign partners, and homeland security officials at home. It
remains to be seen whether this administration is up to the
task.
As Members of the Congress and Members of the Committee on
Homeland Security, our role will be to conduct close oversight
of the Trump administration's effort. This is a critical
juncture, as the remnants of ISIS on the ground attempts to
regroup and determine the future trajectory of the
organization. As we have witnessed before, these groups do not
disappear, but often morph into a new entity that poses new
threats.
Unfortunately, as the virtual space becomes increasingly
important to ISIS, the organization's existing efforts to
recruit and radicalize followers are only furthered by the
Trump administration's rhetoric and policies. President Trump's
own hateful words about Islam and Muslims lend credence to
ISIS's message about the West. This kind of rhetoric also
undermines our relationship with key partners abroad,
jeopardizing essential information-sharing relationships.
At the same time, the President's comments stoke fear and
division among the American people, which is exactly the goal
of terrorist organizations like ISIS. If President Trump's
rhetoric has been harmful in this regard, his policies have
been worse. From the Muslim travel bans to the Trump
administration's almost exclusive focus on Islamic groups in
its counterterrorism efforts, his policies have actually made
us less safe.
Today, I hope to hear from our witnesses about the future
of ISIS, and how the United States can best counter its threats
to the homeland, both now and in the future, while upholding
our American values. I appreciate the witnesses joining us
today, and look forward to your testimony. With that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
May 23, 2018
Today, the committee is meeting to examine the threat posed by ISIS
to America and the West. While ISIS has suffered significant losses in
the wake of attacks by U.S.-led coalition forces under both the prior
administration and the current one, the so-called caliphate is not yet
gone.
Indeed, even as ISIS has lost territory, funding, and fighters, its
threat to the United States and our allies persists, albeit in new
forms. As the so-called caliphate has shrunk, you and I both know ISIS
has turned to the virtual space and its affiliates and followers to
recruit and radicalize new members around the world.
Rather than planning or directing sophisticated attacks carried out
by individuals traveling from overseas, ISIS can inspire lone wolves
right here at home on-line with few resources and relatively little
effort. This more disbursed, asymmetrical threat will be harder for the
United States and our allies to combat.
It is essential for the Trump administration to ensure a careful,
coordinated effort among all elements of our National security
apparatus--military and intelligence assets, diplomats working with
foreign partners, and homeland security officials at home. It remains
to be seen whether this administration is up to the task.
As Members of Congress and Members of the Committee on Homeland
Security, our role will be to conduct close oversight of the Trump
administration's efforts. This is a critical juncture, as the remnants
of ISIS on the ground attempt to regroup and determine the future
trajectory of the organization.
As we have witnessed before, these groups do not disappear but
often morph into a new entity that poses new threats.
Unfortunately, as the virtual space becomes increasingly important
to ISIS, the organization's existing efforts to recruit and radicalize
followers are only furthered by the Trump administration's rhetoric and
policies. President Trump's own hateful words about Islam and Muslims
lend credence to ISIS' message about the West.
This kind of rhetoric also undermines our relationship with key
partners abroad, jeopardizing essential information-sharing
relationships.
At the same time, the President's comments stoke fear and division
among the American people, which is exactly the goal of terrorist
organizations like ISIS. If President Trump's rhetoric has been harmful
in this regard, his policies have been worse.
From the Muslim travel bans to the Trump administration's almost
exclusive focus on Islamic groups in its counterterrorism efforts, his
policies have actually made us less safe. Today, I hope to hear from
our witnesses about the future of ISIS and how the United States can
best counter its threat to the homeland, both now and in the future,
while upholding our American values.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you. The Ranking Member yields back.
Other Members are reminded, opening statements may be submitted
for the record.
[The statement of Honorable Jackson Lee follows:]
Statement of Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee
May 23, 2018
Chairman Mccaul and Ranking Member Thompson, I thank you both for
the opportunity to receive testimony on ``ISIS Post-Caliphate: Threat
Implications for America and the West.''
As ISIS adapts to the changing environment and attempts to survive,
we must adapt to prevent them from spreading its deadly influence
throughout the region and the world.
I thank today's witnesses for their testimony:
The Hon. Ryan Crocker--Former Ambassador of the United
States;
Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.)--Chairman of the Board, Institute for
the Study of War;
Dr. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross--Senior Fellow, Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies; and
Dr. Joshua A. Geltzer--Former Senior Director for
Counterterrorism, National Security Council (Democratic
witness).
This hearing will examine the threat of Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria (ISIS), given its territorial losses.
The hearing will also allow for the consideration of:
1. ISIS' current operational state,
2. The threat posed by returning foreign fighters,
3. ISIS financing methods,
4. The ``virtual caliphate,'' and
5. The role of ISIS affiliates.
ISIS continues to pose a threat as it continues to inspire and
enable foreign fighters and Home-grown Violent Extremists to conduct
attacks in the United States as well as strengthening ISIS affiliates
world-wide in the wake of their territorial losses in Iraq and Syria.
President Donald Trump's travel ban announced in January 2017
against 7 Muslim-majority nations was reportedly used by ISIS as a
recruitment tool, giving the militant group a major propaganda boost.
The actions taken on the battlefield reduced the number,
coordination, and ability of ISIS to retain territory, but their
objectives to strike at the United States and other nations has not
been eliminated.
current state of isis
Since late 2017, U.S. officials have stated that ISIS has lost more
than 90 percent of the territory it once held.
While the U.S. intelligence community assessed that ISIS will seek
to maintain a robust insurgency in Iraq and Syria, experts have
predicted that ISIS will also plan international attacks and encourage
sympathizers to carry out attacks at home.
Moreover, ISIS's battlefield losses will not destroy its terrorism
capabilities due to its significant investment in external operations
over the last 2 years.
As senior officials in the U.S. intelligence community have noted,
ISIS has proven to be extremely resilient and continues to use attacks
and propaganda to attract violent extremists and to protect its
influence world-wide.
ISIS fighters and communication networks have not been eliminated,
but rather they have been dispersed in ways that will challenge the
Trump administration to continue to fight obvious high-value targets,
while also identifying and countering less obvious threats, including
from Home-grown Violent Extremists, returning foreign fighters, and
fighters who relocate to ISIS affiliates and conflict zones other than
Iraq and Syria.
rise of the virtual caliphate
ISIS's territorial decline has resulted in a decrease in volume of
propaganda and a messaging shift away from a narrative about building
the so-called caliphate and toward inciting violence.
By November 2017, ISIS's media operation was producing 20 materials
per week, down from a high of more than 200 materials per week in 2015.
ISIS has also shifted to encrypted applications.
These tactical and messaging shifts will cause continued problems
for law enforcement and intelligence services seeking to counter ISIS.
ISIS has proved capable in their on-line messaging and recruitment
utilizing a ``virtual'' means to ``real-world'' end. Many have begun
framing ISIS's future in terms of a ``virtual caliphate.''
foreign fighters
The mobilization of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq outnumbered
all other mobilizations of jihadist conflicts during the past 40 years.
At least 40,000 fighters from 120 countries traveled to Iraq and Syria
to engage in warfare, estimates hold. The foreign fighter flow came to
a virtual standstill, however, as ISIS began to lose territory and
countries implemented better measures to prevent travel.
Authorities have expressed concern about the lack of specific
numbers of returnees and unaccounted-for foreign fighters.
A New York Times report in February 2018 shows that thousands of
ISIS foreign fighters and family members escaped the U.S. military
campaign in eastern Syria to the south and west through Syrian army
lines, calling into question whether the group has been largely
defeated.
There are also large discrepancies in statistics collected by the
United Nations from member states between the total number of foreign
fighters and those recorded as having been killed, detained, returned,
or relocated.
In January 2018, the United Kingdom, for instance, noted that
around 50 percent of its foreign fighters remain unconfirmed.
home-grown violent extremists (hves)
The most immediate threat to the United States is violence carried
out by Home-grown Violent Extremists (HVEs).
ISIS's capacity to reach sympathizers around the world through its
social media capability gives the group access to large numbers of
HVEs.
In the United States the larger issue is the influence they be able
to have over disaffected youth or the mentally ill who may be
vulnerable to ISIS messaging.
The greatest threat comes from ISIS is its training material on how
to plan and carry out an attack that may provide instruction to those
in the United States who wish to committee mass violence.
On March 2, 2018, in the city of Austin Texas, the first of 7 bombs
were detonated in what became a terrorizing series of attacks that
killed Anthony Stephan House, 39, and Draylen Mason, 17.
On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs detonated near the finish
line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing 3 people and injuring
several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs.
It has been 5 years since that terrible day, but we still remember
the people of Boston, who said they would not be made to fear the
terror that hides its face, to attack the innocent.
An essential component of the success that local, State, and
Federal law enforcement had during the investigation of the Boston
Bombing was the full engagement of the public who shared valuable
information with authorities, which provided important clues that led
to the identification and ultimate capture of the terrorists.
Today's hearing is important because it allows Members of the
Homeland Security Committee to assess the threat that ISIS continues to
pose to the United States.
Prior to September 11, 2001, the Federal Government had a wide
range of law enforcement, National security, and benefits management
agencies that collected information, but jealously guarded this
information from other agencies.
The 9/11 Commission Report allowed an in-depth assessment of the
failures that led to the horrific terrorist attacks against the United
States that cost the lives of nearly 3,000 people.
I look forward to the testimony of today's witnesses.
Thank you.
Chairman McCaul. We are pleased to have a distinguished
panel of witnesses before us here today. First is probably
the--when I think of an ambassador, I think of Ryan Crocker. He
is currently a diplomat-in-residence of Princeton University,
on leave of absence from Texas A&M. He has served in probably
more hotspots than any Ambassador I know. I had the honor to be
with him overseas in many of these locations, and saw his
service to his country.
It is amazing to think, sir, you served in, you know, in
Lebanon when the Marines were killed in Beirut. You served in
Syria when we had an ambassador in Syria. You served in
Pakistan. Served in Iraq. Served in Kuwait. Then the last time,
I think, I saw you overseas in Kandahar and Kabul in
Afghanistan. Your service is really extraordinary as a
diplomat, and I know that is why you received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civilian award, in 2009.
Second, we have General Jack Keane, he is the president of
GSA Consulting, serves as chairman of the board for the
Institute for the Study of War. He served as a 4-star general.
Completed 37 years of public service in December 2003,
culminating his appointment as acting chief of staff and vice
chief of staff to the United States Army. Since 2004, General
Keane conducted frequent trips to Iraq and Afghanistan for
senior defense officials with multiple visits during the surge
in that period in both countries. We thank you, sir, for your
service as well.
The third witness is Dr. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior
fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an expert
on jihadist movements. He is also the chief executive officer
of Valens Global, a fellow with Google's Jigsaw, an associated
fellow at the International Center for Counterterrorism, the
Hague, and adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown
University's security studies program. I have had the
opportunity to visit with you in my office. Thank you for being
here as well.
The fourth and final witness is Dr. Joshua Geltzer, who is
the founding executive director of the Institute for
Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, as well as visiting
professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. Dr.
Geltzer served from 2015 to 2017, a senior director for
counterterrorism at National Security Council, the NSC, and
thank you, sir, also for being here. Your full written
statements will appear in the record.
The Chair now recognizes Ambassador Crocker for an opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF RYAN C. CROCKER, FORMER AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED
STATES
Mr. Crocker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Thompson, Members of the committee. It is a privilege to be
here at this very important time, a moment at which, as both
you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Thompson noted, that Islamic State
is on the verge of military defeat. They have been defeated in
Iraq, and we are in a mopping-up mode now, I think, in Syria.
So the hearing is very timely and is very important.
It doesn't stop with military defeat of ISIS, as you both
have suggested. I have seen this movie before, in part. I was
in Iraq as ambassador from 2007 to 2009, at the time of the
surge, and at a time when the horrific bloodshed in that
country was wound down. As the surge took effect, but
especially as the political surge, if you will, took effect.
The efforts to bring different Iraqi leaders together for a
common cause.
So as we look at the Islamic State on down the road here, I
think it is very important not to believe that because they
were defeated on the field, they have gone away. Islamic
State's predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, was something that
General Petraeus, and later, General Odierno, as well as
myself, were fully focused on. But even at the height of the
surge, we knew we had not completely eliminated them. Little
pockets in Mosul, little pockets up the Euphrates River Valley,
and it is, of course, in the Euphrates River Valley that we are
operating with our allies today to try and destroy that
presence. But even then, even when we have no more military
targets, we will still have an adversary. That is what al-Qaeda
in Iraq showed us. They went to ground and they waited for
better days. Better days for them, or course, came with the
beginning of the Arab Spring, particularly in Syria.
So that is what we will see, I am ready to predict, with
Islamic State. Because ultimately, Islamic State is, itself,
not the problem, it is the symptom of the problem. You, Mr.
Chairman, I think, got this exactly right. The lack of good
governance in this region has given the space for groups such
as al-Qaeda, such as Hezbollah, back in Lebanon at a time I was
there, and, of course, for Islamic State. So unless these
governance issues are addressed, the problem will still be
there, and we will see another manifestation somewhere down the
road. Maybe it will use Islamist's language, maybe it won't. We
don't know. We do know that the failure of governance is going
to create space unless or until those problems of governance
are addressed.
I would say one thing here briefly about the United States.
We are in 100-year cycle now, more or less, of momentous events
related to the First World War. In the peace after the First
World War, we were basically not present. The British and the
French were quite ready to administer the Middle Eastern lands
of the former Ottoman Empire, they did not really want to see
us there. In any case, with the Senate in 1918 making it clear
it was not going to ratify our membership in the League of
Nations, we had no role to play.
After World War II, it was completely different. We
designed the post-war order. The San Francisco conference gave
us the United Nations, Bretton Woods, the International
Monetary Order, and not only did we create it, we led it. We
led it for almost 70 years. Beginning in 2009, we saw a shift.
Should the United States play that role or should it not? Those
questions were asked then, those questions are being asked
today.
I would say, from my perspective as a foreign policy
National security professional, while it was an imperfect order
that we would be wise to work to preserve it, an order that we
continue to lead because the world pretty clearly is not ready
to lead or come together without us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crocker follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ryan C. Crocker
May 23, 2018
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Thompson, Members of the committee, it
is a privilege to be here today to discuss this critically important
topic. We are close to the moment when the Islamic State will no longer
hold ground in Iraq or Syria. When one considers that less than 4 years
ago, an ascendant Islamic State had surged through western Iraq, taking
its second-largest city Mosul in a matter of hours and had reached the
gates of Baghdad, this is a stunning development. It demonstrates the
extraordinary capabilities of our military forces, exercised in an
extraordinarily complicated environment. It also shows the importance
of U.S. leadership. We were not in this fight alone. Sevnty-five other
nations have joined us, making this a truly global coalition. Islamic
State threatened the world; the world responded by coming together to
eliminate their so-called caliphate.
isis and the failure of governance in the middle east
But is this fight really over? Does Islamic State teeter on the
brink of extinction? Both the Trump and Obama administrations have
largely treated Islamic State as a military problem with a military
solution. That is a dangerous over-simplification. Islamic State itself
is not the problem. It is the symptom of a much more complex, largely
political problem: A chronic failure of governance.
We are in a cycle of 100-year anniversaries that are relevant to
our conversation here. WW I ended a century ago. The question of the
political future of the lands of the Middle East had to be answered by
the victorious Allies. The area had been a part of the Ottoman Empire
for centuries. The future of this region was on the agenda for the
Versailles peace talks, which concluded with the treaty of Versailles
in 1919. But this was a formality. Those decisions had already been
made by the British and the French, embodied in the Sykes-Picot accord
of 1916 which was still secret when the Versailles talks began. Under
its terms, these two countries would divide the region between them.
The lines on the map that define the Middle East today were largely
drawn by foreigners. As the British and French took over the mandates
assigned to them, one element that was not on their minds was good
governance, the building of stable institutions, respect for the rule
of law, and preparations for peoples of the area to govern themselves.
To project the image of independent states, the mandatory powers
installed monarchies in a number of areas--Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan and
by the Italians in Libya. These monarchies had no connections to the
peoples over which they allegedly ruled, and certainly no interest in
establishing the institutions and traditions of good governance.
Lacking legitimacy and perceived as puppets of the imperialists,
these monarchies were overthrown, replaced largely by military rulers.
Other ``isms'' were developed to replace imperialism and monarchism. In
Egypt, it was Arab nationalism personified by Gamal abd-al Nasser. In
Iraq, undiluted authoritarianism following the 1958 coup by Abdal Karim
Qassim. Later, a Libyan military officer named Qadhafi overthrew King
Idris. Other isms followed--Arab socialism (Baathism) in Iraq and
Syria. Communism in South Yemen. Republicanism in Tunisia and Egypt
post-Nasser. They all had one element in common: They failed to provide
good governance for their people, and they all failed. This was the
essence of the Arab Spring--a popular demand for better governance. But
that takes time and respect for the rule of law as well as the
development of institutions that provide for the common good. These are
in exceedingly short supply throughout the region. In Egypt, for
example, it was no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood won the first
election since it was the only political party independent of the
Mubarak regime. But it was also no surprise it failed completely to
provide good governance. It had no experience and found no experience
of institutionalized democracy.
Now we have yet another ism, Islamism. It too has failed.
Interestingly, a recently-translated trove of documents suggests that
Islamic State understood the problem and was making an effort to
develop the skills of governance.
So what happens next? It is impossible to predict with accuracy.
However, it is a safe bet that without significant progress toward
better governance in the region, another ism will arise. Perhaps it
will be ISIS 2.0, just as ISIS was al-Qaeda 2.0. Perhaps it will be of
a completely different nature. Whatever it is, it will not be good. To
borrow from the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, ``What rough beast, its
hour come around at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?''
And what does it mean for our interests in the region, especially
in Iraq and Syria after the military defeat of the Islamic State? As we
consider these questions, we need to look at Iraq and Syria as related
but distinct challenges. I will start with Iraq.
iraq
As you know so well, Mr. Chairman, we have been here before. I was
Ambassador to Iraq during the surge, 2007-2009. As you know, the surge
was built on the Awakening movement in the Sunni province of Anbar,
when Iraqi tribal leaders who had stood with Islamic State's
predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, turned against them with our
encouragement and support. By any measure, the surge was a success.
Shortly before my departure from Iraq in February 2009, I visited
Ramadi, the once and future stronghold of al-Qaeda and its successor,
the Islamic State. The security situation was so good that Awakening
leader Ahmad Abu Risha and I spent an hour walking through the Ramadi
market. This owed a great deal to the courage and sacrifice of our
troopers, so brilliantly led by General Petraeus and later by General
Odierno. But even at the height of the surge, there remained small
pockets of al-Qaeda in Mosul and the Euphrates river valley. Why?
Because elements of the Sunni Arab population in those areas feared the
Shia-led government in Baghdad at least as much as they feared al-
Qaeda. Those elements, including future ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi, went to ground and awaited better days.
Those days came with the beginning of a civil war in Syria in March
2011 and the military and political withdrawal of the United States
from Iraq, also in 2011. In our absence, Prime Minister Maliki and
other Iraqi leaders reverted to a default position of zero sum
thinking. When we were there in force, politically as well as
militarily, we could help broker deals among Iraqis that they could not
reach by themselves. For many leaders, compromise was a threat. In
their world, compromise meant a concession, concessions equaled defeat
and defeat meant death. Often in this country, we become impatient with
leaders in countries like Iraq who do not speedily commit to the
institutions of democracy. We consider that they lack political will
and do not deserve our support.
The reality is more complicated. In the case of Maliki, his
greatest fear was of a military coup that would return the Baathists to
power. Given Iraq's history, this was not completely unreasonable.
Iraq's first military coup came in 1958, and was followed by a series
of others until the Baath cemented its power a decade later. When we
were there in force, we constituted a security guarantee to Maliki that
allowed him to make senior military appointments on the basis of
ability. As Dave Petraeus can tell you, it was not easy but we could do
it. After we left, Maliki's fears took over and commanders were not
appointed on the basis of proven combat experience or leadership
qualities. They were chosen on the basis of one quality only--loyalty.
These were the commanders who fled the field as ISIL advanced.
The post-ISIS phase in Iraq is significantly different and more
encouraging than that which prevailed before ISIS swept through the
country. Iraqi security forces, with new commanders, performed well
through a long, hard ground campaign. They took significant casualties
but morale and commitment remained significantly high. The United
States has reinvested in Iraq. Our advisors, air power, and enablers
had a meaningful impact on the campaign, and the Iraqis know it. We
have some leverage, and the opportunity to use it.
Why is this important from a homeland security perspective? Simply
put, we are more secure if we are dealing with potential threats well
before they reach our borders. Ultimately, it is good governance in the
region that will prevent the re-emergence of terrorist organizations
that target Americans, whether at home or abroad. In the interim, doing
what we can to insure that the Iraqi government does not take actions
that will further alienate its Sunni Arab population and give space to
those who wish us harm is an imperative. If the Iraqis can get the
politics right with our help, the military/terrorist threat ISIS has
posed can be contained. If the politics are not right, we will be
facing new security challenges in the region and at home.
Here, I would like to say a word about terrorism. Over a long
career in the Middle East, I have seen a lot of it. It's part of life
in the Foreign Service. I was an ambassador six times. In three of
those countries, a predecessor as the American ambassador was
assassinated. One of those was Frank Meloy in Lebanon. He and another
Embassy officer were kidnapped and then killed in Beirut. The
organization that murdered them was the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Was that an Islamic terrorist
organization? No--its communist ideology was the antithesis of any
religion, including Islam. But perhaps its leader harbored secret
Islamic tendencies? Its leader was George Habash, a Palestinian
Christian.
I make this point as a reminder that terror is a tactic, not an
ideology. When there are major unresolved political problems in a
society or a country that cannot be dealt with through the political
process because of a lack of institutions and the absence of rule of
law, the chances increase that some in that society will use terror to
pursue their agenda. Von Clausewitz was right--war, whether regular or
irregular, arises from politics and to politics it must return. There
are no more purely military problems any more. This includes ISIS. Its
roots lie in politics, and unless those political problems are
addressed, it--or something like it--will be back.
In Iraq, we have something to work with. By all accounts, Iraqi
government forces have avoided retaliatory actions against the
overwhelmingly Sunni civilian population. It will be important to stay
politically engaged with the Government and support a stabilization
process that will be political as well as economic. Revitalization of
the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement would be a good place to start.
It provides a broad basis for bilateral cooperation in the economic,
political, technological, and security fields. On the latter, it is
vital that we continue the robust train-and-equip mission with Iraqi
security forces that we began in 2014. We must not repeat the mistake
we made in 2011 of disengaging from Iraq. That created the conditions
that ISIS exploited so effectively 3 years later.
Iraq has just completed its fourth National election since 2006.
The process of Government formation is likely to be long and difficult.
We should support principles in this process, not individuals. In so
doing, we will demonstrate a sharp contrast with Iran whose direct
interference is likely to anger and alienate the Iraqi people. The
Iranian influence in Iraq is a challenge to some of our core interests
in the development of an inclusive, capable government that can address
some of the ills of bad governance that has plagued the country for
many years. Our best defense is the kind of constructive engagement
that will offer an alternative to the heavy-handed effort by Iran to
create clients, not partners.
syria
If Iraq is hard, Syria is harder. The military defeat of ISIS will
not end the civil war, nor will it lead to disengagement and withdrawal
by Iran and its proxies. Iran is in Syria for the long haul, as it has
demonstrated virtually since the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
The United States and Israel paid a terrible price in Lebanon when Iran
solidified its strategic partnership with the Asad regime and both
worked to establish Hizballah. It is against this history that we must
determine the future of our own military presence. Do we stay or do we
go? If we stay, for what purpose and at what risk? If we go, with what
consequences?
The Syrian conflict is as complex as it is dangerous. An
unprecedented number of international, regional, and local actors are
involved. The United States and Russia. Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel,
Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Hizballah and other Iran-supported Shia militias, al-Qaeda, the Syrian
Free Army, Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG, Ahrar al-Sham and many
others, including ISIS. ISIS may be on the verge of a military defeat,
but that will not eliminate them as a future force. We saw the same
thing in Iraq a decade ago. In Syria as well as in Iraq, we can expect
ISIS to go to ground and wait for more favorable circumstances. And in
the chaos that is Syria, there will be plenty of places to hide.
I spent a number of years in Lebanon during its civil war. The
constellation of actors in Lebanon mirrored those in Syria, but on a
smaller and less complex scale. The hot phase of the Lebanese civil war
lasted 15 years, and ended only when the Syrian army occupied the
Lebanese Presidential Palace. No army is going to occupy the Peoples
Palace in Damascus to end that conflict.
the united states
Mr. Chairman, this is a moment to consider the role of the United
States in the region and the world. Again, I will take you on a brief,
100-year journey. At Versailles in 1919 and after, the United States
played no significant role in the Middle East or the world. The 1918
elections returned an isolationist Congress that would not ratify our
membership in the League of Nations, Wilson was ill and the British and
French did not want the United States challenging their influence.
What the world effectively got was a two-decade truce in the middle
of one horrific world war. America played a very different role after
World War II. The post-war international order was largely created by
the United States. The United Nations was born in the San Francisco
conference. The international financial order was created at Bretton
Woods. We led on the establishment of NATO. We faced down the Soviet
Union in Berlin, in Iran, in Turkey and in Greece. We launched the
Marshall Plan. We rebuilt the economies of allies and adversaries
alike. In short, we not only created the new order, we led it. There
was broad agreement among Republican and Democratic administrations
that the United States could and should lead. There were setbacks,
certainly. But almost seven decades of U.S. leadership brought broad
prosperity and averted another massive ground war.
But beginning in 2009, we called into question our own leadership
role. The slogan that we can't do everything became a byword for not
doing much of anything. America first came to be translated as America
alone.
Mr. Chairman, American leadership made the world a safer place. I
know the American people are tired of wars. I get that. I spent 7 years
of my life post-9/11 in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. I was in Iraq
and Afghanistan beginning in 2001. I returned to all three countries as
the American ambassador. So I get it about being tired. But there are
worse things.
Mr. Chairman, in my judgment American leadership is vital to
homeland security. I hope very much we will reassert that role. The
Middle East and the world will not run by themselves.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you, Ambassador. The Chair
recognizes General Keane for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF GENERAL JOHN M. ``JACK'' KEANE, (RET.-U.S. ARMY),
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR
General Keane. Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson,
distinguished Members of the committee, thank you for inviting
me. I am honored to be here today with my esteemed colleagues,
particularly my friend here, Ambassador Crocker, America's most
accomplished Middle East envoy. In the summer of 2012, the
Islamic State of Iraq, then an al-Qaeda affiliate under the
command of al-Baghdadi was operating in the shadows around
Baghdad, when he made the most critical decision in his reign
as a jihadist leader. He seized the opportunity to take
advantage of the stalemated Syrian civil war. Al-Baghdadi
correctly assumed that the civil war participants, largely
fighting in western Syria, would be so preoccupied that he
could occupy Sunni-Arab territory in northeastern Syria with
little resistance, and establish a bona-fide safe haven with
several hundred fighters, mostly Iraqis.
Al-Baghdadi grew the organization to 30,000 fighters in 18
months, invading Iraq in January 2014, by seizing Fallujah. In
June, they captured Mosul, gained world-wide attention by
forcing the collapse of the Iraqi Army. The exponential growth
of ISIS in less than 2 years, using the internet exclusively to
recruit with sophisticated cinematography and messaging was a
remarkable historic achievement.
With the eventual defeat of ISIS some 3 years later in
terms of retaking territory that was lost in 2017 in Iraq--and
also in Iraq and Syria, the ISIS caliphate was decimated,
losing 90 percent of its territory, and reduced to several
thousand fighters in Iraq and Syria combined. ISIS is badly
damaged, but it is not defeated, as the Chairman and Ranking
Member have mentioned.
It is still capable of insurgency, and its ability to
inspire others to engage terrorist attacks. Indeed, ISIS is
still a thriving global terrorist organization. The virtual
ISIS caliphate maintains the connectivity with ISIS affiliate
organizations world-wide. ISIS uses it also to help maintain
its external terrorist organization, and to direct or support
network cells and individuals. But mostly, to inspire others to
kill and maim their own people.
The virtual caliphate, after considerable amount of effort,
has finally been damaged, mainly because of physical
destruction due to combat operations, but also due to offensive
cyber operations that the United States has conducted. Further,
the U.S. Government has enlisted the assistance of social
media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to identify
potential terrorist accounts and remove violent content from
their platforms.
In protecting the homeland, the best defense since 9/11 is
still a good offense, the United States and coalition partners
deployed to fight terrorists in their breeding grounds
overseas. U.S. law enforcement agencies at home have remained
vigilant in thwarting terrorist plots, as demonstrated by the
fact that there still has not been a major terrorist attack
since 9/11.
However, despite law enforcement's best efforts, preventing
inspired assailants from carrying out terrorist attacks remains
a relentless challenge, as we experienced three attacks since
2015 in San Bernardino, Orlando, and New York. It is virtually
impossible to monitor everyone of interest, which means we need
the assistance of an informed population to report suspicious
behavior.
In looking ahead, despite the success to date over ISIS in
Iraq and Syria, the remaining ISIS fighters and leadership
should be driven out of southeastern Syria along the Euphrates
River Valley. The Iraqi security forces assisted by the United
States and coalition partners must maintain its vigilance in
Iraq to prevent a resurgence of ISIS. Key is the formation of a
government in Iraq after this recent election that enfranchises
the Sunnis and the Kurds, and does not make the mistake of
previous Iraq governments that disenfranchised the Sunnis.
Political unity is vital to prevent the rise of ISIS again
or another radical Islamic group. It appears likely that ISIS
will resort to traditional terrorist tactics and attempt to
exert control in weakly-governed space across Africa, the
Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. They will always be
seeking sanctuary or safe haven, and when they do, it must be
rapidly destroyed.
Europe, more vulnerable than us, could be the next
battlefront as ISIS activates and motivates followers to carry
out attacks and prove it is still a threat to the West.
In conclusion, there is an understandable desire to declare
victory over ISIS after retaking the lost territory in Iraq and
Syria and go home. In my view, that is a serious strategic
blunter. The lesson learned from the premature withdrawal from
Iraq in 2011 before political stability was achieved is, we got
ISIS as a result.
Similarly, we refused to assist the newly-elected moderate
government in Libya after Qadhafi was deposed in 2011, and we
got Benghazi in 2012, a failed state shortly thereafter. When
we stay post-conflict to ensure political stability, as in
Germany, Italy, and Japan, post-World War II, in South Korea,
post-Korean War, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina for almost 9
years, significant and lasting success is achieved.
The United States, our allies, and partners know we are in
a generational struggle in confronting the ISIS threat and, in
general, radical Islam where the key to long-term success is
defeating their ideology and certainly their propaganda, as
well as addressing the conditions that help spread it, such as
political and social injustice, lack of economic opportunity,
corruption and governance instability.
Thank you. I look forward your to questions.
[The prepared statement of General Keane follows:]
Statement of John M. ``Jack'' Keane
23 May 2018
Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson, distinguished Members of
the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. Am honored
to be here with my esteemed colleagues, particularly Ambassador
Crocker, America's most accomplished Middle East envoy, who I had the
pleasure of visiting on many occasions when he was Ambassador to Iraq
and Afghanistan during the 9/11 wars, while I was conducting
assessments for General Petraeus.
In the summer of 2012 the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda
affiliate organization, under the command of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was
operating in the shadows and territory in the belt around Baghdad when
al-Baghdadi made the most important strategic decision in his reign as
a jihadist leader; he seized the opportunity to take advantage of the
stalemated Syrian civil war, after Iran and Russia significantly
assisted the Assad regime in halting the momentum of the Syrian
opposition forces. As such, al-Baghdadi correctly assumed that the
civil war participants, largely fighting in western Syria, would be so
preoccupied that al-Baghdadi could occupy Sunni Arab lands in
northeastern Syria with little to no resistance and establish a bona
fide safe haven with several hundred Iraqi fighters.
the caliphate in iraq and syria
Unprecedented in the history of terrorist organizations, al-
Baghdadi grew the organization to 30 thousand fighters in 18 months,
invading Iraq in January 2014 and seizing Fallujah. By June they were
40 thousand strong and captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq,
which gained world-wide attention by forcing the collapse of an Iraqi
Army whose previous competent leaders were purged by PM Maliki as he
pocketed the funds intended to train the Army for the past 3 years. The
exponential growth of ISIS in less than 2 years using the internet
almost exclusively to recruit with sophisticated cinematography and
messaging was an outstanding achievement and quite unprecedented. Many
of the fighters came from throughout the region, also Afghanistan, with
approximately 5,000 alone from western Europe and about 250 from the
United States. In June 2014, al-Baghdadi, announced from the Grand
Mosque in Mosul the establishment of the Islamic State, the so-called
ISIS caliphate.
Regrettably, it took the United States 9 months to respond to PM
Maliki's emergency request in January for air power support when it was
finally delivered 2 months after the fall of Mosul in August 2014.
With the final defeat of ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa in 2017, the ISIS
caliphate was decimated. ISIS has been badly damaged but not defeated
in its insurgency capacity and its ability to inspire others to engage
in terrorist attacks elsewhere. Indeed ISIS is a thriving global
terrorist organization. At its peak ISIS governed 7.7 million people
and controlled roughly 40 thousand square miles of land essentially
forming a proto-state as large as the United Kingdom, and earned $80
million per month by the end of 2015. Mostly via illegal oil sales,
while also relying on antiquities sales, the extortion and taxation of
local populations, and kidnappings for ransom.
Since the coalition military operations against ISIS in Iraq and
Syria it has lost 90 percent of the territory it once controlled to
include its former capital Raqqa as well as Mosul. An estimated 3-5,000
fighters remain in the area, down significantly from the estimated 40-
60,000 fighters from over 100 countries, while it still earns roughly
$4 million per month from oil sales and black market antiquities
trading.
There is potential for an ISIS resurgence in Syria and Iraq if the
United States pulls its forces out prematurely. What the Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) would lose
most significantly is the assistance of competent American ground and
coalition forces and the devastating use of American air power, while
forfeiting the political and diplomatic support that the U.S. military
presence brings to the table.
virtual caliphate
The virtual caliphate maintains the connectivity with ISIS
affiliate organizations world-wide which indeed have expanded since the
loss of the physical caliphate. Using the virtual caliphate ISIS
maintains its external terrorist organization (ETO) to, at times,
direct or support networks, cells, and individuals, but, mostly, to
inspire others to kill and maim their own people. While it has taken
longer than decimating the physical caliphate, the virtual caliphate
has been severely damaged mostly because of physical destruction but
also because of sophisticated cyber operations to reduce capacity. This
was due to the combined efforts of the National Security Agency (NSA)
and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The United States
works alongside foreign partners to strengthen their counter-messaging
strategies. Further, the U.S. Government has enlisted the assistance of
social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to
identify potential terrorist accounts and remove violent content from
their platforms. To date Twitter has reportedly disabled nearly 1
million handles publishing pro-ISIS content. Despite that positive
effort the social media companies must do more.
Reducing the virtual caliphate begins to break the bond that ISIS
has so successfully maintained with its world-wide affiliate
organizations and its ETO which was also the basis for past recruiting
successes.
affiliate organizations world-wide
With the loss of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq, the network
has shifted its resources to expand the influence and lethality of its
affiliates in Northern Africa, the Sahel, The Sinai, Afghanistan, and
Southeast Asia.
Libya--Despite losing its presence in Derna and Sirte, ISIS
has maintained a strong presence in Libya and remains a potent
regional threat having regrouped and established training
centers and operational headquarters in the central and
southern parts of the country. ISIS maintains a force of 4-
6,000 fighters in Libya.
Sahel region in Africa--Willingly ISIS roams this area and
attacks local and out of region forces as it demonstrated in
the October 2017 ambush of a joint U.S./Nigerian patrol along
the Mali-Niger border, resulting in the deaths of 4 U.S. troops
and 5 Nigerian soldiers. Given the unwarranted publicity, the
United States admitted it had 800 U.S. troops in Niger and that
the U.S. military was operating a key drone base in the area.
Boko Haram--In northeastern Africa pledged allegiance to
ISIS in March 2015 and rapidly became the most infamous and
violent terrorist group to join the ISIS network. Boko Haram is
currently divided into 2 factions and continues to strike
government officials, troops, and civilians from northeastern
Africa despite a multinational Joint Task Force of 8,700
troops. Boko Haram is listed as the world's deadliest terror
organization.
Sinai--The ISIS Sinai branch has been active in Egypt's
Sinai Peninsula since 2011. Over the last few years Sinai
Province has frequently attacked Egyptian military and security
forces deployed in the Sinai. It has also conducted several
attacks in Cairo and bombings of Coptic churches in Alexandria
and Tanta.
Afghanistan--ISIS in Afghanistan also called ISIS Khorasan
Province (ISKP) operates in the east in Nangarhar province and
in the north in Kunar and Jowzjan provinces combined. ISIS has
carved out a dangerous foothold in Afghanistan which has
potential to expand into a bonafide safe haven. ISIS conducts
an increasing number of attacks in Kabul against civilian and
military targets.
Philippines--ISIS managed to overrun the city of Marawi
located on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The
Philippine forces encountered more than expected resistance,
ISIS forces aligned with other pro-ISIS brigade groups. After 5
months and over a thousand deaths, Philippine forces finally
defeated the pro-ISIS militias with U.S. assistance. ISIS is
planning to regroup.
protecting the homeland
The best defense since 9/11 has been a good offense, U.S. and
coalition partners deployed to fight terrorists in their breeding
grounds overseas. U.S. law enforcement agencies have remained vigilant
in thwarting terrorist plots against the U.S. homeland as demonstrated
by the fact that there has not been a major terrorist attack since 9/
11. However, despite law enforcement's best efforts, preventing highly
motivated and inspired assailants from carrying out terrorist acts
remains a relentless challenge. The December 2015 San Bernardino
shooting, the June 2016 Orlando nightclub attack and the October 2017
deadly car ramming in New York are all stark reminders of the
difficulty in containing the domestic terrorist threat. It's virtually
impossible to monitor everyone who you would want to. With 1,000-plus
investigations in the United States spreading across the breadth of the
Nation and 23,000 persons of interest in the United Kingdom as reported
by the director of MI-5, it is inevitable some people are going to get
through. Our agencies hope to minimize and reduce those possibilities
and turn the odds in our favor. This is the price of a free society.
It's also an allocation of resources issue. Do we want to deplete
everything else we are doing with Government funding and throw it all
at this problem, when in fact more people are killed in opioid overdose
and in automobile accidents than are killed in terrorist attacks? We
must make tradeoffs and with people operating alone who are not talking
to people or linked to a terrorist group, it is very difficult to find
them.
looking ahead
Despite the tactical victories over ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the
remaining ISIS fighters and leadership should be driven out of
southeastern Syria along the Euphrates River valley. And the Iraqi
security forces assisted by U.S. and coalition partners must maintain
its vigilance in Iraq to prevent a resurgence of ISIS. Key is the
formation of a government after this recent election that enfranchises
the Sunnis and the Kurds and does not make the mistake of previous Iraq
governments that disenfranchised the Sunnis. Political unity is vital
to prevent the rise of ISIS again or another radical Islamist group.
It appears likely that ISIS will resort to more traditional
terrorist tactics and attempt to exert control in weakly governed space
across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. It will
always be seeking sanctuary or safe haven and when they do, it must be
destroyed as rapidly as possible.
Europe, much more vulnerable than the United States, could be the
next battlefront as ISIS activates cells to carry out attacks and prove
it's still a threat to the West.
In conclusion, there is a tendency and an understandable desire to
declare victory over ISIS after retaking the lost territory in Iraq and
Syria and go home both physically and psychologically; a serious
strategic blunder. The lesson learned from the premature withdrawal
from Iraq in 2011 before political stability was achieved is, we got
ISIS. Similarly we refused to assist the newly-elected moderate
government in Libya after Qaddafi was deposed in 2011 and we got
Benghazi in 2012 and a failed state shortly thereafter. When we stay
post-conflict to insure political stability such as in Germany, Italy,
and Japan post-WWII, in South Korea post-Korean War and in Bosnia
Herzegovina for almost 9 years, significant and lasting success is
achieved.
The United States, our allies and partners know we are in a
generational struggle in confronting the ISIS threat where the key to
long-term success is defeating their ideology and propaganda as well as
addressing the conditions that help spread it, such as political and
social injustice, lack of economic opportunity, corruption, and
instability.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you, General. The Chair recognizes
Dr. Gartenstein-Ross.
STATEMENT OF DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION
FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Thompson, and distinguished Members, it is an honor to be here
to discuss this important topic at this vital time. We have
agreement in all of the opening statements thus far that the
territorial collapse of ISIS does not, of course, mean the end
of the threat that the organization poses.
What I want to focus on in this statement is the role of
technology, because when we look at the rising threat level
against Western States, including the United States,
technological developments and geopolitics have been the two
key factors over the past several years. We have seen three key
developments that largely blindsided us.
The first of these was just a few years after the 2011 Arab
Spring Revolution in which we saw social media mobilization
bring very idealistic protesters out to the streets. We then
saw social media mobilization used for much more nefarious
purposes, as ISIS was able to draw through both physical
networks, but also virtual networks, a record number of foreign
fighters to the Syria and Iraq theater.
Just a few years after that, we saw a major iteration in
the way terrorism occurs, something which I called the virtual
planner model. This is terrorist groups taking advantage of the
intersection of both social media accessibility to operatives
throughout the world, and also the boom in end-to-end
encryption, which allows them to talk to more people, and to do
so in secure ways.
In this manner, terrorist networks half a world away can
perform all the functions that physical networks used to
perform. Scouting for operatives, recruiting them, helping to
select the target and timing of attacks, even providing various
kinds of technical assistance, bomb-making assistance and the
like. This has been a major development, which has had a
transformative impact on terrorism.
In recent years and months, we have also seen the wide-
spread adoption of consumer drone technology work to the
advantage of militant organizations. We have, of course, seen
that in Iraq and Syria. I can tell you for a fact that the
weaponization of drones has already made its way to Africa. I
was recently in Tunisia and got to talk to the members of the
African Union Peacekeeping Force, who have seen Shabaab in
Somalia pick up drone technology.
In all of these cases, we see a clear pattern, which is
something is widely adopted by consumers, and then it is taken
by terrorists and adapted in a way that can serve their
purposes. I think that we need to stay apprised of this,
because when you look at the homeland security implications of
the continued threat posed by ISIS, their adoption of
technology and use of consumer-oriented technology is going to
be absolutely critical and something we need to stay ahead of.
Now, in terms of what we can do. One thing that we need to
maintain at a Government level is dialog with leading tech
firms, that is an area where over the course of the past 3 to 4
years, especially with ISIS's exploitation of social media
technology, there has been much more liaison between the U.S.
Government and tech firms in such a way that they are now
somewhat speaking the same language.
Second, getting out ahead of technological uses that can be
exploited by terrorists is important. This is something that we
have had a hard time doing, in part, because often we are
blindsided by these adoptions of technology. One thing I
highlight, both in my written statement, and also instead of my
recent popular press writing, is that artificial intelligence
is likely to be an area in which terrorists are able to exploit
the more wide-spread adoption of artificial intelligence at a
consumer level.
Finally, in terms of what we can do. I think that a lot
will require international cooperation. When you see, for
example, AI researchers arguing for international covenants to
prevent automated weapons from being adopted wide-spread.
Whether you agree with them or not on the issue, one of the
reasons why they are doing this is because they believe that
proliferation of automated weapon systems will help rogue
states, and will help terrorist organizations.
I think about what is needed at an international level is
very important, as well as harnessing the potential of current
technological development, including for such things as counter
network warfare. For us, technology is not a panacea, it is
simply a tool. I think that Ambassador Crocker puts his finger
on the right question. Are we going to lead?
It is not just a matter of our will to lead, but all the
technological developments I put my finger on have really
changed the way that so many spheres do business, including
especially in the entrepreneurial space. But it has that impact
in government and politics sphere. Within my organizations, we
often think of violent non-state actors as the equivalent of
start-up firms in the political organizing space.
These organization tend to be very good organizationally at
what we are not good at. So asking the question not just about
our will, but also our organizational design is, in my view,
vital. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gartenstein-Ross follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
May 23, 2018
Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson, and distinguished Members
of the committee, it is an honor to appear before you today to testify
about the threat implications as the militant group known as the
Islamic State (hereafter ISIS) moves into the post-caliphate phase of
its existence.
The collapse of ISIS's ``caliphate'' is indeed an important
milestone for the region, and will reduce both the threat of ISIS's
external operations (that is, terrorist plots abroad) and the
extraordinary appeal that ISIS displayed in electrifying jihadist
sympathizers and inspiring lone-actor attacks across the globe. When it
controlled significant territory spanning Syria and Iraq, ISIS
brutalized the population under its yoke, openly boasted of instituting
sex slavery, adopted genocidal policies toward the Yazidis and other
religious minorities, and planned large-scale terrorist attacks across
the world. The fact that the group no longer controls its own proto-
state is a positive turn of events that is hard to understate. But
recent geopolitical developments have provided ISIS with breathing
room. And even if ISIS's decline were continuing apace, ISIS is not the
whole of the jihadist movement, which remains in a relatively strong
position. ISIS's territorial decline should be understood in the
context of a larger movement that remains dynamic, adaptable, and
dangerous, and that has grown significantly in strength since the 2011
``Arab Spring'' revolutions. Further, technological advances and
geopolitical developments have helped to enhance the global jihadist
movement in definable ways.
My testimony addresses five critical points that I believe can
inform how we should understand and address the threat implications of
jihadism after the fall of ISIS's caliphate:
1. Recent geopolitical developments have given ISIS important
breathing room.
2. ISIS's ability to preserve or reestablish its ``virtual
planner'' model of external operations will have a significant impact
on the threat that the group will pose against the United States and
other Western countries.
3. The global jihadist movement's overall trajectory is one of
growth, not of decline.
4. Al-Qaeda has exploited the heightened counterterrorism focus on
ISIS in recent years.
5. Tackling jihadists' exploitation of consumer-oriented
technological advances will be critical to mitigating the threat in the
future.
recent geopolitical developments have slowed isis's decline
ISIS began to experience a precipitous territorial collapse in
2017. When a militant group that had previously held territory
experiences sudden decline, as ISIS did, the speed of its decline is
often determinative of the extent to which it is able to preserve its
most critical functions. ISIS will scramble to preserve its key
leaders, as much of its forces as possible, its capacity for external
operations, its monetary assets, and records necessary to allow the
group to reestablish a viable network, all while trying to keep
critical information away from adversaries trying to kill or capture
its members.
ISIS's rapid collapse continued until recent months, but the
group's losses are now being reversed to some extent. One demonstration
of this fact is the recent admission of Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman
for the American-led coalition against ISIS, to the New York Times.
Col. Dillon said that ``he and senior coalition commanders are now
saying the coalition and its Syrian militia partners have reclaimed
more than 90 percent of the territory the Islamic State captured in
Iraq and Syria in 2014, instead of the 98 percent figure officials have
been using for weeks.''\1\ In other words, the relevant metric
concerning ISIS's territorial loss appears to be moving in the wrong
direction, at least for now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See: Eric Schmitt, ``American Warplanes Shift Tactics to Target
Last ISIS Pockets in Eastern Syria,'' The New York Times, April 24,
2018. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/world/middleeast/american-
warplanes-isis-syria.html)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The key reason why ISIS has experienced recent gains is the major
offensive that Tukey launched in northern Syria against the Kurdish
People's Protection Units (YPG) earlier this year.\2\ The Turkish
assault diverted the highly effective YPG from its advance into ISIS's
territory, and has no doubt given ISIS more breathing room. In turn,
this gives ISIS a better chance of preserving some of the vital
functions enumerated above, including leadership, forces, external
operations capabilities, and finances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ For an informative snapshot of the Turkish offensive, see:
Martin Chulov, ``Syria's New Exiles: Kurds Flee Afrin After Turkish
Assault,'' The Guardian (London), March 18, 2018. (https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/18/syrias-new-exiles-kurds-flee-
afrin-after-turkish-assault)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Turkish offensive into Afrin is not the only recent offensive
against Kurdish actors that has helped militants to regroup. The Iraqi
government's military offensive against the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) following its independence referendum in October 2017
depleted the KRG's effectiveness in eradicating ISIS and other militant
groups in northern Iraq. Outgunned by Baghdad, the Kurdish Peshmerga
were quickly overpowered and were forced to withdraw from, among other
places, the strategic Hamrin mountains in Iraq's northeast Diyala
region. The Hamrin traditionally served as a stronghold for al-Qaeda in
Iraq and other anti-government groups. Prior to the Baghdad-directed
assault, KRG forces controlled the mountains, limiting their use as a
militant safe haven. It is no coincidence that we have seen a
significant uptick in militant activity in that area following Iraq's
offensive: After the KRG's withdrawal, Iraqi government forces declined
to set up a presence across the mountains, leaving a vacuum of
authority.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The most significant militant group operating in this area is
the White Banners (Al-Rayat al-Bayda), which is accurately referred to
as ``shadowy'' in press coverage. See discussion in: Borzou Daragahi,
``After the Black Flag of ISIS, Iraq Now Faces the White Flags,''
BuzzFeed, April, 1, 2018. (https://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/
isis-iraq-white-flags-syria-new-name?utm_term=.maLzwqZq0#.htO9ZMAM6);
Jeff Schogol, ``A `Post-ISIS Insurgency' is Gaining Steam in Northern
Iraq, Analysts Say,'' Task & Purpose, April 24, 2018. (https://
taskandpurpose.com/post-isis-insurgency-is-gaining-steam-in-iraq/)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to the recent breathing space that ISIS and other
militant groups have gained, militants are likely to capitalize on
festering Sunni grievances in Iraq. In the campaign to roll back ISIS
gains in Iraq, many Sunnis (Arab or Turkmen) were forcibly displaced by
the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), just as a large
number of Kurds have been displaced by Shiite Arabs since the PMF
helped Iraq's government to suppress the KRG last year. Tens of
thousands of young men with military training (ISIS or Peshmerga) now
stand in limbo, and could potentially be spurred to action by a
charismatic and well-resourced patron. The electoral success of Muqtada
al-Sadr's Sairoon Alliance, as well as the significant influence that
Iran wields inside Iraq, could further fuel the attractiveness of Sunni
militancy.
isis's ability to preserve its virtual planner model is critical
It is extremely likely that ISIS's ability to launch complex
attacks abroad, such as the November 2015 Paris attacks, will decline
significantly in the short to medium term. However, in recent years we
have seen ISIS pioneer a new model of external operations, dubbed the
``virtual planner'' model, which combines easy accessibility to
operatives via social media with advances in end-to-end encryption.\4\
While ISIS's territorial losses will significantly constrain its
capacity to launch attacks that rely on traditional safe havens, it is
more likely that the militant group will be able to preserve or
reestablish its virtual planner attack model.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ See discussion in: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine
Blackman, ``ISIL's Virtual Planners: A Critical Terrorist Innovation,''
War on the Rocks, January 4, 2017. (https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/
isils-virtual-planners-a-critical-terrorist-innovation/)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The virtual planner model allows on-line operatives to provide the
same offerings that were once the domain of physical networks,
including recruitment, coordinating the target and timing of attacks,
and even providing technical assistance on topics like bomb-making. In
this manner, ISIS has engineered a process by which the group's
operatives can directly guide lone attackers from thousands of miles
away. The virtual planner model is a highly significant development, as
it has helped transform lone attackers relying on the internet from the
bungling wannabes of a decade ago into something much more
dangerous.\5\ The operatives who are recruited and coached by virtual
planners have been seamlessly incorporated into jihadist groups' global
strategy in a way that ``lone wolves'' never were before.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ For a good synopsis of the ineffectiveness of DIY terrorism a
decade ago, see: Emily Hunt, ``Virtual Incompetence,'' The Weekly
Standard, August 17, 2006. (http://www.weeklystandard.com/virtual-
incompetence/article/13724)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In many ways, ISIS's virtual planner model is an outgrowth of, and
improvement upon, the radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki's approach.
Awlaki, an official and propagandist for al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP), became notorious for using the internet to call for
lone-wolf attacks. He hoped that lone-wolf attackers would complement,
rather than replace, al-Qaeda's centrally-directed plots--some of
which, such as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's Christmas Day 2009 underwear
bomb plot, Awlaki himself helped to plan.\6\ Through his public
statements, particularly his infamous YouTube sermons, Awlaki mobilized
scores of people, even after a U.S. airstrike took Awlaki's life in
2011. Recent plots influenced (at least in part) by Awlaki include the
September 2016 bombings in New York and New Jersey, the 2016 shooting
at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, and
the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Yet despite his skill as an
inspirational figure, all Awlaki could do was put out the call and hope
someone would take up arms in response. He was a product of the age of
mass communication and global interconnectivity, but even Awlaki's
superb oratorical skills could not match the feelings of ``remote
intimacy'' with people halfway across the world that can be fostered
through social media, or the volume and two-way nature of
communications that medium allows.\7\ As one example of the strength of
social media-based recruitment activities, Indian intelligence
officials believe that ISIS's South Asia virtual planner, Yusuf al-
Hindi, was in touch with over 800 Indians through Facebook and
WhatsApp.\8\ While ISIS's various propagandists seemingly lacked the
same kind of raw magnetism that Awlaki had for English speakers, they
had the advantage of exploiting a medium that is simply more engrossing
due to the constant contact it allows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ See: Peter Finn, ``Al-Awlaki Directed Christmas `Underwear
Bomber' Plot, Justice Department Memo Says,'' The Washington Post,
February 10, 2012. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/al-awlaki-directed-christmas-underwear-bomber-plot-justice-
department-memo-says/2012/02/10/gIQArDOt4Q_story.html?utm_term-
=.805626d41421)
\7\ See discussion in: J.M. Berger, ``The Metronome of Apocalyptic
Time: Social Media as Carrier Wave for Millenarian Contagion,''
Perspectives on Terrorism, 2015. (http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/
index.php/pot/article/view/444/html)
\8\ ``Yusuf al-Hindi: The Mysterious Islamic State Recruiter in
India Who's Got Intel Agencies Worried,'' First Post, July 19, 2016.
(https://www.firstpost.com/world/yusuf-al-hindi-mysterious-islamic-
state-recruiter-in-india-whos-got-intel-agencies-worried-2902536.html).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This continuous contact seemingly allowed a higher recruitment rate
than the essentially one-way communication of video postings. By
building an ``intimate'' relationship with the potential attacker, the
virtual planner provides encouragement and validation, addressing the
individual's doubts and hesitations. Virtual planners can replicate the
same social pressures that exist in in-person cells. As Peter
Weinberger of the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism put it, ``People will get
in these chat rooms and they will feel like they have a relationship
with someone. That's where the peer-to-peer contact is drawing them
in.''\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Quoted in: Stacy Meichtry and Sam Schechner, ``How Islamic
State Weaponized the Chat App to Direct Attacks on the West,'' The Wall
Street Journal, October 20, 2016. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-
islamic-state-weaponized-the-chat-app-to-direct-attacks-on-the-west-
1476955802)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In some instances, virtual planners have been in contact with
attackers until the very moment of the attack, supporting and prodding
these individuals into action even when they grew hesitant. In a July
2016 suicide bombing outside a concert in Ansbach, Germany, attacker
Mohammad Daleel told the virtual planner with whom he was communicating
that he found the security measures outside the concert daunting. The
Long War Journal reports their ensuring conversation:
``The unnamed operative told Daleel . . . to look for an appropriate
place to put his bomb and then try to `disappear into the crowd.' The
jihadist egged Daleel on, saying the asylum-seeker should `break
through police cordons,' run away and `do it.'
`` `Pray for me,' Daleel wrote at one point. `You do not know what is
happening with me right now,' Daleel typed, in an apparent moment of
doubt.
`` `Forget the festival and go over to the restaurant,' the handler
responded. `Hey man, what is going on with you? Even if just two people
were killed, I would do it. Trust in Allah and walk straight up to the
restaurant.' ''\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Thomas Joscelyn, ``Terror Plots in Germany, France Were
`Remote-Controlled' by Islamic State Operatives,'' FDD's Long War
Journal, September 24, 2016. (https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/
2016/09/terror-plots-in-germany-france-were-remote-controlled-by-
islamic-state-operatives.php)
And that is what Daleel did. He walked into a wine bar and blew
himself up, injuring 15 people. Had Daleel not been communicating with
a virtual planner up until the moment of attack, his cold feet very
likely would have prevented him from completing his terrorist mission.
In the past, virtual planners were integrated into ISIS's
geographical command structure. ISIS's virtual planners were assigned
areas of responsibility according to their nationality and linguistic
skills, and tasked with actively recruiting and handling attackers from
those areas. The decision to assign virtual planners to geographic
areas with which they were familiar allowed them to reach back to
contacts they still had in the domestic militant scene.
So will ISIS's virtual planner model survive into its post-
caliphate phase? On the one hand, the main equipment that virtual
planners require is an internet connection and good encryption, which
militates in favor of the model surviving. On the other hand, there are
at least a couple of countervailing considerations that will create
complications for ISIS's efforts to make this model continue with the
same tempo and the same deadly results. First, it is no coincidence
that ISIS's most prominent virtual planners were based in its caliphate
territory. While an internet connection and encryption are
theoretically all that a virtual planner requires, the fact that
virtual planners in ISIS's territory were not forced to constantly run
from authorities helped them to focus on their external operations
tasks. Further, the virtual planners were in close proximity to all the
expertise they needed to help their operatives do their jobs, if those
operatives needed technical assistance. The geographic dispersion of
ISIS's virtual planners may diminish the model's effectiveness.
Second, the available evidence suggests that ISIS's model is losing
a considerable amount, though not all, of its luster. ISIS recruitment
and plots are in decline, a drop that is particularly noticeable in the
United States. This fact is consistent with predictions I made in
previous testimony before the U.S. Senate, when I described ISIS's
appeal as a ``winner's message.''\11\ As ISIS's ability to portray
itself as a winning organization declines, so too does its ability to
recruit and inspire attacks. Thus, ISIS's plummeting fortunes may also
hamper the virtual planner model. However, it is worth noting that new
high-profile attacks or a major territorial advance--such as the
advance that overran the city of Marawi in the Philippines for several
months last year--could breathe new life into virtual planner efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, ``Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next
Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment,'' Testimony before the Senate
Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, May 7, 2015.
(http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/
Gartenstein_Ross_HSGAC_Testimony_Jihad2.0.pdf)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The continuation of the virtual planner model, including the tempo,
success, and lethality of virtual planner attacks, will be a leading
indicator of the continuing external operations threat that ISIS poses
in its post-caliphate manifestation.
global jihadism's growth
As noted at the beginning of this testimony, the global jihadist
movement's overall trajectory is one of growth, not of decline. One
factor that for years has been highly relevant to analysts' evaluation
of the threats posed by jihadist groups has been the presence of
ungoverned spaces that they can use as safe havens. Such spaces allow
jihadist organizations to establish key organizational functions, train
recruits, communicate, and plan terrorist plots or insurgent military
operations relatively unimpeded. Ungoverned spaces that jihadist groups
can exploit continue to play a larger role in the geopolitical picture
than they did at the time of the Arab Spring revolutions, and this
remains true even after ISIS's territorial collapse.
While ISIS is the group that observers associate most closely with
the holding of territory, several different jihadist groups now hold or
contest territory, even in Syria. In Libya, the government could never
reestablish its writ after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime in
2011. Jihadists have predictably exploited this situation. ISIS
succeeded in capturing and holding the city of Sirte for months, while
other jihadist groups have experienced even more sustained success. The
Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade (ASMB) and the Mujahedin Shura Council (MSC),
an umbrella organization in which ASMB plays a leading role, have been
major players in the eastern coastal city of Derna, frequently
exercising control over it. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb officially
endorsed the MSC in July 2015.\12\ Jihadists also have significant
operating space in Yemen despite the United States escalating its
kinetic campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. As the New
York Times recently reported, ``the threat of a terrorist attack--with
the most commonly feared target a commercial airliner--emanating from
the chaotic, ungoverned spaces of Yemen remains high on the
government's list of terrorism concerns.''\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See discussion in: Thomas Joscelyn, ``Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb Backs Jihadists Fighting Islamic State in Derna, Libya,'' FDD's
Long War Journal, July 9, 2015. (https://www.longwarjournal.org/
archives/2015/07/al-qaeda-in-the-islamic-maghreb-backs-jihadists-
fighting-islamic-state-in-derna-libya.php)
\13\ Eric Schmitt and Saeed al-Batati, ``The U.S. Has Pummeled Al
Qaeda in Yemen. But the Threat is Barely Dented,'' The New York Times,
December 30, 2017. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/world/
middleeast/yemen-al-qaeda-us-terrorism.html)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both Mali and Somalia face burgeoning jihadist-led insurgencies. In
Somalia, African Union forces have already begun to reduce their
numbers, bolstering the jihadist group al-Shabaab's hopes that it could
again become the dominant military force in southern Somalia. In the
place where the ``global war on terror'' began--Afghanistan/Pakistan--
not only has the Taliban been gaining ground, but available evidence,
including the discovery of a 30-square-mile al-Qaeda training facility
near Kandahar, suggests that the Taliban has not severed its ties to
al-Qaeda.\14\ ISIS has also established a foothold in Afghanistan,
where it has been responsible for a string of mass-casualty terrorist
attacks.\15\ And although it does not fit the mold of other safe
havens, which are typically made possible by ungoverned spaces, Turkey
merits a mention. In recent years, U.S. officials have openly expressed
alarm about Turkey's growing willingness to shelter violent jihadists,
including those connected to al-Qaeda.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ See: Dan Lamothe, `` `Probably the Largest' al-Qaeda Training
Camp Ever Destroyed in Afghanistan,'' The Washington Post, October 30,
2015. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/30/
probably-the-largest-al-qaeda-training-camp-ever-destroyed-in-
afghanistan/?utm_term=.afd665dd3af8)
\15\ See discussion in, for example: Krishnadev Calamur, ``ISIS in
Afghanistan is Like a Balloon that Won't Pop,'' The Atlantic, December
28, 2017. (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/12/
afghanistan-isis/549311/)
\16\ Joby Warrick, ``Double Game? Even as it Battles ISIS, Turkey
Gives Other Extremists Shelter,'' The Washington Post, July 10, 2016.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/double-game-
even-as-it-battles-isis-turkey-gives-other-extremists-shelter/2016/07/
10/8d6ce040-4053-11e6-a66f-
aa6c1883b6b1_story.html?utm_term=.93214ed047f5).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to ungoverned spaces and safe havens, jihadism has
experienced growth in areas where it had previously been marginalized.
Prior to the outbreak of the Arab Spring, analysts held that Egypt's
Hosni Mubarak had defeated the country's militant Islamic groups after
they overplayed their hand in the 1997 Luxor massacre.\17\ Today,
jihadism has powerfully reemerged, and there are more frequent attacks
than ever before by militant groups like ISIS's Wilayat Sinai,
including the devastating November 2017 attack on a Sufi mosque in
northern Sinai that claimed over 300 lives.\18\ In countries like
Tunisia and Jordan, jihadism has moved from an afterthought to a first-
order strategic concern. Meanwhile, there is a visible jihadist
resurgence from South to Southeast Asia, most dramatically underscored
last year by the months-long capture of the Philippine city of Marawi
by a regional ISIS affiliate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ See discussion in: Hassanein Tawfik Ibrahim, ``The Rise and
Fall of Militant Islamic Groups in Egypt,'' Violent Non-State Actors in
World Politics, Ed. Klejda Mulaj (New York: Columbia University Press,
2010).
\18\ Declan Walsh and Nour Youssef, ``Militants Kill 305 at Sufi
Mosque in Egypt's Deadliest Terrorist Attack,'' The New York Times,
November 24, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As jihadist groups are growing stronger, states face a growing
number of challenges. Populations are burgeoning while ecological
challenges and resource constraints are growing increasingly
burdensome. Some ecological challenges amplify one another: Climate
change makes food scarcity and water shortages more acute, which in
turn can contribute to more environmental degradation, such as
deforestation, as hungry populations scour for sustenance. Many
economies cannot keep up with the expectations of their growing
populations, while multiple states are saddled by unsustainable debt,
leaving them with fewer resources to navigate the extraordinary
challenges they confront.
The overall direction of the global jihadist movement is thus one
of growth, while the states that the movement seeks to topple face
growing challenges.
al-qaeda has exploited the ct focus on isis
For years, while international efforts focused on ISIS, al-Qaeda
flew relatively below the radar, building its support base in countries
like Syria and Yemen, establishing safe havens, destabilizing enemy
states, and preparing for a post-ISIS future.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ The arguments in this section are adapted from a longer piece
that I co-authored. For a more in-depth explanation of how al-Qaeda has
been able to exploit ISIS's rise, see: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and
Nathaniel Barr, ``How al-Qaeda Survived the Islamic State Challenge,''
Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, March 1, 2017. (https://
www.hudson.org/research/12788-how-al-qaeda-survived-the-islamic-state-
challenge)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even before ISIS's rise, al-Qaeda had adopted a strategy for growth
in the MENA region that entailed minimizing the amount of attention the
group attracted. Al-Qaeda's strategists saw the 2011 Arab Spring
revolutions as ``a great historical event,'' to quote bin Laden's only
public statement on the uprisings.\20\ Al-Qaeda's strategists assessed
the uprisings as significant in part because they were a ``historical
opportunity'' for the salafi jihadist movement, as senior al-Qaeda
official Atiyah Abd al-Rahman put it in a February 2011 statement.\21\
Al-Qaeda strategists calculated that the political turmoil and
instability of the post-revolutionary environment would play to the
group's strengths. Further, dozens to hundreds of veteran jihadists
were released from prison during and after the region's revolutions,
giving al-Qaeda an immediate infusion of experienced manpower.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Osama bin Ladin, ``Ila Ummati al-Muslima,'' Al-Sahab (Al-
Qaeda), May 19, 2011.
\21\ Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, ``The People's Revolt . . . The Fall of
Corrupt Arab Regimes . . . The Demolition of the Idol of Stability . .
. and the New Beginning,'' distributed by the Global Islamic Media
Front, February 16, 2011.
\22\ See contemporaneous discussion in: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and
Aaron Zelin, ``How the Arab Spring's Prisoner Releases Have Helped the
Jihadi Cause,'' The Atlantic, October 11, 2012. (http://
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-the-arab-springs-
prisoner-releases-have-helped-the-jihadi-cause/263469/); Hani al-
Siba'i, in particular, chronicled these prisoner releases as they were
occurring in the midst of the regional upheaval. See: Hani al-Siba'i,
``The Release of Prisoners After Nearly Twenty Years of Injustice,''
Ansar Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyah, February 23, 2011; Hani al-Siba'i,
``The Release of a New Batch After Long Years Behind Bars,'' Al-
Jahafal, February 27, 2011; Hani al-Siba'i, ``Urgent: The Release of a
New Batch of Those Charged with Military Verdicts,'' Ansar Dawlat al-
Iraq al-Islamiyah, March 4, 2011; Al-Maqrizi Center for Historical
Studies, ``Names of the Released Detainees from the al-Aqrab, al-
Istiqbal, al-Wadi, and Burj al-Arab Prisons,'' Shumukh al-Islam
Network, March 18, 2011.
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Al-Qaeda also concluded that political dynamics in post-
revolutionary countries had created a fertile environment for the group
to expand its support base, and to introduce new populations to its
theology and ideology. Post-revolutionary governments sought to
distinguish themselves from their authoritarian predecessors by lifting
restrictions on religious expression. Al-Qaeda saw this as an
opportunity, as it allowed the group to publicly disseminate its salafi
jihadist views to the general public in post-revolutionary states
without fear of an immediate crackdown. As Hamid bin Abdallah al-Ali, a
Kuwait-based jihadist commentator, remarked: ``The Islamic project
[will be] the greatest beneficiary from the environment of
freedom.''\23\ Al-Qaeda strategists directed supporters in Tunisia,
Egypt, and other post-revolutionary countries to engage in dawa
(evangelism), and to ``spring into action and initiate or increase
their preaching, education, reformation and revitalization in light of
the freedom and opportunities now available in this post revolution
era.''\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Hamid bin Abdallah al-Ali, ``The Joy Lies in the Harvest of
the Two Revolutions,'' posted on al-Ali's official website, February
15, 2011.
\24\ Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, ``The People's Revolt.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is where the group's emphasis on minimizing the attention that
it attracted came into play. Al-Qaeda calculated that use of its own
moniker could alienate potential supporters and invite negative
attention from Western counterterrorism actors. Al-Qaeda thus
established or supported groups with ambiguous names, including Ansar
al-Sharia in Tunisia and Libya, to mask its presence and spearhead its
public campaign in new places. Thus, the group's political operatives
focused on dawa: Preaching, providing social services, and gaining the
support of local populations. These political efforts were designed in
part to lay the groundwork for an eventual military confrontation with
the state. Al-Qaeda's emphasis on dawa and community outreach allowed
it to amass a considerable following in Libya and Tunisia. A 2012
conference in Tunisia hosted by Ansar al-Sharia, for example, drew
between 3,000 and 10,000 participants.\25\ In this way, al-Qaeda came
to maintain a presence in almost every country that experienced
significant turmoil during the Arab uprisings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Bridget Moreng, ``An Escalation in
Tunisia: How the State Went to War with Ansar al-Sharia,'' War on the
Rocks, February 24, 2014. (http://warontherocks.com/2014/02/an-
escalation-in-tunisia-how-the-state-went-to-war-with-ansar-al-sharia/)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After this initial stage of growth, ISIS's emergence as a jihadist
competitor presented al-Qaeda with a challenge unlike any other the
group had encountered. Among other challenges, ISIS's rapid ascent
threatened to disrupt al-Qaeda's deliberate growth model, and oust al-
Qaeda from its position of supremacy over the jihadist movement. ISIS's
strategy was diametrically opposed to al-Qaeda's. While al-Qaeda often
grew through clandestine means, ISIS stole the spotlight at every
opportunity. ISIS built a robust propaganda apparatus suited for the
digital age, pumping out a constant stream of videos, photos, and
statements advertising its victories that were widely disseminated by
its social media legions. With this brash approach, ISIS openly wooed
al-Qaeda's affiliates, attempting to absorb its parent's global
network.
It was widely assumed at the time that the only way al-Qaeda could
remain influential was by replicating ISIS's conspicuous model--for
example, by carrying out spectacular terrorist attacks to reassert the
group's relevance.\26\ But rather than trying to replicate ISIS's
model, al-Qaeda took the opposite approach. Al-Qaeda reduced its public
profile, downplayed its successes rather than publicizing them, and
embedded further within local populations. In this way, al-Qaeda
presented itself to the world as a more palatable alternative to its
bloodthirsty rival.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ See: Clint Watts, ``Al Qaeda Loses Touch,'' Foreign Affairs,
February 4, 2015. (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/
2015-02-04/al-qaeda-loses-touch)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The interactions al-Qaeda leaders had with the media provide a
valuable lens through which to understand the group's strategy for
benefiting from ISIS's rise. In a discussion with an Al-Jazeera
documentarian in early 2015, Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir, a high-ranking
Nusra Front religious official who hails from Australia, accused ISIS
of ``delegitimizing'' other Sunni Muslim groups.\27\ Muhajir contrasted
ISIS with the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, which he portrayed as
trying to ``restore the right of the Muslim people to choose their
leaders'' in Syria. Further, in June 2015, the Guardian published an
extended interview with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada, two of
al-Qaeda's most senior religious figures, that revealed another
remarkable aspect of al-Qaeda's strategy. Rather than trying to
convince the audience of al-Qaeda's strength or continued relevance,
they instead concentrated on fueling the illusion that ISIS had already
destroyed al-Qaeda. Maqdisi claimed that al-Qaeda's organizational
structure had ``collapsed,'' while Qatada alleged that al-Qaeda emir
Ayman al-Zawahiri had become ``isolated.''\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ The Al-Jazeera documentary featuring al-Muhajir can be found
at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD_A3CHzvjQ.
\28\ Shiv Malik, Mustafa Khalili, Spencer Ackerman, and Ali Younis,
``How Isis Crippled Al-Qaida,'' The Guardian (UK), June 10, 2015.
(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/how-isis-crippled-al-
qaida)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consistent with these media themes, when al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) seized control of the Yemeni port city of Mukalla, the
group appointed a local council, known as the Hadhrami Domestic
Council, to govern the city. Initially AQAP adopted a gradualist,
rather lenient approach to the implementation of Sharia law (though it
eventually began cracking down more heavily on Sharia violations).\29\
In this way, AQAP tried to win over local Yemenis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Ayesha Amr, ``How al Qaeda Rules in Yemen,'' Foreign Affairs,
October 28, 2015. (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2015-
10-28/how-al-qaeda-rules-yemen)
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Ultimately, al-Qaeda was able to make some gains based on its
response to ISIS's rise. While ISIS horrified the world and alienated
Sunni Muslims with its excessive violence and brutality, al-Qaeda
appealed to local populations and other armed factions by casting
itself as a less extreme, more tolerable, and more effective
alternative to ISIS. At the same time, al-Qaeda avoided advertising its
victories, and resisted the temptation to engage in a bloody battle for
supremacy with ISIS.
tackling jihadists' exploitation of consumer-oriented technological
advances
Turning from the present threat to what we may face in the future,
anticipating and mitigating jihadists' ability to leverage
technological advances is critical. Technology has historically had an
ambiguous impact on sub-state violence. On the one hand, states can
leverage new advances, including for surveillance purposes and
gathering information from local populations.\30\ On the other hand,
militant groups can capitalize on these same platforms. But many key
recent advances appear to, on the whole, favor jihadists. This is
likely because the world has witnessed breakthroughs across so many
spheres--including social media, encrypted end-to-end communication,
and consumer drone technology--that exploiting new advances has
seemingly proven easier for those who would use these technologies for
the more straightforward task of destruction than for those who want to
use them to protect.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ One of the most important studies on this issue, by political
scientists Jacob Shapiro and Nils Weidmann, used micro-level data from
Iraq to compare trends in cellphone network penetration with insurgent
violence. The trends in declining violence that Shapiro and Weidmann
found suggested ``that cellphone coverage reduces insurgent violence
largely because it enhances voluntary information flow from
noncombatants to counterinsurgents by reducing the risks of
informing.'' Jacob N. Shapiro and Nils B. Weidmann, ``Is the Phone
Mightier Than the Sword?: Cellphones and Insurgent Violence in Iraq,''
International Organization, March 2015, page 271.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An early post-Arab Spring indication of jihadists' ability to
leverage technological advances was the manner in which these groups
drove a record number of foreign fighters to the Syria-Iraq theater.
ISIS, in particular, combined a deft exploitation of social media's
potential with breakthroughs in do-it-yourself video production
techniques to craft slick and effective propaganda.\31\ Suspensions of
pro-ISIS accounts by service providers later reduced, but did not
eliminate, the returns that ISIS could expect from social media.\32\ As
I explained earlier in this testimony, ISIS's exploitation of social
media would ultimately lend itself to the highly effective virtual
planner model.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ See discussion in: J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, The ISIS
Twitter Census: Defining and Describing the Population of ISIS
Supporters on Twitter (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution,
2015).
\32\ J.M. Berger and Heather Perez, The Islamic State's Diminishing
Returns on Twitter: How Suspensions Are Limiting the Social Networks of
English-Speaking ISIS Supporters (Washington, DC: George Washington
University, 2016). Since the publication of this study, it has become
even more difficult for ISIS and some other jihadist groups to exploit
mainstream social media platforms, but their migration to alternative
platforms has escalated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are also technological advances that jihadist groups have not
yet employed in Western countries, but that they have already begun
using in Iraq and Syria. In January 2017, researchers from West Point's
Combating Terrorism Center and Harvard University's Belfer Center
published an article examining documents that the Iraqi military had
captured that shed light on ISIS's program for developing and enhancing
its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capabilities.\33\ They found that
ISIS had ``a formal, institutionalized, and resourced drone unit as
early as 2015,'' and that the group already planned to use UAVs in an
offensive capacity. And ISIS did indeed use UAVs for military purposes.
BuzzFeed's Mike Giglio did some valuable embedded reporting from Iraq
during the campaign to push ISIS from its territorial stronghold. In a
report published in June 2017, he graphically described ISIS's use of
UAVs against Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force (ICTF) fighters with whom he
was embedded:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Don Rassler, Muhammad al-`Ubaydi, and Vera Mironovo, ``The
Islamic State's Drone Documents: Management, Acquisitions, and DIY
Tradecraft,'' CTC Sentinel, January 31, 2017. (https://ctc.usma.edu/
posts/ctc-perspectives-the-islamic-states-drone-documents-management-
acquisitions-and-diy-tradecraft)
``ISIS drones swarm overhead as the battalion's convoy pushes into the
outskirts of western Mosul the next morning. One after another they
drop grenades, wreaking havoc as soldiers fire their weapons wildly
into the sky. From one of the Humvees, I watch as the battalion's
portly cook makes his lunch rounds in an armored truck, driving up and
down the convoy to deliver Styrofoam boxes of food. The drones track
him, dropping grenades as soldiers gather to collect the boxes. They
are remotely piloted by militants who weave in and out of civilian
neighborhoods on motorbikes to take cover from airstrikes. ISIS also
uses the video feeds on the drones to coordinate mortars and car bombs.
On the front lines, its fighters are standing their ground, and
soldiers at the head of the convoy can hear them shouting, `Allahu
Akbar.' ''\34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Mike Giglio, ``Inside the Fight for Mosul,'' BuzzFeed, June 3,
2017. (https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/on-the-front-lines-of-the-
fight-with-isis?utm_term=.derRJnBnX#.- gy94lZxZ2)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January of this year, Russian forces in Syria destroyed a swarm
of 13 improvised UAVs as they approached the Khmeimim air base and
Tartus naval facility to carry out an attack. Though no Russian forces
were killed, this fact should not cause undue complacency: As militant
groups innovate, their early efforts often seem to be failures, but
instead are sometimes better understood as steps in the learning
process. Moreover, the Russian investigation of the UAVs revealed their
impressive range. The UAVs were ``launched from a site more than 50
kilometres (31 miles) distant from their targets,'' and had a 62-mile
attacking range.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Peter Dockrill, ``First-Ever Drone Swarm Attack Has Struck
Russian Military Bases, Sources Claim,'' Science Alert, January 11,
2018. (http://www.sciencealert.com/swarm-home-made-drones-strike-
military-base-first-attack-kind-russia-uavs)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The militant uses I have outlined of social media, encryption, and
drones illustrate a key pattern: As a consumer technology becomes
widely available, terrorists will look for ways to adapt it. Looking to
the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will almost certainly end up
fitting into this pattern. Like drones, AI will become more widely
available in commercial markets at reduced costs, and individuals will
be able to modify and repurpose it.\36\ AI already enjoys diverse
applications, from products like Apple's Siri, to voice-to-text, to
Facebook's counter-extremism detection systems.\37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Stuart Russell, Daniel Dewey, and Max Tegmark, ``Research
Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence,'' AI
Magazine, Winter 2015. (https://futureoflife.org/data/documents/
research_priorities.pdf?x70892)
\37\ ``Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg's Senate Hearing,'' The
Washington Post, April 10, 2018. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/
the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/transcript-of-mark-zuckerbergs-senate-hearing/
?utm_term=.d7f4a1d66685&noredirect=on)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So how might terrorists use AI? Perhaps they will start with
social-network mapping. ISIS's early battlefield victories were
enabled, in part, by ex-Baathist intelligence operatives who mapped a
city's key players and power brokers, monitored their pattern of life,
and then helped ISIS to arrest or kill them. Similarly, when North
African ISIS operatives attacked the Tunisian town of Ben Gardane in
March 2016, the available evidence--including the efficient way they
killed key security officials--suggested that the militants had
similarly worked to learn the human terrain in advance.\38\ Will social
networks built using AI capabilities reduce the intelligence burden on
militant groups and make it easier for them to conquer towns and
cities? What of the next generation of terror drones? Will they use AI-
enabled swarming to become more powerful and deadlier? Will terrorists
use self-driving vehicles for their next car bombs and ramming attacks?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Farah Samti and Declan Walsh, ``Tunisian Clash Spreads Fear
that Libyan War is Spilling Over,'' The New York Times, March 7, 2016.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/world/africa/attack-tunisia-libya-
border.html)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How about assassinations? Max Tegmark's book Life 3.0 notes the
concern of UC Berkeley computer scientist Stuart Russell, who worries
that the biggest winners from an AI arms race would be ``small rogue
states and non-state actors such as terrorists'' who can access these
weapons through the black market.\39\ Tegmark writes that after they
are ``mass-produced, small AI-powered killer drones are likely to cost
little more than a smartphone.'' Would-be assassins could simply
``upload their target's photo and address into the killer drone: it can
then fly to the destination, identify and eliminate the person, and
self-destruct to ensure that nobody knows who was responsible.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial
Intelligence, Kindle ed. (New York: Knopf, 2017), loc. 2142 of 6579.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thinking beyond trigger-pulling, artificial intelligence could
boost a wide range of violent non-state actors' criminal activities,
including extortion and kidnapping, through the automation of social
engineering attacks.\40\ The militant recruiters of the near-future may
boost their on-line radicalization efforts with chatbots, which played
a ``small but strategic role'' in shaping the Brexit vote.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ John Markoff, ``As Artificial Intelligence Evolves, So Does
Its Criminal Potential,'' The New York Times, October 23, 2016.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/24/technology/artificial-intelligence-
evolves-with-its-criminal-potential.html)
\41\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 9/11 Commission's report famously devoted an entire section to
discussing how the 9/11 attacks' success in part represented a failure
in imagination by authorities.\42\ A failure in imagination as AI, and
emergent technologies, become cheaper and more widely available could
potentially be even costlier.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), pages 339-48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
conclusion
As I have explained, ISIS's territorial decline does in fact make
us safer. Yet despite ISIS's decline, the global jihadist movement is
not receding, but rather growing, while the states that the movement
seeks to topple experience mounting challenges. As I have outlined, the
continuity of ISIS's virtual planner model will be a leading-edge
indicator of the threat that the organization poses in the short to
medium term to the American homeland and other Western states.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda remains robust, and managed to in many ways turn
ISIS's meteoric ascent into a strategic opportunity.
But as challenging as the current environment is, the rapid
improvement and diffusion of a range of consumer technologies will
likely allow various terrorist groups to pose a greater threat in the
future. That is why I closed this testimony by emphasizing how these
groups will attempt to exploit emerging technologies. Although
jihadists currently seem to be getting more out of new technologies
than do states, the advantages bestowed by new technologies can be
understood as a pendulum, and states may be able to gain the upper hand
in the future. In the interim, we should brace ourselves to deal with
greater terrorist challenges related to these groups' adoption of new
technologies.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to
answering your questions.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you, Doctor. I would like to
mention, this committee will be--I will be introducing an
unmanned aerial system bill that I hope to mark up out of this
committee, and thank you for mentioning technology.
Dr. Geltzer is recognized.
STATEMENT OF JOSHUA A. GELTZER, FORMER SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR
COUNTERTERRORISM, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
Mr. Geltzer. Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson,
distinguished Members, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before this committee. It is an honor to do so, especially
alongside such distinguished witnesses. ISIS's so-called
caliphate in Iraq and Syria is shriveling, but it is not gone.
The threat posed by ISIS persists and is evolving into new
forms as ISIS adapts to the loss of its core territorial safe
haven.
I want to focus for now on three particular causes for
concern about the threat posed by ISIS today. Its continuing
hold on territory; its persistent foothold on the internet to
recruit and radicalize followers; and its potential turn to
novel forms of cyberterrorism.
Regrettably, elements of the Trump administration's
approach to all three aspects of today's ISIS threat appear to
be aggravating that threat rather than minimizing it.
The encouraging fact that we are even considering what
threat ISIS will pose post-caliphate is a testament to both the
Obama and Trump administration's relentless execution of the
counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria. But the last mile of
defeating a terrorist group can be the hardest one. That is a
lesson, as others have acknowledged already, that the United
States learned all too well from the remnants of ISIS's
predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Today, thousands of ISIS fighters appear to be enjoying a
worrisome opportunity to regroup, partly because the United
States has been unable to keep in the fight against ISIS our
key counterterrorism partner on the ground, the Syrian Kurds.
That setback reflects the Trump administration's inability to
manage a delicate diplomatic balance between the Kurds and the
Turkish government. So long as the Kurds remain occupied with
defending themselves against Turkey, rather than pursuing ISIS,
the group is likely to retain territorial safe haven from which
to plot against us, and will continue to lay claim to a
purported caliphate, the rallying cry for ISIS's continued
recruitment efforts via the internet.
That points toward the second aspect of ISIS's persistent
threat: The group's use of social media, file upload sites, and
other modern communications platforms to radicalize and
mobilize followers world-wide. ISIS's on-line messages has
multiple themes, and if battlefield losses force the group to
shift away from messages emphasizing the holding of territory,
the group can pivot toward its claim to victimhood.
Unfortunately, ISIS's internet-enabled message has
resonated even here in the United States with individuals such
as Omar Mateen in Orlando, and Sayfullo Saipov in New York.
With territorial holdings dwindling, ISIS's virtual foothold
may increase in importance to the group. That is particularly
concerning in light of aggravating factors for radicalization
of the Trump administration's own making.
Donald Trump, as a Presidential candidate and now as
President, has spoken about Islam and Muslims in ways that
validate ISIS's attempt to portray the United States as waging
war on a religion and its people. Moreover, President Trump has
pursued policies that further alienate key communities whose
cooperation is vital to identifying those who might be
vulnerable to ISIS's appeal, and to intervening before such
individuals turn to violence.
Those policies include imposing a travel ban that bears
little relation to any real threats, but offends key
communities and foreign partners alike. Those policies also
include withdrawing previously awarded grants to organizations
dedicated to addressing white supremacists' brand of violent
extremism, giving the distinct impression that the Trump
administration is interested in countering terrorism only when
it is carried out by groups purporting to act in the name of
Islam.
Thus far, radicalization has been ISIS's primary use of the
internet. But that may change as ISIS loses physical territory
and looks to new forms of cyberterrorism. Such efforts would
build on earlier ISIS cyber activity, such as the fast and
public release of personally identifiable information about
U.S. service members. In the years since, malicious cyber
activity has dramatically increased with powerful hacking tools
more readily available to non-state actors such as ISIS. Here,
too, there is cause for concern that the Trump administration
is not appropriately tackling the challenge.
The top position overseeing cyber policy at the White House
is vacant, and the next most senior cyber position was recently
eliminated. If ISIS turns to new types of cyber operations to
regain momentum and inflict harm, this lack of leadership to
provide strategic guidance and interagency coordination may
prove a serious vulnerability.
The crumbling of ISIS's caliphate in Iraq and Syria is a
major positive development for U.S. National security, but it
is not the end of the threat posed by ISIS. With some physical
territories still under its control, a virtual foothold on the
internet still in place, and the potential to turn to novel
forms of cyberterrorism, ISIS represents a continuing danger to
Americans at home and abroad. All of this would be challenging
enough, but the challenge is compounded by aggravating factors
of the Trump administration's own making.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be here, and I look
forward to the committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Geltzer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joshua A. Geltzer
May 23, 2018
Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of the
committee, thank you for this opportunity to address the persistent
threat posed by ISIS even as its physical safe haven in Iraq and Syria
shrinks and the implications of this persistent threat for the United
States and the West.
ISIS's purported caliphate in Iraq and Syria is shriveling, but it
is not gone. That, in itself, poses a continuing threat to the United
States, one worsened by the current administration's inability to keep
our key partner in the fight against ISIS. Moreover, even as ISIS faces
increasing pressure in physical space, it retains a significant
foothold in virtual space, and will utilize the global following that
it has built through the internet to continue to reach into the United
States to recruit and radicalize followers. That threat is,
unfortunately, also aggravated by factors of our own current
leadership's making, with both rhetoric and policies that are
alienating key communities. Finally, ISIS could turn to new forms of
attacks against American targets, including novel types of cyber
operations, against which the United States appears to be lagging in
its preparation.
isis's continuing hold on territory in syria
That ISIS has been dislodged from almost all of the territory that
it once held in Iraq and Syria is a tremendous accomplishment for which
both the Obama and Trump administrations deserve major credit. From the
work of our military on the ground and in the skies to target ISIS
fighters, to the work of our diplomats to build and maintain an
unprecedented coalition of partners, to the work of our intelligence
community to track and locate key ISIS figures, to the work of our law
enforcement and homeland security professionals to constrain the flow
of Americans to the battlefield as foreign fighters, the progress
achieved in the counter-ISIS campaign reflects the remarkable
capability and dedication of America's National security officials.
But, as I have noted elsewhere, ``the last mile of defeating a
terrorist group can be the hardest one, as the United States learned
all too well from the lingering remnants of ISIS's predecessor, al-
Qaeda in Iraq.''\1\ And, with respect to ISIS today, thousands of
fighters appear to be enjoying a worrisome opportunity to regroup. That
is in significant part because the United States has lost its key
counterterrorism partner on the ground in Syria, the Syrian Kurds, a
major setback that reflects the current administration's inability to
manage a delicate diplomatic balance between them and the Turkish
government. Since the earliest days of the counter-ISIS campaign,
Washington has had to address both Turkish fears and Syrian Kurdish
ambitions so as to retain, on the one hand, a key counter-ISIS and NATO
partner in Turkey and, on the other hand, a vital counterterrorism
ground force in the Syrian Kurds. In recent months, this delicate but
essential arrangement has fallen apart, with the Turks bombing Kurds in
the northern Syrian city of Afrin and, in response, fellow Kurds
turning away from their pursuit of ISIS into the Euphrates River Valley
to defend their brethren against the Turks. All told, and as I have
explained at greater length elsewhere, ``the Trump administration's
inability to continue managing the tensions between Turkey and the
Syrian Kurds is providing the Islamic State with the time and space to
regroup and pose a resurgent threat to the United States and the rest
of the world.''\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Joshua A. Geltzer, ``The Perils of a Post-ISIS Middle East,''
The Atlantic, December 27, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/
international/archive/2017/12/middle-east-isis-syria-kurds-iran-iraq-
turkey-trump/549227/.
\2\ Joshua A. Geltzer, ``When Diplomacy Disappears,'' Foreign
Policy, April 18, 2018, http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/18/when-
diplomacy-disappears-counterterrorism-isis-syria-turkey-kurds-ypg-pkk-
erdogan-trump/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While one recent report suggests that a small number of those
partner forces might be returning to the counter-ISIS fight, most
appear still to have abandoned it, leaving the counter-ISIS campaign
``effectively ground to a halt.''\3\ That is a dangerous development
for at least two reasons. First, it provides the remaining thousands of
ISIS fighters with the type of safe haven that enables ISIS to plot
attacks and rebuild networks into the West. That means ISIS can
continue to use that space to hatch plots against us, as well as the
safe havens outside Iraq and Syria that ISIS has built and even appears
to be expanding, especially in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.\4\
Second, it allows ISIS to continue to lay claim to a purported physical
caliphate--the rallying cry for ISIS's continuing virtual presence
intended to recruit and radicalize followers through the internet. That
means ISIS can continue to inspire attacks wherever its message
resonates with vulnerable individuals, including here in the United
States--a broader challenge to which I now turn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Eric Schmitt, ``American Warplanes Shift Tactics to Target Last
ISIS Pockets in Eastern Syria,'' The New York Times, April 24, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/world/middleeast/american-warplanes-
isis-syria.html.
\4\ Yaroslav Trofimov, ``Faraway ISIS Branches Grow as `Caliphate'
Fades in Syria and Iraq,'' The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2018,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/faraway-isis-branches-grow-as-caliphate-
fades-in-syria-and-iraq-1526558401.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
isis's persistent virtual presence
As I have described in more detail elsewhere, while ISIS's ``claim
to a physical caliphate helped [ISIS] to grab attention and gain
adherents since its 2014 surge, that message gained swift global
traction because of the group's sophisticated use of social media,
file-upload sites, and other modern communications platforms to
radicalize and mobilize followers world-wide.''\5\ The crumbling of the
physical caliphate will undercut the credibility of key aspects of
ISIS's on-line appeal, but it will not undermine the group's messaging
entirely, nor will it dislodge the virtual foothold that ISIS has built
for itself on-line, even as leading technology companies have taken
some meaningful steps to address ISIS's persistent presence on their
platforms.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Joshua A. Geltzer, ``ISIL, al-Qaeda, and What Goes Viral Next:
Why Tomorrow's Jihadist Movement Might Not Look so Different from
Today's,'' Texas National Security Review, March 20, 2018, https://
tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-future-jihadist-movement/#essay4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is because ISIS has a multi-faceted recruitment message; and,
as battlefield losses force it to shift away from on-line messaging
emphasizing the holding of territory and the attempt to govern such
territory, ISIS can fall back on other themes to rally the faithful and
appeal to those potentially vulnerable to the group's outreach. Charlie
Winter has identified six such themes: Brutality, mercy, victimhood,
war, belonging, and utopianism.\6\ If emphasizing the theme of war
appears to ISIS less promising for a period of time, at least in
relation to battlefield trends in Iraq and Syria, then the theme of,
for example, victimhood remains available. In this sense, ISIS's
message is essentially non-falsifiable: Victories and progress
vindicate aspects of that message, but setbacks and suffering vindicate
other aspects.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Charlie Winter, ``The Virtual `Caliphate': Understanding
Islamic State's Propaganda Strategy,'' Quilliam, July 2015,
www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/2589.
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The most important of ISIS's themes, especially for luring new
recruits, may well be that of belonging. Alongside the group's
proclaiming of a purported caliphate and holding of a wide swath of
territory, its most distinctive accomplishment has been cultivating a
sense of belonging among audience members around the world--even many
who have never joined the group on the battlefield and do not intend to
do so. Through visceral appeals to a sense of community grounded in the
physical caliphate but extending far beyond it, ISIS has made these
followers and supporters feel part of something bigger than themselves
by belonging to ISIS and its movement. This is why my former White
House colleague Jen Easterly and I have objected to the use of ``lone
wolves'' to describe those inspired by ISIS to execute attacks from
Orlando to Manchester to Berlin: ``The Islamic State thus offers a
chance to those who feel alone--those who may lack opportunities or who
may simply disagree with the politics or mores of the society around
them--not to be lone actors'' but to belong to something bigger
instead.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Jen Easterly & Joshua A. Geltzer, ``The Islamic State and the
End of Lone-Wolf Terrorism,'' Foreign Policy, May 23, 2017, http://
foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/23/the-islamic-state-and-the-end-of-lone-
wolf-terrorism/.
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ISIS's internet-enabled message has, unfortunately, resonated even
here in the United States. From American citizen Omar Mateen, who was
responsible for the death of 50 innocent victims through his assault on
Orlando's Pulse Nightclub, to lawful permanent resident Sayfullo
Saipov, who has been charged with killing 8 innocent victims with a
rental truck in downtown Manhattan last Halloween, some who live on
U.S. soil have proven susceptible to ISIS's hateful exhortations of
violence. As Peter Bergen has documented, a common link among those who
attempt or succeed in terrorist activity in the United States is their
consumption of terrorist recruitment materials on-line.\8\ ISIS's
ability to reach across National borders and into our country to
attempt to recruit and radicalize followers is simply not going to
disappear even as the group's physical foothold in Iraq and Syria
shrinks. If anything, ISIS's virtual foothold may increase in
importance to the group, leading it to devote more energy and effort to
sustaining and augmenting the sense of belonging that ISIS has been
able to cultivate among supporters world-wide. Indeed, as ISIS's
leadership reportedly focuses on ``crafting an ideological framework
that will survive the physical destruction of the caliphate in Iraq and
Syria,''\9\ it seems almost certain that the group intends to
communicate and propagate that framework in significant part on-line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Peter Bergen, ``Jihadist Terrorism 15 Years After 9/11: A
Threat Assessment,'' New America, September 8, 2016, https://
www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-papers/jihadist-
terrorism-15-years-after-911/.
\9\ Joby Warrick & Souad Mekhennet, ``New Clues Bolster Belief that
ISIS Leader Is Still Alive--and Busy with a Chilling New Mission,'' The
Washington Post, May 19, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/
national-security/new-clues-bolster-belief-that-isis-leader-is-still-
alive-and-busy-with-a-chilling-new-mission/2018/05/19/83c2a62e-5ad2-
11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?utm_term=.83a2b7b662b6.
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aggravating factors of the white house's own making
ISIS's continuing ability to mobilize potential terrorists here in
the United States would be concerning enough, but that concern is
compounded by rhetoric and policies of the current administration that
are making the problem worse. Donald Trump, as a Presidential candidate
and now as President, has persistently spoken about Islam and Muslims
in ways that validate ISIS's attempt to portray the United States as
waging war on a religion and its people. As a candidate, Donald Trump
said, ``We have a problem in this country; it's called Muslims''; he
called for ``a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the
United States''; he characterized Muslims as ``sick people''; he stated
that ``We're having problems with the Muslims''; and, regrettably, he
has said much more along these lines as well, even as President.\10\ In
addition to being appalling, this sort of language appears to validate
ISIS's message and alienates key communities in the United States and
abroad whose cooperation is vital to identifying those who might be
vulnerable to ISIS's appeal and to intervening before such individuals
turn to violence. Moreover, President Trump's ``habit of stoking fears
rather than reassuring the public in the wake of terrorist
attacks''\11\ increases the impact of those attacks precisely as
terrorists desire, rather than thwarting terrorists' goal of spreading
fear as good counterterrorism strategy demands by ``building resilience
[that] can minimize the effects of terrorism.''\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Jenna Johnson & Abigail Hauslohner, `` `I Think Islam Hates
Us': A Timeline of Trump's Comments About Islam and Muslims,'' The
Washington Post, May 20, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/
post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/i-think-islam-hates-us-a-timeline-of-
trumps-comments-about-islam-and-muslims/?utm_term=.05443facd771.
\11\ Joshua A. Geltzer & Stephen Tankel, ``Whatever Happened to
Trump's Counterterrorism Policy?'', The Atlantic, March 1, 2018,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/trump-
terrorism-iraq-syria-al-qaeda-isis/554333/.
\12\ Jennie M. Easterly & Joshua A. Geltzer, ``More Die in Bathtubs
than in Terrorism. It's Still Worth Spending Billions to Fight It,''
CNN.com, May 21, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/opinions/deadly-
bathtub-compared-to-terrorism-opinion-geltzer-easterly/index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond counterproductive language, President Trump has pursued
policies that further alienate those communities and make us less safe
rather than more. Most notable among these is the travel ban, now in
its third iteration and under review by the Supreme Court. As I wrote
recently alongside former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper
and former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matt Olsen,
``Trump's travel ban fails to respond to threats to our country and
actually undermines our security.''\13\ The ban simply is not
responsive to real threats: no national from any of the countries
affected by the ban has caused any of the terrorism-related deaths on
U.S. soil since 1975. But the ban does create threats to the
effectiveness of our country's counterterrorism efforts. As we
explained:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ James R. Clapper, Jr., Joshua A. Geltzer, & Matthew G. Olsen,
``We've Worked on Stopping Terrorism. Trump's Travel Ban Fuels It,''
CNN.com, April 23, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/opinions/trump-
travel-ban-fuels-terrorism-clapper-geltzer-olsen/index.html.
``The ban is so obviously, palpably, indeed explicitly anti-Muslim in
nature that it has--understandably--offended Muslim-American
communities around the world, including in the United States. Yet those
are precisely the communities that can prove critical for identifying
and responding to individuals becoming radicalized by groups like ISIS
and al-Qaeda. Moreover, effective counterterrorism relies heavily on
robust intelligence-sharing relationships with foreign governments.
Banning all travelers from a foreign country seems a surefire way to
offend that country's government and impede intelligence-sharing,
rather than enhancing the flow of information about terrorist threats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
as effective counterterrorism requires.''
The travel ban is, unfortunately, not alone among President Trump's
policies that have been counterproductive for keeping Americans safe
from terrorism. For example, the Trump administration withdrew
previously awarded grants to organizations dedicated to addressing
white supremacists' brand of violent extremism, a baffling decision
that came to look particularly egregious after the deadly violence last
August in Charlottesville, Virginia.\14\ These types of policies make
Americans less safe not only by deliberately doing less to protect them
from domestic terrorism--which can be just as deadly as terrorism
associated with jihadist organizations such as ISIS\15\ and, as my
Georgetown Law Center colleague Mary McCord has explained, just as
morally repugnant\16\--but also by giving the distinct impression that
the Trump administration is interested in terrorism only when it is
being carried out by groups purporting to act in the name of Islam.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Ron Nixon & Eileen Sullivan, ``Revocation of Grants to Help
Fight Hate Under New Scrutiny After Charlottesville,'' The New York
Times, August 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/
right-wing-extremism-charlottesville.html.
\15\ Miriam Valverde, ``A Look at the Data on Domestic Terrorism
and Who's Behind It,'' PolitiFact, August 16, 2017, http://
www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/aug/16/look-data-
domestic-terrorism-and-whos-behind-it/.
\16\ Mary B. McCord, ``Criminal Law Should Treat Domestic Terrorism
as the Moral Equivalent of International Terrorism,'' Lawfare, August
21, 2017, https://lawfareblog.com/criminal-law-should-treat-domestic-
terrorism-moral-equivalent-international-terrorism.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All told, President Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies play
into ISIS's hands as the group seeks to mobilize followers in the
United States and around the world. The President's language and
policies serve as aggravating factors in the already-difficult
challenge associated with addressing ISIS's ability to radicalize
followers through the internet.
new forms of cyber terrorism
Thus far, radicalization has been ISIS's primary utilization of the
internet: As noted, the group has made novel use of social media, file-
upload sites, and other modern communication platforms to inspire
attacks world-wide. As ISIS loses its hold on physical territory in
Syria, one concerning possibility is that the group will look to new
forms of cyber terrorism to cause harm here in the United States.
Without as much of a physical safe haven from which to plot attacks
and inspire followers, ISIS may seek to wreak havoc through cyber
operations that do not require large numbers of fighters or expansive
territorial holdings. Such efforts would build on earlier ISIS cyber
efforts, such as the collaboration between now-imprisoned Ardit
Ferizi\17\ and the late Junaid Hussain\18\ to obtain and then make
public the personally-identifiable information of U.S. service members.
In the years since those efforts, malicious cyber activity outside the
context of terrorism has dramatically increased, with powerful hacking
tools no longer the exclusive province of nation-states. This would
seem to make obtaining and using those tools increasingly appealing
and, unfortunately, increasingly feasible for a terrorist group such as
ISIS. For example, if ISIS were able to recruit and utilize the right
technological expertise and acquire the increasingly available tools to
do so, ISIS might exfiltrate sensitive data from computer systems or
simply alter it in ways that could generate mayhem for financial
markets or medical records. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely
given ISIS's desire to instill fear and grab headlines through dramatic
attacks, ISIS might attempt to cause tangible damage in the physical
world by hacking into the systems that are used to control and operate
power plants and electric grids. These sorts of cyber operations would
be novel for a terrorist group; and they would not only cause real
damage but also generate the type of excitement and belief among
followers and supporters that ISIS surely is seeking to recapture as
the physical caliphate that the group once touted shrinks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Department of Justice, ``ISIL-Linked Kosovo Hacker Sentenced
to 20 Years in Prison,'' September 23, 2016, https://www.justice.gov/
opa/pr/isil-linked-kosovo-hacker-sentenced-20-years-prison.
\18\ Nafees Hamid, ``The British Hacker Who Became the Islamic
State's Chief Terror Cyber-Coach: A Profile of Junaid Hussain,'' CTC
Sentinel, Volume 11, Issue 4, pages 30-37, https://ctc.usma.edu/app/
uploads/2018/04/CTC-SENTINEL-042018-2.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here, too, there is cause for concern that the Trump administration
is not appropriately tackling the challenge. As of this writing, the
top position overseeing cyber policy at the White House--the Assistant
to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism--is vacant,
and the next most senior cyber position--the National Security Council
staff's Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity
Coordinator--was recently eliminated. As I have commented elsewhere,
this undoing of key White House leadership on cyber-related policy
matters ``seems to send a strange message as to how this White House is
prioritizing something most of us think the government needs to
prioritize more.''\19\ While there are various plausible arrangements
for structuring the leadership of the National Security Council staff,
this seemingly deliberate diminution of leadership on cyber issues is
particularly puzzling given how rapidly cyber-related threats are
evolving and given how much our response requires the type of strategic
leadership and interagency coordination that only the White House can
provide. To the extent that ISIS turns to new types of cyber operations
to regain momentum and inflict harm, this lack of leadership may prove
a serious vulnerability, even as our military is taking the positive
step of elevating Cyber Command to a unified combatant command.\20\
Military and other key tools available to our government in the cyber
arena require clear and forward-looking strategies, authorities,
policies, and legal frameworks--especially given that the likely target
of cyber terrorism may well be critical infrastructure controlled by
private industry, which introduces distinctive complexities when it
comes to formulating and implementing a governmental response.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Brian Barrett, ``White House Cuts Critical Cybersecurity Role
as Threats Loom,'' Wired, May 15, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/
white-house-cybersecurity-coordinator/ (quoting Joshua A. Geltzer).
\20\ Matthew Cox, ``Cyber Command Elevated to Combatant Command,''
Military.com, May 4, 2018, https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/
05/04/cyber-command-elevated-combatant-command.html.
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conclusion
The crumbling of ISIS's caliphate in Iraq and Syria is a major
positive development for U.S. National security, for the security of
our allies and partners, and for the stability of the Middle East
region. But it is not the end of the threat posed by ISIS to the United
States. The group retains some territory in Syria; is expanding its
physical presence in other parts of the world; continues to make shrewd
use of its virtual presence to recruit and radicalize followers; and
could look to novel cyber operations as access to dangerous cyber tools
becomes easier for non-state actors. This state of affairs would be
challenging enough for the dedicated National security professionals
who work to secure our homeland; but the challenge is compounded by
aggravating factors of the Trump administration's own making. The
failure to retain our key partner on the ground in the fight against
ISIS; the relentless anti-Muslim orientation of President Trump's
rhetoric and policies; and the seemingly deliberate absence of White
House leadership to provide strategic vision and interagency
coordination in the cyber arena all make the persistent threat posed by
ISIS harder to address. That is unfortunate given the considerable
scope of the challenge in the first place and given ISIS's likely
evolution and adaptation to changed circumstances in ways that will
pose new forms of terrorist threats to our country.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss these important issues
and look forward to the committee's questions.
Chairman McCaul. Yeah, I want to thank the witnesses for
your opening statements. I recognize myself for questions.
Yeah, I remember 2014 to 2016, my threat briefings, the ones
that this committee had, were, for lack of a better word,
intense. External operations were being talked about almost on
a weekly basis. We were arresting ISIS, not only abroad, but in
this country on almost on a weekly basis. That has actually
calmed down a little bit.
I was in Paris and Brussels before they were hit, warning
them about the lack of sharing vital intelligence, lack of
knowing the manifest on airplanes, and then they were hit
shortly thereafter. Then a new threat emerged, and it was the
internet. A man by the name of Junaid Hussain from the United
Kingdom was in Syria, and I was down at CENTCOM looking at the
internet cafe out of which he operated, and we finally were
able to take him out, and that internet activity went down. But
that became the power and the global outreach of the jihad
movement through Junaid Hussain.
But then by the end of 2017, even though they had gained
territory the size of the United Kingdom, by the end of 2017,
they lost over 90 percent of their territory. I will tell you
the threat briefings, while I am still very concerned, I do
think the tempo and the pace has gone down. But I do think the
threat does remain, as they have retreated into the Euphrates
River Valley, they are still in the Middle East, and they are
also in Northern Africa, places like Libya, Tunisia, Sinai, in
Egypt, and the Sahel in the middle of Africa, and also
southeast Asia.
My first question I want to direct to the Ambassador and
the General, because you have been there in service for so
long, and it is almost a foreign policy question in a way. The
post-caliphate strategy. I think, you know, the previous
administration--you know, we always hear the phrase, ``leading
from behind,'' but not making a decision is a decision in and
of itself. Drawing red lines and allowing them to be crossed is
a decision.
Allowing countries like Russia to then come in to Syria,
allowing Iraq--I am sorry, Iran, to establish a Shia crescent
to Iraq and Syria and Lebanon and Yemen. So now, we have Iran
in Iraq and Syria. We have the Russians back for the first time
since 1979 when they were in Afghanistan. We have got the
Saudis. We have Israel launching rockets into Syria. One of the
biggest crises--sort of a civil war conflict refugee problems
of our lifetime in some respects, not to mention Turkey, now
fighting the very forces that we fought with to defeat ISIS.
This is, perhaps, the most complex and challenging foreign
policy crisis I think that we have had. Can you make any sense
out of this? What would be your focus and your strategy looking
at the post-caliphate Iraq and Syria?
Mr. Crocker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have summarized
an impossibly complex situation very neatly. It is hugely
complex. I spent more years of my life than I care to remember
experiencing Lebanon's civil war. In its hot phase, that lasted
15 years, and it ended in 1990, only when the Syrian Army
occupied the Presidential Palace outside of Beirut, and forced
Michel Aoun into sanctuary in the French Embassy. That would be
the same Michel Aoun who is running the country.
In Syria, the list of players is far longer than it ever
was in Lebanon. You mentioned some of them. The United States,
Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates,
Qatar, to name a few. Inside Syria, the Syrian Democratic
Forces, the Syrian Free Army, the YPG, al-Qaeda, obviously, the
Islamic State, Ahrar al-Sham, and again, we can go on. Why is
this important? We saw why several months ago.
The Iranians, I guess, having a slow afternoon, decided
they would put a drone over Israel and see what happened.
Israeli shot it down and then retaliated with air strikes, but
they lost the plane, the first time since 1985. Fortunately,
that plane crashed in Israel, and both crew members survived.
Had it been otherwise, we could now be in a massive regional
conflict.
Everybody kind-of took a step back because nobody wanted
that war then, but nobody wanted World War I either. So when an
obscure archduke was assassinated in an even more obscure city,
those were the Guns of August. I have dusted off my copy of the
book by that name, Barbara Tuchman, it is worth taking a look
at now in the Syria context. So this is highly dangerous. We
cannot settle it militarily, but we need to be in concert with
all of our friends and allies talking about a problem that can
blow the lid off the region and beyond. We need to stay
engaged.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you. My time is just about expired.
I want to give General Keane at least a minute to respond,
because as I see it, Assad has never been more powerful now,
backed by the Iranians and the Russians, and he is using
chemical weapons. It is like the biblical sense of all roads
lead to Damascus.
Can you make any sense of out of this and what should we
doing moving forward?
General Keane. I really think the strategic imperative for
the United States dealing with the Middle East is the hegemonic
objectives that Iran has in imposing their will on the Middle
East, and to dominate it and influence and control it. They
have had some significant success in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and
now in Yemen, and they certainly just recently, as mentioned,
encroaching on Israel, which has always been a strategic
objective for them.
At a minimum, put enough pressure on Israel as Iran will
eventually try to develop a nuclear weapon that Israel will not
respond militarily, because the Iranians would have rockets and
missiles fired at Israel from Lebanon, and also from bases in
Syria, which they are trying do right now. I don't know how you
approach that problem of a major aggressor like that who is
applying resources and achieving success without doing that as
a multilateral approach.
I felt, for a long time, that we need a sort of Arab NATO
in the Middle East, a political and military alliance that
works so well and stand it up against another ideology in the
20th Century. We need to approach this problem comprehensively
in the Middle East. It is not just about using military
weapons, it is the entire spectrum that a political, economic,
diplomatic, and military alliance would bring to that problem.
Second, of course, is the breeding ground for radical
Islam. Again, to approach that problem, we have to be organized
for it, we have to undermine their ideology and propaganda, and
we have to encourage our allies in that region to move in the
right directions in terms of moving away from the conditions
that are so paramount and set the stage for people--the ability
to recruit. I am talking about what I said in my statement in
terms of lack of political and social justice, lack of economic
opportunity, the instability by poor governance, et cetera.
This is a major problem.
The one thing I do know, Mr. Chairman, and I have had this
discussion with the administration. To wash our hands of this
and to walk away, because, No. 1, we have lost thousands of
soldiers there; No. 2, we spent a lot of money there; and, No.
3, there may be a lack of political will in the country, it
would be a huge strategic mistake. The Middle East cannot
explode. If we let that explode, it will harm the United States
in terms of our own security of our people, and also those of
our allies and our National interests as well.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you. I completely agree with you.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much. Both answers were, to
the Chairman's questions, quite illuminating. The one thing
that I would want a conversation with the Ambassador and
General on this: To what degree will budget cuts for the State
Department and others impact your response that you just made
to the Chairman?
Mr. Crocker. Thanks very much for that critical question,
sir. The 31 percent budget cut that was proposed for the State
Department, and which then-Secretary Tillerson saw fit not to
oppose, would have crippled the Department and the foreign
service for years to come. Damage has been done already. We
took in about 100 new officers in calendar 2017, the year
before it was 370.
We need to promote about 100 officers a year into the
senior foreign service. Last year, we promoted 47. So this is
creating a structural problem we will wrestle with for years to
come. As we face this enormously complex threat and fight, to
do that with a weakened foreign service is not protecting our
National security. We are the ones who are forward. We are more
expeditionary than the Marines even. That is why it is called
the foreign service.
We know the cultures, we know the languages. Every foreign
service officer is fluent in at least one foreign language. But
we have almost been decimated. I am very pleased to see that
Secretary Pompeo realized, that from Day 1, and has already
taken steps to undo some of the damage by the previous
Secretary with his ending of the hiring freeze. There is more
to be done, listening to his statements, I am confident that he
will try to get that accomplished.
But this is not the time to weaken the diplomatic side of
this fight. If there is anything I learned in places like
Afghanistan and Iraq, there are no purely military tracks.
There are no purely diplomatic tracks, they are all fused
together. If you weaken the diplomatic part of the triad, you
are heading for trouble, and trouble in this instance would
mean a threat to our National security.
Mr. Thompson. General, do you have some comments?
General Keane. Yeah, just quickly. I agree with Secretary
Mattis, who believes in a strong Department of State, and we
only have several thousand diplomats. It is actually a very
small service that we have. We clearly have to reinforce it.
The thought of reducing the State Department's budget is
ludicrous. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. If anything, we
should be increasing it.
You know, when the budget numbers from OMB are presented to
the Department of Defense, that begins the negotiations. We
never accept those numbers. We fight like daylight to make sure
that the budget is what it should be inside the Executive
branch. When the State Department gets the budget, I know this
from having spoken to them from OMB, they just accept it.
The reality is, they are underfunded and they are on
demand, and we cannot reduce this capability. They work hand-
in-glove with the military. They keep us out of fighting wars,
but the United States military can strengthen the diplomatic
hand when we have a credible deterrence as we have seen around
the world. So I totally agree with your sentiments, Ranking
Member.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much. Dr. Gartenstein-Ross,
you talked about, in this effort to defeat ISIS, that we are
going to have to lead. The Ambassador talked a little bit about
that, too. But everyone seemed to agree that the new frontier
is around technology and the ability to recruit and do other
things. Are there some things that you think we should be doing
as Congress to fortify that new frontier?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Thanks for that great question, sir.
I do. I think the most important thing that Congress could do
is to take a strong look at the acquisition process. You know,
there are multiple areas in which the U.S. Government has been
trying to make the acquisition process more efficient and
faster. Efforts like DIUX and some of the special operations
branches, retooling of their budgetary processes is important,
because right now, everyone who is around Government knows that
often, the U.S. Government ends up not getting the product that
it wants, it ends up overpaying for an inferior service. For
most private-sector firms, if they were run this way, they
would be out of business fairly quickly.
For technology, with things moving as quickly as they are,
I think we can't afford, not just for terrorism, but also for
the great power competition that we now have with both China
and Russia, to be significantly behind in this race. When it
comes to things ranging from surveillance, and the ability of
the Chinese government, in particular, to spy on us, to
artificial intelligence, which we are right now, I think,
falling behind in, there is a real need for the U.S. Government
to be able to acquire private-sector expertise and private-
sector research in a way that is efficient, and in a way that
can ensure that it gets the product and the quality that it
wants.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. Dr. Geltzer, can you comment on
that?
Mr. Geltzer. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Ranking
Member. I think the tech companies are, in some ways, on the
front lines of this fight, but I think there is a real role for
Congress in pushing them to do more. They have taken some steps
for which they deserve credit. If you go back a little over a
year ago, some of the major companies agreed on what they
called a hash-sharing coalition. So pieces of terrorism-related
content that any one company in the coalition identifies now
gets shared with the other companies to see if those companies
deem them to violate their own terms of service. That was a
step forward.
Six months after that, the same company has agreed to share
the tools that they used to find those types of content. That
was a step forward. I think there are more steps forward that
can and should come. For example, one might ask the tech
companies, instead of just sharing the piece of the content,
why not share the information associated with those pieces of
content and with the accounts associated with the content?
In other words, if a piece of content has been uploaded to
one platform by an account, and is deemed to have broken its
terrorism-related terms of service, maybe another company has
an account created by the same email address, or otherwise
affiliate with it, that has uploaded terrorism-related
information or messages as well. That would be a step forward.
Playing with artificial intelligence, even to try to
identify, based on past terrorism-related pieces of content or
accounts, future ones before they are even uploaded to see
whether, in fact, they should be, or whether they violate
service on terrorism-related grounds. That could be a step
forward.
So I think Congress has a role to play, especially as tech
companies find themselves on the Hill sometimes these days,
asking those sorts of questions and asking, What comes next?
Mr. Thompson. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman McCaul. Let me just echo the Ranking Member's
sentiments and the panel on--I had dinner at the Marine
barracks with Secretary Mattis, and he talks about if you cut
diplomats, you are going to have to buy more bullets. I think
his job is, as he said it, is put maximum pressure so the
diplomats can do their job. So I just want to reinforce that
point.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here. General, you know, we have talked about--you made a
statement about we regained most of the territory in Iraq and
Syria that the foreign fighters had occupied. But as those
foreign fighters are being pushed out, they are moving into the
Africa and Asia. We have noticed that they have been pretty
resourceful in moving around western Europe, and they continue
to plot to get into the United States to execute attacks.
Do you perceive those foreign fighters as they move into
these regions, executing attacks from there, or trying just to
refocus their energies to move back into the Middle East and
try to retake territory?
General Keane. I don't see them going back into Iraq and
Syria, but I do see some of those foreign fighters, 2,000 of
them have returned to Europe, and certainly, their potential to
conduct terrorist operations for sure. Others have moved to
other affiliate organizations that are ISIS-supported
organizations in Libya and Tunisia, in Sahel in the Sinai. So
there is plenty of opportunity for them to--once they have
committed to that ideology, usually they don't separate
themselves from it. Usually death is what separates them from
it.
So regaining the caliphate, or some semblance of it, would
only happen if we walk away. If the political situation in Iraq
does not enfranchise the Sunnis, then you have a potential rise
again of a radical Islamist organization in Syria. We have just
got to finish what we started and recognize that it is not
over, and continue to clean the remnants of that out. If we
don't, if we pull away from eastern Syria, than they will--the
leadership is still there. They will certainly try to resurge
and regain some small safe haven. That would draw foreign
fighters if that happens. That is the only situation that I see
that would bring back their return.
But they are operating in other areas supporting movements
in other countries as we speak, and also, hiding in the shadows
in Europe waiting for an opportunity.
Mr. Rogers. An opportunity to do what? To bring down
western civilization----
Mr. Geltzer. No, no. To conduct individual terrorist
attacks, or to try to form a cell or larger network.
Mr. Rogers. To what end?
General Keane. Certainly, their objectives--yes, the goal
of radical Islamist movement, whether it is al-Qaeda or whether
it is ISIS does have a global objective to it. Replace western
civilization, much more than that. To dominate world
civilization, and undermine the international order as we
currently know it; and that has been their aspiration, you
know, from the beginning.
Mr. Rogers. Ambassador, what are your thoughts about that?
I am particularly concerned about the large number of them in
western Europe, but obviously here, too. What do you think is
going on?
Mr. Crocker. Thank you, Congressman. In a sense, the most
dangerous period in terms of our own National security may be
approaching, and it will come with the overt military defeat of
Islamic State. Their ideology, as you know, had always been
that the caliphate was critical. They are now losing the last
traces of that physical caliphate. So they are going to have to
develop a new ideology to justify their existence.
So I would think that that is the moment when they will put
all they have, wherever they are, into figuring out how they
can do their version of 9/11. They couldn't hold territory in
the field. I think the next step will be for them to do
everything they can from wherever they can stage it, to show
that they can hit back, and hit back hard within our homeland
and within the European homelands.
Mr. Rogers. Do you think we are doing enough in concert
with our European allies to prepare for that or anticipate
that?
Mr. Crocker. I don't really have visibility on the specific
actions. My sense is that--and, again, indeed this committee
would know far more, is that the administration, as was the
case with the previous administration, takes this very, very
seriously. I would say, though, we like to talk about
intelligence failures, and certainly, there are intelligence
failures.
But the failures that hurt us the most are failures of
imagination. We couldn't imagine the 9/11 attacks. We couldn't
imagine the destruction of the Marine barracks in Beirut and
the death of 241 Marines, beyond our imagination. So I would
hope that in the skunk works of the administration, there are
some really bright people doing that kind of imagining.
If we expect to get it all through intelligence, we won't,
we can't. Again, the failure of the future that we may be
holding endless hearings on would be just that. A failure of
the imagination with respect to a committed enemy.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. My time is expired, I yield back.
Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. The gentleman from
Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin, is recognized.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
our witnesses for your testimony here today, and, in
particular, Ambassador Crocker and General Keane, thank you for
your service to the country.
Dr. Gartenstein-Ross, let me start with you, if I could. On
the issue of drones, you described in your testimony, ISIL's
extensive weaponization of commercial drone technology. I am
sure you are very concerned, as the Chairman is, about the
possibility of drone-based terrorism, including domestically. I
worked with my colleague, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse from Rhode Island, legislation criminalizing the
reckless operation of drones.
Are you concerned that ISIL might aid or inspire someone in
the United States to use a drone to carry out a violent attack?
What more can we be doing to prevent this kind of an action?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Sir, that is a great question. Yes, I
am definitely concerned. The major reason for my concern is
that we are seeing major leaps forward in drone technology and
what can be done with them. Ambassador Crocker talks about
failures of imagination. I feel like the technological sphere
is one where we are seeing failures of imagination most
frequently these days, when you look at the kinds of things
that we can see with drones domestically.
Drone swarm is where--we have seen drone swarms recently
even in cartel arrests. We have seen them increasingly used
just south of the border in Mexico by cartels and organized
criminal elements.
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. The ability to do something
destructive with a drone, something serious, grows constantly,
as the commercialization of the drones becomes more
sophisticated. We see this learning curve with all technology.
Mr. Langevin. Any thoughts on what we can we do to counter
the----
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. I agree with the legislation that you
spoke of, I mean, criminalizing reckless uses of drones. I
think giving some thought to areas in which drones cannot be
flown. As we all know, drones can't be flown in the Capitol
area. I think in areas where there--thinking about airport,
routes that airlines fly and the ways that drones can be used
to attack airplanes. Starting to think about how do you
regulate this area? We are going to see a proliferation of
technologies.
One final thing is giving thought to privacy laws with
respect to the drones. Because both in terms of our own
personal privacy, but also the ability to surveil a target, I
think there is a lot of dangers that exist there for
assassinations and nefarious uses.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. To the panel, I know that in
response to the Ranking Member's question on the messaging and
such, many of you had mentioned ISIL's successful and continued
use of social media to recruit individuals to inflict violence.
What more do you feel that tech companies in the administration
should be doing to counter these efforts of radicalization,
especially inside the United States?
Mr. Geltzer. I am happy to start. I am sure others will
have thoughts as well. I mentioned before a couple of
opportunities that I see for the companies to experiment with
sharing more information with each other when it comes to
terrorism-related content and the accounts associated with
that. Maybe I will mention now, also, I think opportunities to
share between Government and the tech companies. I am no longer
privy to where those conversations stand, but it seems to me,
much as the Government provides in the cyber arena threat
information to companies, or when it comes to critical
infrastructure threat information, there is an opportunity both
for the Government to ensure that new trends, new trajectories
and how terrorists are utilizing social media platforms and
other communications technologies, new techniques, especially
those that cross platforms which any one company is less likely
to see but the Government may well see.
My hope is that that is a more robust exchange, and it has
been in the past, and a two-way exchange, in which the
companies are sharing what they see, because they too, they are
in their own pikes. They have unique insight into what is
happening, and how users may be changing, how they regenerate
accounts, for example, or how they link from their various
pages or various accounts. For that dialog to be in real time,
I think, would enhance both parties' ability to respond, the
tech companies and the Government's.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Anyone else on the panel care to
comment?
General Keane. Well, I just think we have to continue what
we have started, and that is closer cooperation between the
U.S. Government and our social media companies. There has been
some success, as was already mentioned in my testimony, you
know, with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, particularly
Twitter, who has taken down over 1 million platforms as a
result of that cooperation. We just need to continue that. I
think there should be continuous dialog among other
intelligence services, National Security Agency, Central
Intelligence Agency and our social media companies to get the
kind of cooperation that is necessary, because as everybody
here sitting on this panel knows, radical Islamist
organizations are certainly going to continue to use these
outlets given the extraordinary achievement that the ISIS
leaders were able to accomplish in very short order in building
an organization and sustaining it, largely riding on the waves
of technology.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you all. I yield back.
Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes
General Bacon.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all four of
you for being here today. I have just got to recognize
Ambassador Crocker, my professor at National War College in our
interagency class, if I remember that right. I also served with
him in Iraq, so I know all the folks who served with you, see
you as a hero. It is good to see you here, sir. He served in
the worst spots, and the hardest spots in the world at our
Nation's calling.
As you all pointed out, ISIS has been attrited to the point
where they have no real estate that they control in Iraq, two
little portions of real estate in Syria. We are we going to
continue attriting them, and I think of the Secretary of
Defense's strategy of not one to try to retreat to the best of
our ability and annihilating in place is the right strategy
there.
So we saw some kinetic operations that we have to do. But
even if we take down these two pieces of real estate, there is
still a threat. I think you pointed that out. There will be a
terrorist threat that could reassert themselves at any point.
So we had the military option, but we have to go after their
finances. I think you have all done a lot of discussing here
about going after their cyber recruiting capability and how
they do that.
But the one thing I have not heard, and I really think,
getting to my National War College teachings, I don't think we
have gone to the real center of gravity of ISIS and al-Qaeda
and other Sunni extremists, it is the ideology. How do we
counter this ideology? Because in the end, it is the--cyber's a
tool, an avenue to transmit that ideology, finance is a tool.
Until we figure out a way to counter this ideology, I don't
know that we can really in the end, declare victory. I would
welcome any of y'all's thoughts on that.
Mr. Crocker. Well, thank you for an excellent question,
Congressman. I have to say that had you been posing questions
like that when you were at National War College, you would have
been a distinguished graduate.
Mr. Bacon. I was close, that close.
Mr. Crocker. It is a key question. I come at this perhaps
from a slightly different optic, it is--when I look at 100
years of the modern Middle East, I see a successive failure of
``isms,'' colonialism, imperialism, Monarchism, Arab
nationalism, Ba'athism, Arab socialism, communism in south
Yemen. They all have one thing in common: They failed to
produce good governance and economic opportunity. Again, Mr.
Chairman, the two points you made in your opening statement I
think are just key.
So they were overcome by the next ism. Now we have
Islamism, they are also failing to show that they can govern
properly. I see from some press reports that they seem to
understand that going in, that a lot of the captured documents
we have had access to shows that they were trying to get
Government moving again; they just ran out of time, money, and
luck and became victim to their own hateful ideology. They will
yield to something else. Maybe it will be another run at
Islamism. I don't know. But unless that core problem of
governance in the region is tackled and improved, you will just
see this over and over and over again. I would cite one example
from my own experience, I was, as you noted, Mr. Chairman, an
ambassador six times.
In three of those countries, a predecessor of mine as the
American ambassador was assassinated. Ours is inherently a
dangerous profession. One of those was in Lebanon, Frank
Malloy, the Ambassador. He was kidnapped and then executed by
the popular front, Liberation of Palestine. Was that an early
Islamist terror group? No. Their ideology was the antithesis of
Islam, or Judaism, or Christianity. They were Communists. Was
their leader a closet Islamic radical? Their leader, George
Habash, was a Palestinian Christian. So the ideologies may
shift and the motivations may shift. We need not to be overly
distracted by that, but more focused on what gives them
purchase. What we have seen consistently is a failure of
governance, and that is a big problem to fix. But as General
Keane said, if we don't stay engaged, it is only going to get
worse.
General Keane. You know, I think that is a profound
question if I can comment on it. I ended my written statement--
my oral statement and written statement on that very question.
You know, we dealt with two major ideologies in the 21st
Century. One was Nazism, fascism which we destroyed by brute
force, and the other was communism, which, I think, when you
look at it, oversimplistically maybe, we beat it with better
ideas, and those ideas was democracy and capitalism. I think
that serves as an illustration on how to deal with this.
We have to hold this horrific behavior that they
demonstrate in their barbarism and killing people. We have to
hold them accountable for that. That means that we have to use
the tools of war to punish that behavior and stop it.
But we also have to have better ideas. It gets back to what
the Ambassador is talking about and that deals with the issues
where--becomes the breeding ground for that. We have to stay
engaged with our allies to help them, and help them shape. Make
certain that they understand, even as Mohammed bin Salman is
making transformational changes in Saudi Arabia, we have to
stay in that dialog so they understand how important it is to
get this right, to move these societies in the proper direction
and move away from political and social injustice, and the lack
of economic opportunities, and, also, to achieve stable
governance in these countries. Until you do that and provide an
alternative, these ideologies will continue to fester and grow.
Mr. Bacon. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time. I yield
back. Unless you have--want to build on anything that was just
said? OK, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes
Mrs. Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
having this hearing and thank you to the witnesses for being
here.
I guess I have a couple of questions, one concern I have is
about the fire--the foreign fighters dispersing into other
areas. I am particularly interested in the Sahel area of
Africa, because I have been in other briefings where it has
been brought to my attention that the lack of our presence, the
lack of any diplomatic presence, the lack of any sort of
relationship-building presence is very dangerous in this area
because it is one in which governance is very weak,
opportunities are very fruitful, and we are not making the
kinds of connections that we should be making to sort-of
counteract some of this.
So I would just like to get your thoughts on it,
particularly as it relates to stripping our Department of State
from the resources it needs to have a diplomatic presence. I
will start with you, if you don't mind, Ambassador.
Mr. Crocker. Thank you, ma'am. We are diplomatically
represented in all of the countries of the Sahel. We have some
assistance programs, but that budget has been under pressure
for quite some time, as you know. There I would just make a
short pitch for the third D: Defense, diplomacy, and
development. USAID can be a very effective agency when it has
the resources to do their work. I--we are doing great on
defense; diplomacy and development have been seriously
underfunded, and that does not make anybody's life any easier.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Can I just add on to that, or carry on
on that area? So it is not so much guns anymore and blowing up
people, it has lots to do with a new way in which ISIS can be a
threat to us, whether or not it is cybersecurity, internet or
whatever, but it is also about relationships, or what we can do
in regions that help people from their economic perspective not
to be so vulnerable to these terrorist groups as well.
I don't get the sense that this administration gets that
piece substantively about being on the ground, developing the
better way of life for those individuals, creating those
relationships and understanding those cultural issues. So, I
would appreciate it if you would just give me your thoughts on
that? Any of you, any, all. We can start with you, Ambassador.
Mr. Crocker. Just two quick points. USAID, of course, has
an administrator now, Mike Green, not someone I know
personally, but I know his background, and I have colleagues
still serving in USAID. He is quite highly regarded in the
agency. We have a Secretary of State, as I just said, who
starts with an enormous advantage in that building, simply
because he is not Rex Tillerson. He does say, and he has done
some of the right things there to reassure the institution that
he has--that he will support them. So I think we have got some
things in place that should yield good results.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. One of the insecurities of the
institution didn't just come from Tillerson, because I don't
believe that Tillerson just decided all on his own that he
wasn't going to staff the Department of State. I think that he
was in align with whatever the President at that time thought
was the best thing to do for whatever reason he thinks things
are the best thing to do. But perhaps, he changed his position
now that Pompeo is the Secretary of State.
Is there anyone else who would want to comment on any of
this? Thank you.
General Keane. I would just say that certainly I agree with
the Ambassador about our diplomatic commitment. The military
command that deals with Africa, as you know, is AFRICOM, and
our policy is to assist our partner countries in helping to
build their military capability. That is a significant
commitment we have made, and it is growing. When we are doing
that, so you should be aware of it, we just don't teach them
military skills. As part of that partnership that we have--and
it doesn't make any difference where we are doing this in the
world--we teach them how important it is for the military to
submit to civilian control, and also to--while we are using
weapons of war on a battlefield, we do that in concert with the
values of our country.
So those are some of things that are important to us as we
are partnering with them. In terms of United States taking a
direct hand, the only time that we will do that in Africa is
when we are dealing with a terrorist organization that we
believe could be a threat to the United States outside the
region, then we would attack that ourselves. Otherwise, we want
to partner with the host country and bring their military up to
a capability where they can deal with the problem.
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. One thing I would add to General
Keane's comments when it comes to counterterrorism capacity
building is that I think this is an interesting area that
Congress could look into with respect to the overall strategy
of CT capacity building, which is very important. But when you
look at the range of the countries involved, like not just the
United States, but you have multiple western European countries
who are doing this, there is an overarching lack of strategy,
and sometimes even internal lack of coordination, where
different countries often don't have visibility into what their
allies are doing. Sometimes there is not visibility even within
the U.S. Government. Sometimes there is a lack of coordinated
strategy, and there is definitely a lack of consistent
monitoring and evaluation metrics being used. So it is an area
that is both very important, and where I feel that a wise look
into how well the system is working, could, I think, help to
improve it.
Mr. Geltzer. If I may, just a brief point, drawing from
experience at the Justice Department and the national security
division there, and it is really just to accentuate some of the
points others have made about how critical it is to have a
robust State Department and State Department presence. Not only
did the State Department do its own important diplomatic work,
not only is it hand-in-glove ideally with the military, but law
enforcement assistance and Homeland Security assistance, that
often is facilitated by the State Department. So when you get a
DOJ and FBI training investigators and prosecutors on how to
handle terrorism cases, which are distinct and often difficult,
when you have DHS reps working with countries on how to monitor
their borders better, how to maintain their databases better,
how to make those databases exportable to countries like us
when we want to see who is traveling here from there. It is
often the State Department that makes that collaboration
possible, which is, again, another reason that you want that to
be a robust presence.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence and thank you
for your answers. I yield back.
Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Ratcliffe is recognized.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all
the panelists for being here today. I was struck by the
remarkable consistency between your comments, and about ISIS
and the ISIS caliphate being badly damaged, but not defeated.
General Keane, we will start with you, because you twice
made the comment about what it comes to defeating ISIS, you
have talked about the need to drive ISIS out of the footholds
that they have in Syria. I assume those footholds are being
fueled by the desperation of the Syrian people with Assad in
power, power that he has been able to maintain by using Iran,
Hezbollah, and the IRGC and Russia.
So I guess my question is, when we talk about the Salafi
Jihadi movement and radical Islamist groups like ISIS and al-
Qaeda, do you agree that at least with respect to Syria, the
greatest factor into whether or not it continues to exist or
expand and contract is whether or not Assad is in charge in
Syria?
General Keane. Well, first of all, the--ISIS and al-Qaeda,
which is a thriving organization in Syria, they are only there
because there is a civil war there, and they were drawn to an
area, and they were able to establish safe zones and take
advantage of the circumstances that are there. So they are
absolutely feeding on that.
Certainly, Assad, a brutal dictator to be sure, you know,
the so-called Arab Spring arose and the people wanted to turn
him out. They were on their way to actually doing that when the
Iranians and the Russians successfully intervened and
stalemated the situation, and then the Russian military
intervention, and the Iranian plus-up really changed the entire
momentum. Assad is not going anywhere now. I mean, we have got
to be honest about it. They have successfully propped up this
dictator. What is going on in Geneva is a fantasy. I mean, the
Russians and the Iranians may change Assad out because they
want another Alawite dictator, but their military intervention
has succeeded in indefinitely keeping Assad or somebody like
him in power. We have long since squandered the opportunities
to do something about that.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So do you think it is an overstatement,
then, to say that the Jihadi movement there through groups like
ISIS, or al-Qaeda, or whatever else may come, will continue as
long as Assad reigns over Syria or someone just like Assad?
General Keane. Yes, the opposition to Assad is not going to
go away either because they are very committed. They want a
secular, most of them are democratic states, some of them, an
Islamic state. So as long that continues, that will give
radical Islam an opportunity. In that organization, we didn't
talk about it here, but the al-Qaeda organization, the son of
al-Nusra that operates in Idlib Province, is a very dangerous
organization, which clearly has objectives to operate outside
the region in Europe and against the United States. So yes,
this is a breeding ground for radical Islam.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So I guess that leads to what is an
unpopular topic for a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle when we talk about regime change. But it seems to me that
our best option for addressing the threat of ISIS and al-Qaeda,
and, frankly, the threat of, as you call it, a hegemonic threat
from Iran, and its ability to propagate Hezbollah and groups
like that, is a Syria without Assad. You intimated a little bit
about how we would accomplish that. I know, the Free Syrian
Army, and arming those. I have heard the arguments about, well,
you are just arming terrorists.
You made reference, though, to an Arab NATO earlier. I am
wondering--I heard John Bolton recently talk about a regional
Arab force in the area, and so my first question is, are you
talking about the same thing there?
General Keane. Yeah. Well, first of all, let me say that I
don't believe this administration has a coherent strategy to
deal with this problem. I know for a fact the previous
administration certainly did not, actually I think enabled the
problem to get worse. It is a complex problem, as Ambassador
Crocker so accurately pointed out. You can be on either side of
this issue and be making what seems to be a very plausible
argument, to be frank about it, because it is such a disturbing
situation.
But in my view, the--Syria is a strategic anchor for the
Iranian hegemonic movement and their ability to encroach on
Israel and move out of Syria. It is also a melting pot for
radical Islamists. I think we should take an interest in what
is happening there and try to push back on it.
Yes, what I would do is try to control the eastern part of
Syria of the Euphrates River Valley, and I would bring some
regional Arab nations in to help do some of that. That gets us
back at the bargaining table. In other words, it gives us some
political leverage. We are not going to go to Damascus with
military force, we are not going to go into Syria with tens of
thousands of U.S. forces. There is no political will to do
anything quite like that. But there are ways that we can get
into a negotiated--have some negotiating leverage, if we have
some skin in the game, as opposed to just walking away from it.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So you talk about political will, and my
time is expired, but this is an important question. I want your
perspective, I really would like it from all of you and
hopefully some other panelists can follow up on it, but when
you look at it from the other side of the ledger and political
will, when we talk about this issue, do you think that Russia
has enough invested that they would ever go to war over Syria?
General Keane. Russia doesn't want to go to war over Syria.
Russia certainly doesn't want to go to war with the United
States over Syria. We don't need to be intimidated by Russia
and Syria. We long since permitted them to take advantage of
us. We--Secretary Kerry told the Russians, because they were
rolling into Syria, do not, do not, under any circumstance,
bomb the Syrian moderates who we were providing aid to by the
Central Intelligence Agency. They had antitank missiles, and
they were a formidable force as a result of that capability.
The first people the Russians bombed were the Syrian monarchs
with the antitank weapons. What did we do about that? Nothing.
We should have told them right then and there, you do it that
again, we are going to take down your airfield and we are going
to go after your proxy force on the ground, the Syrian regime.
In my judgment, that would not have led to World War III,
it would not have led to a war with the Russians. They have a
limited capability, have never been outside their region in 35
years, they had 30 to 40 airplanes. We dominate that area in
terms of military power. They would have backed up, but we had
no will, we lacked will.
Mr. Ratcliffe. I appreciate your insights, and I appreciate
the Chairman's indulgence.
Chairman McCaul. The gentleman yields. The gentlelady from
Florida, Ms. Demings, is recognized.
Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
all of our witnesses for being here with us today.
If we could just go back for just a moment, I know we have
talked quite a bit about tech companies and the role that they
play. I certainly, as all of you know, that without the social
media platforms, ISIS and other groups like them would not have
had the opportunity to recruit, train, communicate as well as
they have. I know you have talked about, you know, better
sharing of information. I know they have taken some of the
ISIS-related content down. Also you talked about international
cooperation.
If we just could go into some additional steps that tech
companies could play to be held more accountable, or what could
Congress do to assist in holding them more accountable? That is
to all or any of the witnesses who would like to answer. Thank
you.
Mr. Geltzer. If you give me enough opportunities, I will
keep adding to my list of things that I think are worth
pressing on here.
As I mentioned before, I do think while the companies have
taken some steps in terms of hash-sharing and tool-sharing. It
has been overwhelming focused on ISIS material. Congresswoman,
you mentioned ISIS and other groups like it. That is a point
worth pressing on, I think, as well. Because ISIS did, in a
sense, revolutionize terrorist radicalization and recruitment
on-line. They weren't the first. Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula, had used the internet in ways that were
novel at the time, but ISIS really took that to another level.
But others have learned of course, terrorist groups are
learning, adaptive organizations. In particular, al-Qaeda and
Syria, and General Keane mentioned them before, I agree with
every word of his assessment of them as a real and possibly
growing threat, they have changed how they use social media and
websites and other platforms on-line to reach out, and recruit,
and radicalize. But the company's tools, their focus thus far
have really been on ISIS, and perhaps that's for good reason.
ISIS was inspiring attacks world-wide, but the content from
some of those other groups tends to remain up longer than the
content from ISIS and that content is getting more and more
worrisome, in my view. It is getting slicker, more
sophisticated. It has always, of course, had a call for
violence in it. So, to press the companies on taking the steps
they have even made already and rapidly doing what they need to
do internally, if that is resourcing, if that is staffing, to
apply it to not just al-Qaeda in Syria whose names changes
periodically, but they are fundamentally al-Qaeda in Syria, but
also AQAP, and also al-Shabaab and also the groups probably yet
to come, I think that is an important point, too.
Ms. Demings. Thank you. Dr. Gartenstein-Ross?
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Yes. Thank you for that great
question, Representative. The first thing I would like to point
to is that I agree with Dr. Geltzer's remarks about al-Qaeda
playing the game quite a bit better, and allowing the material
to stay up longer. I would like to point to you, though, that
when the big companies focus on taking down material from a
group, they are extraordinarily effective. If you look at the
percentage of Facebook accounts, Jihadist Facebook accounts
that are taken down before they put up a single post, it is
massive. We know what the companies are using, it is artificial
intelligence, it is tracking IP addresses, it is tracking
associations, but they are very effective.
Now in addition to that, the Chairman mentioned my past
association with Google, I was a fellow at its think-tank,
Jigsaw. They had a number of different very innovative
initiatives, one thing they did was called the redirect method
which took people who were looking for ISIS propaganda
materials, and had a very ISIS-looking ad that then redirected
them to a playlist with very neutral-looking, but anti-ISIS
materials, that is a project I worked on with them. I think
that talking to organizations like Jigsaw about the really
interesting initiatives they have would be both helpful and
enlightening for Members of Congress and the administration.
So this brings me to kind-of the key point that I would
have, which is when you look at well-resourced organizations
like Facebook, or Google, or Twitter, they are able do this
well, and they have a fair--at least when their eye is focused
on the ball, they have a fair sense of what their obligations
are. But smaller tech companies are constantly arising, they
are players in the space, and they don't necessarily have
either of the capabilities or the will to do what they need to
remove this material. So I think a dialog about what Congress'
role with respect to smaller companies, and also what larger
companies like Facebook, like Google, like Twitter, what their
role should be in helping to enhance the capabilities and the
set of standards for smaller companies would be very helpful.
In my time in Silicon Valley, I have had dialogs with people
who worked for some of the larger companies, and they feel that
this exact initiative is needed.
Mrs. Demings. Thank you. Ambassador or General.
General Keane. I don't have anything to add. Those are
excellent comments.
Mrs. Demings. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields. The gentleman from
Wisconsin, Mr. Gallagher, is recognized.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Geltzer, in your testimony, you talked about the fact
that we have lost our key counterterrorism part on the ground
in Syria, the Kurds. Now, we do still have 60,000 strong Syrian
democratic force which our special operators are working with,
many of which are Kurds. But I think your broader point is
well-taken, which is to say, it is hard to support those forces
when they are under assault from the Turks. At a time when our
interests seem to be converging with Israelis in the Sunni or
Gulf States, Turkey is an outlier. It is hard for me to make
sense of Syria without somehow getting the Turks to play a more
productive role.
So I would be interested in your assessment and the
assessment of the panel, what do we do with respect to Turkey?
What are our leverage points, and how can we, as you rightly
lay out, protect our Kurdish partners on the ground at the same
time?
Mr. Geltzer. Thank you, Congressman Gallagher. I am
grateful for the question. It is a hard balance. Partly, we
marvel in the coalition that the United States has largely put
together to execute this campaign; and partly the breadth of
that collation creates exactly the sort of problems that you
identify. Those problems will only get exacerbated as the
conflict evolves from the original one that brought together
that coalition.
In terms of how to keep Turkey in the fight, which we
needed to be, NATO partner, Incirlik Air Base, critical to our
counter-ISIS operations, while at the same time, getting Turkey
to back off the Syrian Kurds, that strikes me as an effort
partly just sheer attention. The relationship that was built
between a number of folks at the highest levels of our
government and a number of folks at their counterparts in
Ankara, was one of almost constant dialog, so that there were
no surprises, there was an understanding that before, and
particularly the Syrian Kurds were moving to a certain place,
there was a sense of what their objectives would be there, what
weapons they would have from us there, and how we would ensure
that those weapons, as best we could, did not get into the
hands of others associated with the Kurds, who are of concern
to Ankara for good reason.
It seems, at some point, that that dialog broke down, and
the type of assurance, truly daily at times, about where
weapons were going and when the next operation against the next
city would wrap up, and what the pause would look like, was
either no longer being communicated, or, at least, no longer
being believed.
I think as with a lot of diplomacy, the best solution is
high-level attention again, probably visits from some of our
most senior folks to there to get back on track, to get the
assault on the Afrin Kurds, off the table, so that the Kurds
can move away from Afrin and to the Euphrates River Valley and
take out the remnants of ISIS there, sir.
Mr. Gallagher. Dr. Gartenstein-Ross.
Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. Yeah, Representative Gallagher, I
think that Turkey is a big concern, right. In addition to their
military assault into Afrin, you have a slide toward
authoritarianism within the country that we can all see. You
have the scaling back of Ataturk's legacy, and the scaling back
of secularism in the country, and you have something which has
been well-reported, including in The Washington Post, which is
support for some of the nastier and more radical elements of
the Syrian fighters, including the ability of some known al-
Qaeda operatives to pass through Turkey's border and to operate
within Turkey.
I think all of this is a concern. I agree with Dr. Geltzler
about the need for on-going dialog, and I think we need to do
this with our eyes open about the fact of problems in that
country are escalating from the perspective of the U.S.
National interests.
Mr. Gallagher. Sure. General Keane.
General Keane. Yeah. Certainly, we do have challenges here.
The Turkish leadership certainly wanted Assad to go and are
very frustrated with the United States because we were playing
such a weak hand in Syria, largely due, I think, because we saw
the Iranian intervention and what they were trying to achieve,
and we didn't want to rattle them in terms of the nuclear deal
that was on the table, and negotiations that were taking place.
Turkey also facilitated the growth of ISIS on their border
openly. Turkey also facilitated the growth of al-Qaeda, because
they strategically thought that those two radical groups would
contribute to the removing Assad from power. That turned out
not to be the case for ISIS, to be sure.
I also think that we made a strategic mistake in the United
States military when we sided with the Syrian Kurds. I think it
made since tactically, they had will, they had skill, but
growing that capacity when they are not interested truly in
dealing with Arab lands and all the way down into southeastern
part of Syria.
What they are really interested in is carving out some
territory for themselves in northern Syria, much to the
detriment with our relationship with Turkey over this issue. I
think we should back away from them, to be frank about it. I
think that the relationship with Turkey, despite the Islamic
nature of the country, they are a NATO country, they do matter.
They have a significant military capacity that we have to
value. We are using their air base. I think we have got to get
back in the game with Turkey with some reasonable geopolitical
expectations of what we want to achieve in Syria, which does
not include a large dependency on the Syrian Kurds.
Mr. Gallagher. I have run out of time. So I apologize,
Ambassador Crocker. So maybe--I don't know if we end up with
more time afterwards I will revisit this and I also want to
argue with Dr. Geltzer about one more thing.
Chairman McCaul. Great points. Gentlelady from Texas, Ms.
Jackson Lee is recognized.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chairman and Ranking
Member, particularly for insightful comments that have been
made, and thank the witnesses. Each of you are serving your
Nation in a very important time. I, too, have known General
Keane, first of all, in the series of work that he has done,
and note that he was at the Pentagon on 9/11. That it must have
been an experience that he will never want to repeat, never
forget. We thank you for your service on that very tragic,
heinous day.
Ambassador, of course, we have crossed paths so many times
in Iraq, Pakistan, and I believe Afghanistan, it just looks
like we have seen each other, and you are certainly well-
deserved of the honor that was given to you. So let me just be
very quick and say, democracy is good, but sometimes the
inconsistency of our policies here in the United States can be
very challenging. Elections come, and policies come and go. So
in your comments, I would appreciate your thoughts about how
that influences, but I would like you to comment on some
holistic perspectives, and that is, the inconsistent policy,
Ambassador, with Pakistan, the willingness to sanction Pakistan
for what seems to be incompatibility, or lack of appreciation
of any work that they are doing with the Taliban in
Afghanistan, putting things on that those of us that work with
Pakistan have to put out the fire.
The issue of foreign fighters who now don't have maybe a
foreign fight, well, I believe terrorism is franchised. Where
are these 120,000-plus or others? Obviously, some lost in the
battle. Where are these foreign fighters and how do we have to
look at that?
Three, this is Homeland Security, but I think we are
interrelated with the State Department on the issues that we
have. So if you can comment on the technology end, what policy
does the Government need to have in speaking to our tech
community in saying we need you to be as vigilant constantly as
you have been, and maybe you need to embrace the small
companies to help them out as well? Ambassador and General
Keane, if you would.
Mr. Crocker. Thank you, Congresswoman. It is a very
important issue, our relationship with Pakistan, and it is
worth spending a couple of minutes on. We are a great Nation,
we are a great people. We do have our weaknesses. One of them
is, we don't care about history, that is, history a pejorative
for most Americans. History in this region, history defines
today and predicts tomorrow. We are ignorant at our cost.
Important here, because the Pakistanis have their own version
of their history and our history with them. They will recall
that after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, that we allied
ourselves very closely with Pakistan. The anti-Soviet Jihad was
staged out of Pakistan's northwest frontier province, organized
by us with Pakistan as an absolutely critical partner.
But once the Soviets were defeated, we decided our work
there was done, even though we could see the Afghan civil war
coming, which it did in all its horror. So not only did we pull
out, we no longer needed Pakistan anymore, so we stopped
requesting waivers to the Pressler amendment, which called for
the cessation of all economic or military assistance to any
country pursuing a nuclear weapons program. For a decade, the
administration got a waiver for that. We didn't need Pakistan
anymore, no more waivers, and they were completely sanctioned
as far as any assistance from us went. Then the civil war broke
out on their border. When the Taliban started to show some
purchase, yep, the Pakistanis went in on that, because it
looked like that might be the one group that could stop that
civil war before it crossed their border.
So where have we been post-9/11? Well, we are back. The
Pakistanis asked themselves, Well, that is great. When are you
leaving again? Because that is what you Americans do. I spent 3
years there. It is an imperfect relationship, goodness knows,
and the Pakistanis do a lot of things that are bad for us and
bad for themselves. But a country of 185 million people,
nuclear weapons, I think we have to be careful how we see and
use that relationship. In essence what the Pakistanis are
saying, or said to me was: If you think we are going to go
after the Taliban in Pakistan, turn them into a mortal enemy of
ours, as you get set to leave, because that is what you do, you
are going to leave, and then we will have that existential
threat, if you think we are going to do that, you are
completely crazy.
So I would have liked to have seen the administration say,
as the President did, that we are no longer driven by the
calendar in Afghanistan, we are driven by conditions. We have
important National security interests, we are going to be there
to protect them with the force that we need at the time. To
then have said to the Pakistanis, you worry about us going, we
are not going this time. We have just made it clear, it is
about conditions. So isn't it time to rethink your own
strategic logic? Oh, by the way, while you are thinking that
through again, do you remember what happened to Mohammad Akhtar
Mansoor, Mullah Omar's successor, killed with a U.S. military
drone strike with--inside Pakistan. That while you are working
it out, any Taliban leader we can find, we are going to pop
him. Maybe it will be in Balochistan, maybe it will be in
Rawalpindi. So why don't you take those two elements, and see
if you want to develop a different strategic logic. That is not
what we did.
So once again, we are in this confrontational relationship
with Pakistan over Afghanistan, largely. It is not going to
take us anywhere good. But again, that failure to demonstrate
strategic patience hurts us very greatly, there and really
elsewhere in the region, and, indeed, in the world.
General Keane. Yes, I certainly agree and associate myself
with everything that the Ambassador said. Listen, we created so
many of these problems for ourselves with 17 years, you know,
involved in this war in Afghanistan. Largely due--the
protraction of the war is largely due to our own policy
decisions. Because very quickly, after the Taliban were deposed
as we know, we made a decision to go into Iraq. That
immediately made the war in Afghanistan is what we call in the
military economy of force, actually they were put on a diet.
That was from 2002, that is when we started taking resources
away, all the way to 2008. That was the first time we put any
substantive resources back into Afghanistan, and that is
because the surge had succeeded in Iraq, and we were able to
reduce our forces, and we finally had capacity again.
So this protraction has been due to our policy. I think
President Obama had the right idea to do a surge in
Afghanistan, but unfortunately, he pulled our forces out after
15 months, and that was a tragic mistake.
So that is what has given this pause to the Pakistanis who
are harboring two safe havens of the Afghan Taliban inside
their country. That also leads to the protraction of the war.
For the first time now, we have had a President who has
said I am committed to see this thing through, but that is
going take more than rhetoric. There is going to have to be
some real commitment here. We may have to adjust the force
levels and other capacity levels based on the conditions that
are taking place in that country and have flexibility. We also
have to keep the American people engaged and explain, why is
this important to us? We don't do a very good job of that. Now,
President Bush didn't do a very good job of it, President Obama
didn't do a very good job of it, and I am hoping this President
will see the need to do that. Why Afghanistan matters, and why
we don't want it to become a safe haven for terrorists again,
for which to attack our allies, and also the American people.
Chairman McCaul. The gentlelady yields back. I believe
Congressman Gallagher had a brief wrap-up question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have inherited
General Perry's time, so I will try and channel him with this
one. So Dr. Geltzer, I think, if I understand your argument, is
that the--what you call anti-Muslim and an anti-Muslim travel
ban, the risk is that it would alienate key Muslim communities
in the Middle East that we need to participate in the fight
against ISIS, right? So my question is, is indeed that
happening? How would we know? What is our metric for
alienation? I mean, I perceive there to be, at least among
leadership in key Sunni Muslim countries, a closer relationship
between this administration and the last.
Mr. Geltzer. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to that.
So I probably worry most about the communities right here, I
think there are communities here that have been fairly
outspoken in saying that the travel ban, among other policies,
but very much at the heart of those policies, feels to them to
target them. In fact, I think they have good reason to feel
that way, given how it has been framed as a campaign promise,
and now delivered on as a Presidential policy. Those
communities strike me as the ones that have an opportunity to
intervene with those who might be prone to radicalization, or
even radicalizing in ways that we would all like to see,
ideally before those sorts of individuals become on the law
enforcement route. You know, if you talk to FBI, they take no
pleasure in finding teenagers who are on the road to material
support, trying sometimes to dissuade them or their parents
from staying on that path, and ultimately doing what the FBI
should do, which is if they committed a crime, arresting them,
and charging them for it. But ideally, communities can find
ways to intervene sooner than that, and a number of studies
have shown what is called a bystander effect, that in something
like 70 to 80 percent of cases, those who are on the
radicalizing path, give some indication of that to those who
know them well, their family, their teacher, their community
members. But if you alienate those communities, I am not sure
they feel prone to intervene in those ways, or ultimately in
the way that you might need by simply calling law enforcement.
I do think the overseas communities are important too, it
is hard to get the data on exactly how foreign communities
react to U.S. domestic policies, but it would seem, at a
minimum, unlikely to appeal to them to have this religion-
centric approach to filtering those who come to this country,
rather than the very, very careful individualized vetting of
which I am fully supportive, and that I think should always be
strengthened to insure that we are using all of our
intelligence to stop threats from entering our borders.
Mr. Gallagher. I pressed my luck with time. So Mr.
Chairman, thank you for your indulgence.
Chairman McCaul. Thank you, I want to thank the witnesses
for a very enlightening discussion. Ambassador, you mentioned
failures of imagination, and a good friend of mine, Admiral
Inman in Austin, worked with the 9/11 Commission to coin that
phrase. Not to plug my book, but I wrote a book called Failures
of Imagination to talk about what we have to imagine, what the
threats could be and what keeps us up at night. It has been a
great discussion and I want to thank all of you for being here
today.
Pursuant to committee rule VII(D) the hearing record will
be open for 10 days. Without objection, this committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Ryan C. Crocker
Question 1. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to
stabilization and assistance programs, particularly to countries in the
Middle East, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, including the Sahel
region, hurt our ability to defend against terror threats to the
homeland and to our interests abroad?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Honorable Shelia Jackson Lee for Ryan C. Crocker
Question 1. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to the
State Department hurt our ability to defend against terror groups that
are threatening the homeland and our interests abroad?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. What should be our polices in terms of technology
companies and ensuring that technology platforms cannot be misused by
terrorist groups?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question From Honorable Kathleen M. Rice for Ryan C. Crocker
Question. We currently do not have a Senate-confirmed Assistant
Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. The Trump administration
has failed to even nominate people to the Ambassador positions for many
of our key allies in the Middle East, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar. How can the United States conduct
comprehensive foreign policy, including working with our regional
partners to combat ISIS, without these critical diplomatic positions?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for John M. ``Jack''
Keane
Question. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to
stabilization and assistance programs, particularly to countries in the
Middle East, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, including the Sahel
region, hurt our ability to defend against terror threats to the
homeland and to our interests abroad?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee for John M. ``Jack'' Keane
Question 1. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to the
State Department hurt our ability to defend against terror groups that
are threatening the homeland and our interests abroad?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. What should be our polices in terms of technology
companies and ensuring that technology platforms cannot be misused by
terrorist groups?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Daveed Gartenstein-
Ross
Question. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to
stabilization and assistance programs, particularly to countries in the
Middle East, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, including the Sahel
region, hurt our ability to defend against terror threats to the
homeland and to our interests abroad?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions From Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson for Joshua A. Geltzer
Question 1. How have the Trump administration's funding cuts to
stabilization and assistance programs, particularly to countries in the
Middle East, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, including the Sahel
region, hurt our ability to defend against terror threats to the
homeland and to our interests abroad?
Answer. Sustainable counterterrorism requires not only addressing
immediate threats to American interests but also building the
foundations for undercutting the drivers of radicalization in the
future. Stabilization and assistance programs can be critical to
achieving that longer-term goal, and thus to ensuring that the United
States and its partners do not find themselves in repeated cycles of
using near-term military, law enforcement, and other tools to address
immediate terrorist threats only to see similar threats reemerge
because terrorists are able to capitalize on economic and political
vacuums to recruit and radicalize. Cutting funding for such programs
suggests a worrisomely militaristic and short-sighted approach to
counterterrorism that bodes poorly for the enduring reduction of
terrorist threats to Americans at home and abroad.
Question 2. What do you deem to be effective counterterrorism
tactics used by the private sector--as well as tactics used by the
Government, or some combination of Government and the private sector--
to marginalize ISIS on-line?
Answer. Leading technology companies deserve credit for the steps
that they have taken to attempt to address ISIS's on-line recruitment
efforts, even if more work remains to be done. In December 2016,
Facebook, Google (including YouTube), Microsoft, and Twitter announced
a hash-sharing coalition through which they would share the digital
signatures of terrorism-related content removed by any single company
so that the other companies could consider removing and blocking such
content from their own platforms. Six months later, the same companies
announced that they would be forming the Global Internet Forum to
Counter Terrorism in order to cooperate more broadly to address
terrorist threats on-line, such as by sharing the tools that they use
to identify terrorism content in the first place. Earlier this month,
the Forum announced that it would be augmenting the earlier hash-
sharing database by identifying terrorism content not yet found on any
single platform but identified externally so that participating
companies could consider preventing that content from being uploaded in
the first place. These are all worthwhile forms of cooperation
undertaken by the private sector to prevent terrorism content from
remaining unchallenged on major platforms. While these efforts live in
the private sector, the companies undertaking them would surely benefit
from being informed by the Government on an on-going basis as to what
it is seeing in terms of new on-line tactics and behavior from
terrorists.
The private sector has also experimented with admirable efforts to
try to marginalize ISIS on-line by augmenting positive counter-
messaging. Most notable is the ``redirect method'' pioneered by
Google's Jigsaw. Under that approach, when a user searches on Google in
ways that suggest a potential interest in joining ISIS, the sponsored
(paid) content section of Google's search results features links to
alternative messaging that might lead the user away from joining ISIS,
such as links to stories about ISIS's hypocrisy or about parents who
have lost their children to ISIS as foreignfighters. Similarly,
Microsoft's search engine, Bing, has devoted its sponsored content
section to counter-messaging in response to ISIS-related searches.
These are helpful steps; and they, too, would benefit from the
Government's distinctive, on-going expertise in what counter-messaging
themes and tactics may be particularly effective.
Question 3. What role should the Government play in regulating
content versus partnering and empowering technology companies to self-
regulate?
Answer. While technology companies find themselves, in key
respects, on the front lines of the terrorist challenge posed by
activities on their platforms, the Government has a significant role to
play in informing and thus augmenting the companies' efforts. The
companies, as private-sector entities, enforce their own terms of
service, but the Government has an unparalleled expertise in what new
messages terrorists are promoting on-line, how terrorists are
rejuvenating on-line accounts once those are suspended, how terrorist
activities on-line are crossing different platforms, and more. That
sort of information should, to the maximum extent possible consistent
with the critical protection of sources and methods, be shared with
technology companies as expeditiously as feasible so that policy
officials, lawyers, and perhaps most importantly engineers at the
companies can make swift, effective use of it in addressing terrorists'
latest tactics on-line. Companies should, in turn, welcome and utilize
that information and provide detailed feedback to the Government on
what is particularly useful to the companies' efforts and what more can
be provided to empower and accelerate those efforts.
Question 4. How should we be judging technology companies' work,
both in terms of taking down ISIS content and implementing more
holistic policies to counter violent extremism on technology companies'
respective platforms? What more can be done?
Answer. Technology companies have made significant strides in
recent years in contesting ISIS's virtual presence and facilitating the
offering of counter-messaging. The steps noted above, from the
formation of the hash-sharing coalition to the founding of the Global
Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to the pioneering of the redirect
method, deserve praise. At the same time, ISIS's on-line presence
remains both significant and concerning--indeed, threatening. That, in
turn, suggests that there is value in technology companies at least
experimenting with additional approaches to addressing ISIS's
persistent on-line recruitment efforts. For example, social media and
file-upload platforms might try utilizing advances in machine learning
to identify--based on similarity in content, similarity to accounts
associated with related content, logo and language identification, and
other factors--new pieces of terrorism content before such content has
been uploaded, and then block its emergence. Reviewers employed by the
companies could then assess ``pre-blocked'' content and permit the
uploading of anything erroneously blocked, such as a legitimate news
story about terrorism; the machine learning would also be improved by
the feedback generated by these corrections.
Additionally, social media and file-upload platforms might share
with one another the information associated with accounts suspended for
disseminating terrorism content, in addition to the existing sharing of
that content itself. This would allow other companies to determine
whether they have any accounts on their platforms associated with the
same information and scrutinize those accounts for any terrorism-
related violations of their respective terms of service.
Also, search engines might expand their current offering of links
to counter-messaging from the sponsored content section of search
results to the primary (non-sponsored) search results themselves,
sometimes called the ``organic'' search results. This expansion would
boost the salience of that counter-messaging and thereby increase the
likelihood that potential recruits to ISIS are exposed to the counter-
messaging that might cause them to reconsider joining the group or at
least delay their radicalization process.
Questions From Honorable Kathleen M. Rice for Joshua A. Geltzer
Question 1a. I have introduced two bills, including one that has
passed the House with this Committee's support, to require Federal
agencies to research if terrorist groups are using virtual currencies
like Bitcoin to fund their illicit operations.
To the best of your knowledge, is ISIS using these virtual
currencies?
Answer. Based on reports from leading sources such as the Council
on Foreign Relations \1\ and the RAND Corporation,\2\ it is my
understanding that ISIS has made use of virtual currencies. I do not
have independent knowledge of such use, however. Research on this issue
by Federal agencies would seem timely and important.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Ankit Panda, ``Cryptocurrencies and National Security,''
Council on Foreign Relations, February 28, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/
backgrounder/cryptocurrencies-and-national-security.
\2\ David Manheim et al., ``Are Terrorists Using
Cryptocurrencies?,'' RAND Corporation, April 21, 2017, https://
www.rand.org/blog/2017/04/are-terrorists-using-cryptocurrencies.html;
Antonia Ward, ``Bitcoin and the Dark Web: The New Terrorist Threat?,''
RAND Corporation, January 22, 2018, https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/01/
bitcoin-and-the-dark-web-the-new-terrorist-threat.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 1b. If so, what more should Congress and the Federal
Government be doing to stop them?
Answer. Assuming that, as the credible reports noted above and
others suggest, terrorist groups are in fact using virtual currencies,
Congress and the Executive branch should consider how to apply to such
emerging currencies an adaptation of the ``know your customer'' regime
that, in the context of traditional banking, has proven helpful in
counter-terrorist financing efforts. Adapting that regime--implemented
through the Customer Identification Program put in place after 9/11--
from the highly regulated context of traditional banking to the
notoriously unregulated context of virtual currencies poses a
significant challenge, and doing so effectively may well require
transnational cooperation. But that regime has helped to crack down on
(though of course not entirely eliminate) terrorists' efforts to move
money
through the traditional banking system by requiring banks to obtain
identifying information from those seeking to transfer funds of
sufficient size to trigger the requirement; and an analogous approach
to virtual currencies may prove helpful in addressing new forms of
terrorists' financial flows.