Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion Examines Lone Wolf Terrorism Threat 20170801

Half. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon and welcome to to the Washington Institute for near east policy and to the latest in our Stein Program on counterterrorism and intelligence, counterterrorism lecture series. Its my pleasure to have on the podium today buzz ganor, bruce hoffman, marlene mazell an adjunct scholar here, and i am matthew levitt, i direct the Counterterrorism Program here av the Washington Institute. Thank you so much for coming, those of you here in person, and for those watching in cspan land. Terrorist acts conducted by individuals acting on their own, inspired by others, completely alone, not so much alone, its not a new phenomenon. But in the past few years, weve seen an alarming increase in the number of what some have described as lone wolves, lone actors, lone offenders. The Islamic State, certainly, has been very proactive in using its Global Social Media Presence in particular to con transcript individuals, some who have personal problems, others who are inspired by belonging to a higher cause to carry out attacks in its name, especially if theyre unable to come and join the Islamic State in its socalled caliphate when that existed. It is now falling apart in iraqq and syria. But meanwhile, in other parts of the world and in israel in particular were seeing a sharp rise as well in individuals taking it upon themselves to carry out acts of violence without having been recruited by or trained by or armed or funded by an actual group. Is whether this is a looming threat, or a passing fad. So i am very pleased to have three good friends on the panel today, dr. Boaz ganor is the dean at the ict counterterrorism center, and the law school at the interdisciplinary center, university in israel. Bruce hoffman, is director of both the center for Security Studies and Security Studies program at Georgetown University the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and marlene is an adjunct scholar on leave from her position as director counterterrori counterterrorism. Marlene is a good friend. I sit on the board and the institute in israel and i teach starting this coming semester in bruces program in georgetown so this really is a lot of fun for me. As it happens, i happen to have a lot of expertise with the subject matter. Well start with buzz, bruce, marlene, ill bat cleanup and ill moderate from the table q a sessions until we end at 2 00. And i will just lead by example, please do shut off off silence your phones. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, matt. Its a real pleasure and honor to be at the Washington Institute and on this distinguished panel with you. You have to say that matt gave me and the rest of the panel only ten minutes, it takes me more to start my engine, i will do the impossible and try it squeeze my thoughts into a tenminute session. I would like to open with trying to allocate where is the phenomenon of the lone wolf stand, along the different types of terrorist attacks altogether. So let me start by classification. And i will start by classifying different perpetrators of terrorism and the first one we discuss today, i call this the personal initiative attack. More known under the title of the lone wolf attacker. Now, who is the lone wolf . The lone wolf is an individual that has been radicalized by this or the other source, and one day after being radicalized he guided he wants to do something about it. One option is actually to join a terrorist organization, maybe to fly as a fighter to syria or iraq and the other option is to become a home grown terrorist and conduct a terrorist attack in the territory that hes living in. This is the lone wolf attacker. The lone wolf attacker is being inspir inspired by a terrorist organization. Many scholars today question the fact that hes a lone wolf altogether. Always, almost always, there is some connection to a terrorist organization, at least inspiration, which is being done by a terrorist organization. And i would say that still, i would use the term lone wolf because the lone wolf being inspired by terrorist organization doesnt have any rpgs 0 al ties with the terrorist organization. Meaning the terrorist organization is not necessarily involved in the initiation, in the planning, preparation and execution of the attack altogether. The second type of perpetrators, what i call the independent network. The independent network practically is a bunch of lone wolves. A group of lone wolves. This group, usually very small group, two, three, four, five people altogether. Usually talking about peers or friends or in some cases family members. I took the example of the San Bernardino husband and wife. This is an independent network. Why its a group of lone wolves . Because its an inspiration attack and not without involvement of operational involvement of a terrorist organization. Theyre being inspired by by the way, if you would ask them before or after the attack they would describe themselves as activists of isis, or whoever and mostly the terrorist organization will take responsibility for what they do. And they do not have any ties with the terrorist organization, only being inspired. The third type of terrorist attacks is what i refer as organized terrorism. Either sleeper cells or infiltrated cells. Here, this is a different ball game altogether. Here we are talking about a group, a cell, it could be, by the way, even an individual in some cases, that has been recorded to a terrorist organization, trained, and the terrorist organization is involved in all of the operational background and activities that launch at the end of the day the attack. I have good news and bad news when i compare the lone wolf attack to the organized terrorism. The good news is that usually lone wolf attacks are not that lethal. And the number of casualties are limited. There are exceptions. Nice is an exception. How many people can be hurt with a lone wolf attack . The majority of the attacks are using a weapon, knife, ax, or whatever. In some cases theyre using light weapons. Very seldom they use explosive device, but when we are talking about these phenomenon, its limited. The number of casualties are quite limited altogether when we compare that to the organized terrorism. The organized cells are conducted recently in paris, the attack in belgium, or istanbul 911 is terrorism, those are mass casualty attacks. And thats the good news for the lone wolf. The ill explain, that we used to believe that intelligence is incapable of dealing with this phenomenon of lone wolf. Why . Because the human sources intelligence and communication intelligence is based on what . Its based on the fact that there is some kind of a discourse between at least two people that share a secret, the secret of what they are planning to attack. You have an agent to that or you have the ability to wire tap and listen to the conversation, but theres a need for conversation. In the lone wolf, in most cases of the lone wolf, there is no conversation. Everything starts and ends with a sick mind of one person. So intelligence seems to be useless in this regard. I emphasis seems to be, today were looking at this regard. Another classification, the classification of the terrorist attacks. I would suggest i dont have enough time to drill into it, but i would suggest we have two scales in our mind. One with the level of involvement of the terrorist organization in the attack, starting with no involvement whatsoever, ending with full organized terrorist attack by a terrorist organization. The other scale would be the level of independence of the attacker, meaning, is it really independent or share a secret with his friends or other peers . Did he consult with anybody . Did he have any accomplices that gave him passive support or active support, does he conduct the attack with others, like an independent so on and so forth. Once we have the two scales we can go back to the classification that we had before and see how lone wolf local initiative attacks and organized terrorism fall into that scale and then we can judge which attack, what type of attack was conducted. At the time, why its important, its not just theoretical discussion, its important because, of course, you need to behave differently. You need counterterrorism activities referring to lone wolf, local networks and organized terrorism altogether. Now, lets zoom in on the subject matter of the lone wolf. When were talking about the lone wolf attack, usually they conduct cold weapon attacks, sabotage, molotov cocktails, stabbing, running down, in israel, bull dozing, running down with a bulldozer, and sometimes shootings altogether. And one exception, Suicide Attacks were not conducted by lone wolves. Of course, we need to define the term Suicide Attack. The way that i describe Suicide Attack is the type of the person who is strapping himself with a suicide belt or carrying explosive device and pushing the button. Those attacks are always organized terrorism. Always, there is an Organization Behind that, planning that, who is preparing that and executing that. It could be at the end of the day, theres one individual with the attack, but this is organized terrorism and not lone wolf attack. When were talking about the rational behind it, the best news i can give you today, that based on my experience on counterterrorism. This is more than 35 years. And i can tell you based on my experience and generallylizing here, terrorists are rational actors. What does this mean . It means that terrorists in general are calculating costs and benefits and choosing the alternative which they believe is more beneficial than costly. Thats what rational people do, thats what you do every day, thats what i do every day and what the terrorists are doing. They have a different calculation than we have in the western society and other places. They have the costs and balances. A group of counterterrorism experts need to take out his own considerations and cost benefits calculations and put on his head the counterpart, the enemy calculation, cost benefit calculation and the bad news is that practically there is no one generic terrorist calculation. The calculation, the cost benefit calculation of isis is different than al qaeda, is different than hamas, is different than hezbollah and actually, even within the organization you could see the consideration of isis today are different than the considerations that they have a year ago, probably different again in one years time. The real bad news is when were talking about lone wolf, its much more difficult to understand the rational because its a rational of individual and not of a group in ideological concept. I want to show you four pictures that have been taken in israel in which the common denominator are four lone wolves that have just been arrested after stabbing people in the streets. In jerusalem and other places altogether. They are being handcuffed and are being escorted to the police car. Probably they are going to spend life in jail time. Thats the common denominator, but theres another common denominator and youll see it immediately in the picture. The other common denominator is the smile on the face. This is not a coincidence. You know, ive just visited chinatown yesterday in new york, and there was an arrest in front of my face, the nypd arrested a criminal there. He didnt smile. He was walking to the police car handcuffed. He didnt smile. But theyre smiling. And theyre smiling because i would argue, this is a reflection of the calculus of cost benefits. What they believe, what they did right now although theyll pay a high price, spend life in prison probably, but they did the honorable thing to do. They did something which is more beneficial than costly from their point of view. This is our task, the counterterrorism expert, to crackdown the smile, to understand this calculus and then maybe to have counter messages and so on and so forth. By the way i use the term jihadi zombies to explain this concept. Why . Two reasons, youngsters understand what skom zombies are. And secondly the term zombies doesnt have a shred of honor. And i want to take this from that. And thats the other example next to israel, actually stabbing every person that is waiting in a public bus stop altogether. Thats jihadi zombie, but its not just israel. This is a jihadi zombie conducted in attack in london, killing zigby in the suburb of london and not running away, covering his hands with the blood of the victim and preaching to everybody ready to take a video clip about his reasons behind it and so on and so forth. Also the united states, the case of thompson in 2014, that converted to islam and went to wage jihad against nypd officers. By the way, in a nutshell, one new phenomenon that we see is a growing threat of lone wolf activity, radicalized islam which are converts. The guy from manchester was a convert. We had other cases of converts including in israel, by the way, jews that converted to islam. Its probably much easier radicalizing a newcomer into this religion. Last but not least, and i would limit myself. We used to think that intelligence was worthless with lone wolf because the secrets are kept in their mind. We were wrong, instead of human sources and communications sources intelligence, we have found that we have the ability to understand what, maybe to predict whats happening, based on open sources intelligence, the writing is on the wall, on the wall of facebook, of instagram and you name it and we see that most of those activists give a prior warning because they want to brag about it, because they do the honorable thing to do and they want that people believe that what they do is the honorable thing to do and tlherefore theyre sharing that open the social network. One saying that in the name of allah, today, decided to achieve i decided to become a martyr. Thats a warning in this regard and they are conducted and in berlin, the understanding of the attacker. The lesson from the attack occurred before. And in nice, after isis published exactly what should be done if you want really to conduct an effective rundown activity, after the attack theyre becoming a model of imitation and what we see is a very vicious cycle. I will conclude with that, starting with the incitement from the terrorist organization and into the radicalization process and with the individual and decides to do something about it, hes planning the attack, in many case hes justified it by a public political platform. And then imitation, a fertilizer for further incitement and at the end of the day, this is epidemic, becoming an epidemic phenomenon. The good news, i want to end with the good news is that its practically counter terrorists can watch that, understand that, analyze that, and maybe prevent it. Thank you very much. [applaus [applause] well, thank you, matt and the institute for the very kind invitation to come speak today and to especially serve on this very distinguished panel. Let me focus my remarks a bit more and talk about isis or the Islamic State or isil and start with a very broad observation that i think that boaz would agree with me and many people in the audience ive known for decades in the counterterrorism world and dare say that they would as well. But at the risk of stating the obvious, i think one of the positi pathologies of study of terrorism or counterterrorism is selective amnesia, its not surprising, its the tyranny, the deluge. Often it crowds out any historical perspective. So, in that respect, let me read you a quote and think think about who would have said this and when would it have been said. Tracking down americans and the jews is not impossible. Killing them with a single bullet, a stab, or a device made up of a popular mix of explosives or hitting them with an iron rod is not impossible. Burning down their property with molotov cocktails is not difficult. With the available means, small groups could prove to be a frightening hoard for the americans and the jews. Any takers . Anyone want to guess . Al sarah hari, released in december 2001. Even as then the deputy leader of the al qaeda, current leader of al qaeda was on the run from perhaps the greatest onslaught against the terrorist in history, Operation Enduring freedom. Nonetheless, he had the time to write this statement to resurrect al qaeda and carry on the struggle. The only problem was, it completely fell on deaf ear. The phenomena of lone wolf terrorism did not materialize until over a decade later with the rise of isis. Then we have the statements of mohammad abnani, the late deputy commander, a senior official, operational planner, prop beganed if youre not able to find a bullet, single out an american or the allies, smash his head with a rock or slaughter him with a knife or run him over from your car, or throw him from a high place or choke him or poison him. Its precisely isis revolutionly use of social media thats transformed the nature of terrorism in a remarkably short span of time, but also empowered this group. In less than three years to become one of the most challenging threats we face and one of the most, i would argue, as well see, durable terrorist organizations. You dont have that ability to be revolutionary and innovative and fade from the scene because of the loss of a couple of cities. So one way or the other, i would argue isis is here to stay, at least for the forseeable future and one of the reason reasons for that is their ability to harness and exploit social media and summon this broad universe of lone wolves in addition to more professional terrorists. Theres another point where isis has unfortunately been innovative will have more immediate consequences in years to come. The 9 11 terrorism, vfg professional terrorists trained overseas, deployed against their targets, operating under a very clear hierarchy, command and control structure with strict operational order. That was the traditional model of terrorism. The lone wolf model that boaz just described, looks at authority, lone wolves with no tails, no logistical tails to interdict. Theyre harder to predict. As boaz pointed out, the violence is more limited. Nonetheless, the ability to overwhelm, preoccupy and distract Law Enforcement and Intelligence Services is enormous. And yet, what we see is that the most formidable terrorist organizations are also the ones that are most innovative and most dynamic. Unfortunately, like isis. Because isis is now in recent months pioneered yet a third variant that goes from the traditional and topdown form of terrorism, the 9 11 model, lets say, to the bottom up form of terrorism. The lone wolf. Now, they have the hybrid, which i would argue present new and very serious challenges to Law Enforcement and intelligence. This is the new hybrid of enablers that take advantage of lone wolves, of individuals that have no prior connection to a terrorist organization, that may never have met a terrorist in their life. May never have left even their own community to go be trained overseas or anywhere else in terrorism. Nonetheless, as weve seen in recent years, who are manipulated, exploited, ultimately inspired and animated to commit acts of violence in support of or on behalf of a terrorist organizations aims. The new twist now is that these terrorist organizations are providing these individuals with very specific, often very detailed intelligence and targeting instructions. Thus, empowering them. Thus, making the lone wolf even more of a threat than theyve been to date. This new emergence of a different challenge was brought home last march when isis released a hit list, a targeting list of some 8,000 names of americans around the country. When i attempted to print it out, admittedly it wasnt formatted well, but 425 pages, names of individuals, people who work and live in the addresses, and some of those in washington d. C. Will recognize the intelligence agencies. Email addresses, sometimes mobile phone numbers. But in other words, this was a hit list or a target list that isis, at least, meant certainly to sew psychological discord, create alarm and anxiety, which is always the goal of terrorism, but also, further encourage and in essence, plump up the power of the lone wolf. So consequently, isis has changed the nature of terrorism in a very short span of time, which i think means that its not going to disappear or fade from the scene anytime soon. The fundamental challenges facing Law Enforcements intelligence agencies and Security Services today, not just in the united states, but i with argue around the world, is not to be overwhelmed by the threat of lone wolf, not to be deluded into focusing exclusively on any one threat. Not to be distracted by this low hanging fruit of comparatively unprofessional lone wolf, but to also Pay Attention to the entire spectrum of terrorist threats, including those coming from more professional, better organized, planned the traditional form of terrorism in other words. This may sound like a i would argue this is the trap that the french fell into in 2015. The intent focus on lone wolves that was imposed on french authorities by just the proliferation of the number of individuals whom they have to track, whom they had to monitor, and the degradation to their abilities because of the focus on one particular segment of the threat led perhaps tragically to the lowering of the guard and to successful simultaneous suicide pacts that we saw. So, in conclusion, therefore, the an a time of comparatively diminishing row sour resources, and decade and a half plus of terrorism when political will has been reduced, when our collective governments and countries are sapped by this ongoing war, what we see is a multiplication of new and more challenging threats that means we can never let down our guard. Thank you. [applaus [applause] hi, good afternoon. Its a pleasure to be here today. Matt and boaz and bruce. As matt mentioned, i work in the ministry of justice and i have the privilege of being on academic leave so im speaking today in my personal capacity. What im looking at is one small slice of this discussion we were having about lone wolves and stabbing attacks in israel committed by youth. So recently, the eu came out with a terrorism trend report and it identified a recent trend. It came up with 14 trends. Number 10 is increasingly independent operational role in committing terrorist attacks in the country by youth. My intention on the panel is conduct preliminary research i start today work on israel and im continuing here on the institute and i say its a very small issue. What i was interested in studying was did the leadership take acts to glorify the terrorist acts of specific youths and if they did, did that play a role in encouraging further youths to engage in further violence. So, in israel, this issue came up in october of 2015. In 2015, october alone, there were 59 terrorist attacks. 17 of those terrorist attacks were committed by youth, nearly a third. In october, i recall living in israel, there was a raging debate that erupted in the media, what was causing this new wave of violent terror attacks by youth. They were in general, but particularly by youth was very troubling. Some viewed it was a statement of Mahmoud Abbas that he made on palestinian television, and he said, we welcome every drop of blood spilled in jerusalem. Its clean blood, blood on the way to allah. With the help of allah here wounded will be rewarded by allah, and words were widely disseminated in the media and some credited these words for inspiring the violent stabbing attacks that began two weeks later in october. Others took a different view. They said, no, these terrorists, including the youths, they were lone wolves. They were angry at the occupation, frustrated after peace talks broke down. One palestinian poll taken in september, 2015. Said that 57 of those polled supported the return to an armed armed entafad a what sparked my interest was what was happening on the ground and i started to study the specific attacks committed and what you can see here very found a very troubling number. Theyre 105 attacks that were committed by youth. Their ages, 11, 15, to 17. And when we quantified attacks, we quantified violence attacks and we took information on molotov cocktails and we tried to study the specific new phenomenon, stabbing with knives. The question i was looking at, whats the percentage of the 105 of the overall attacks committed during the time period and the statistics thus far is between a quarter and a half of all the attacks that were committed at the time. So, clearly, there was a dramatic increase in the stabbing attacks of youth. And the research that he have been conducting has tried to answer three different questions, number one, why . Why . Why were these Palestinian Youth involved in stabbing terror attacks . Number two, is there a connection between the actions of the leadership glorifying the specific acts of the youth and encouraging further attacks . And three, if we find that a correlation does exist, are there lessons that can be learned about radicalization and incitement. So the data that weve found thus far is we found four 11 and 12yearolds, five 15yearold, 59, 14 through 16 year olds. And 59 17 years olds. The vast majority of the attacks were stabbing attacks using knives. So the next question we were looking at was very specific. We were looking at specific glorification of the acts of the youth by the palestinian authori authority. So what we were looking for was public source information, the information had to reach the youth. Arabic, english, hebrew websites, information, tv, different aspects, whether they were taking actions to glorify specific youths. We took the names of the youth and ran it through data bases to see if we could find acts of glorification. Now, let me just be clear because its a very specific study. Things we didnt include in the study which i think i might continue to include are look at over the summer, we did know the include exams of general glorification. For example, a report was issued by palestinian media watch on pa education issued during the year in july of 2015, they found that educational institutions were teaching hate and praising terrorists, including youth, who killed civilians and depict them as heroes and martyrs. It might have as boaz might have a different influence on their thinking. And were they praising the actions of youth in general. We just reflected specific actions on specific youths that committed terror attacks. At the same time to be clear and give a fuller picture what was going on. There were statements made that repudiated terrorism. The study wanted to focus whether the actions were consistent with these statements. There was also, during this time period, significant security between those helping to thwart terrorist attacks, including those by youth. At the same time as boaz was discussing and bruce, there were many factors of information released to the youth and they were exposed to information by hamas, isil, social media accounts opened at the time one was called stab. Another was called schluter the slaughter the jews, and you see little toddlers holding knives. There were instructional videos issued by organizations how to kill a jew using a knife. There were many influencing of youth part of many studies. We were looking into the specific question of whether they were acts of the Palestinian Authority and the leadership on specific on the children. This is what we found, there were. There were acts of glorification by the pa. What kind of information we were seeing . We were seeing actions such as giving the youth, an official military funeral, publishing flyers, official flyers that condoned the youth as a martyr and condolences to the family. Here we have two examples of what that actually looks like. One, this is a flyer, a 17yearold, you can see the official emblem to the left and right, and and it says here with pride and honor, the National Liberation movement of the people. And old city. Eulogizes him and he was responsible for being involved in a stabbing attack, that injured a soldier the junction. And another example of a military funeral, one of the cases that we looked at, he was given a formal military funeral and on the bottom, you see a flyer of three terrorists at the time, with one of them and bottom reflects his name and praised through the official channel. So the next question we were looking at. Well, is there a correlation . All right, we saw there were specific acts of glorification, which was troubling. Because its not what you would its not what you would want to see in this context. So we were looking at was there any correlation, glorifying the acts of the children and specific attacks or additional attacks and the preliminary results were fascinating. You see on top the acts of glorification and next the terrorist attacks by youth. What we can see so far, as i said its preliminary data. There seems to be a correlation between glorification and the number of terror attacks committed. You can see there were many more attacks committed between october and march, and there seems to be a sharp drop, if you see starting april towards the end to september 2016. A dramatic drop both in the acts of glorification and ensuing or and the terrorist attacks committed by youth. Im not sure what it means at this stage. There could be many environmental factors that have nothing to do with glorification and there isnt correlation unnecessarily at all. We definitely did not find the data did not at least the data i was looking at so far did not show causation. You cant show that there was a specific statement of glorification that caused a specific response by the youth, that would be much more complex, as boaz was staying and trying to collect much more data from different sources. There was one more study of a 15yearold, when she was interviewed. She was murdered a 38 yearold mother. She was interviewed and television had influence on him and his decision to carry out the attack. So that was not an example of direct causation, just one individual who felt they were influenced by someone on television. I start today interview different experts, showing them the charts. Saying what do you think . Is there a correlation . What could be the reason for the dramatic drop. Some views that you heard so far, that i thought i would share. Some experts thought it was the upcoming report of the middle east quartet, that was going to look at incitement and that that led to a decrease. Others were of the view Palestinian Society and individuals in the society were upset that their youth were engaged in violent attack and numerous measures were taken by the pa in different angles, including the reduction of glorification in order to actively discourage youth from the attacks. And some experts who know about israeli counterterrorism, other information in order to identify attacks before they occurred and to prevent them and people who understand those three issues, some say it was a combination of all of the above. In any event, it does seem interesting, it seems interesting in terms of two factors, if you actually could quantify whats the relevant input or influence of one form of glorification or incitement, that might be helpful to counterterrorism efforts and as boaz and bruce were discussing, the cumulative impact on the youth and influence that might then be encouraging youth to act. And also, perhaps if you could find out whats encouraging them, you could find out how to discourage them and help stop the attacks and that might be equal to the counterterrorism efforts. [applaus [applause] thank you all very much. Id like to go last so that when all the good stuff is taken, i can come up with a few short nuggets and then open up to q a. So well do that today and well start with, maybe, call it an mea culpa. There are many who sat in these chairs before and heard me speak at the podium before and one or two of you are keen to hear what im going to say about the nature of lone wolves attacks, given ive stood here in the past and said that the lone wolf idea is really largely a misnomer and i think that when i said that at this podium, including once at an event together with bruce back in november, when i wrote this in two different Foreign Policy pieces in september of last year and march of last year, i dont think i was wrong. But, of course, counterterrorism is not static and when the Islamic State was still remaining and expanding, to use its own terminology, and then maybe more so when it was a little bit on its back heels, and really sought to actively send a returning foreign fighters back home to europe or elsewhere, to direct and where it couldnt maybe just enable, as bruce discussed, terrorist attacks that really would be maybe carried out by a lone individual, maybe a lone attack, maybe a lone offender, but not really a lone wolf. Not really someone operating on his or lets be clear, her own. In fact, the europe terrorism report that marlene mentioned, raises concerns not only of the number attacks overall, not only the number of inspired attacks overall, but in particular about the number of attacks involving women as one of these new trends. And i think we can look back at mohammad alnanis speech in 2014 and recently not long before he was killed in may of 2016, very specifically calling on people, if you cant come here, at least do things where you are, as examples of the way in which the Islamic State proactively tried to play on the situations in which at risk individuals, mostly youth, found themselves. But then to provide people with some type of capability. So, at the time, i felt that the era of the lone wolf largely over because what we were seeing at the time was more known wolves than lone wolves, people who were on the radar of Law Enforcement in one way or another. They werent completely unknown, and they were having some type of connective tissue to an organized group, even if they werent originally recruited by that group or armed by that group, maybe really the only way to draw the line is through further radicalization and maybe, in some cases, the provision of some intelligence to be able to carry out the attack. But what were seeing now at a time when the caliphate is not only on its back heels, but about to be destroyed, its something a little different. Were seeing a desire on the part of the Islamic State to be able to perpetuate itself as an idea beyond the existence of its caliphate as a state as such. Were also seeing several other phenomenon. On the one hand, the caliphate is about to end as such, but the caliphate genie is out of the bottle. For those in west, lets i is a, who have grievances and who are reading online propaganda, their memory, i think that bruce has said, their member wri will be shortlived. And one radicalization messages, there was a caliphate, it wasnt perfect, we made mistakes. There was a caliphate and all we wanted to do was to be left alone to live sharia compliant lives and the west wouldnt allow that. If only we would have progressed we would have become less brutal, become more normal. In other words, the idea there was recently a caliphate, not hundreds of thousands of years ago, but a caliphate that did exist. Whether or not it was rejected by the vast majority of muslims who didnt see that as a caliphate is irrelevant to some of the individuals who are drawn to this message and they will be drawn to this message through a medium that still exists. Social media is able to penetrate every border, into the basement of every home, and people who have problems are still going to be drawn to these issues and i would argue that the grievances that have led people to be attracted to and to have the cognitive for opening radical messages, is in fact, if anything, on the rise. Europeans have let in many refugees, many migrant, but havent done a particularly good job of enabling them to cultureate into society and there are a lot of different ways in which this is a set of grievances that is likely to expand. If you look into the past few months, you can see groups kind of trying it rebuild a new kind of propaganda specifically about the lone wolf. I should stress that as bruce noted, the idea is not new. When zawahiri raised it, people listened over time of the the jn line ebook in 2015, how to survive in the west, a guide, you may recall rahimy the bomber in new york and new jersey appears to have been inspired not by the Islamic State, but by anwar alawlaki, a radicalizer in death and he was in life. Just this month an Islamic State ebook was released to homeschooled lone wolves as they put it. The lone wolf handbook written in turkish disseminated on telegram, in in june, related to the Islamic State, distributed a video, noting attacks in melbourne, et cetera, and specifically calling for attacks in australia, america, canada, europe and russia, and of course, there was the ninth volume of rumea released in may, with a large section on terror tactics, hostage taking, how to carry out violence, how to acquire firearms and what might be the targets of the attacks, how to execute people. What to do if you dont have a firearm. How to lure a target, for example, post in an online site, you have an apartment to rent. Lure people to the apartment and kill them. Something that Israeli Security had to deal with over the years, et cetera. And i should note that much like the case of rahimy, who was radicalized by alawlaki. And when it was claimed off 9 11, but certainly is now. There is a competition between the remains of the Islamic State and al qaeda, which is causing al qaeda to try and pick up its game. Al qaeda is very much, i believe, on the rise. The Washington Institute just let a research and produced a volume edited by my colleague on how al qaeda has survived the rise of the Islamic State to arab springs, et cetera, and al qaeda, also, has now begun to reintroduce the magazine inspire a shorter version called inspire guide very as well on people who succeeded in carrying out attacks, including lone offender attacks and how you can do the same and i think we need to, as bruce said, not be so caught up in one part of the threat that we dont see the others, the al qaeda threat is very, very serious. And then, i think its important to look at the recent report which talked about that spectrum of inspired, enabled and directed plots and when it comes to those who are inspired and are lone offenders, they write that these are individual attackers, possibly, but not necessarily helped by family and or friends and accomplices. Theyre inspired by jihadist propaganda, but not receiving specific instruction from any group and that should echo what you heard from boaz. I think we have to recognize even as we have success in the battlefield against the Islamic State. The radicalization process is not linear. You can have someone who is radicalized and who maybe gets deradicalized or disengages from radicalism. That can happen and that person can be radicalized again. When you have social media available 24 7, messages can change, messages can be updated. People can be radicalized again. Im of the opinion so long as our strategy in syria, counterterrorism strategy in syria is all and only about the Islamic State and not paying particular attention to al qaeda, were not paying almost any attention to a guy whose name maybe some have forgotten, bashir alrab and even if we dismantle the Islamic State. Im drawn to a recent counterterrorism study on the likelihood that u. S. Home grown violence extremism will experience recitivism. They mention many cases in the report and we need to take this to heart. There will be recitivism in terms of the people who return to radicalization and that means the likelihood of still more individuals acting on their own. Im still not in love with the term lone wolves. It sort of creates them out to be big and powerful, maybe even honorable, as boaz said. Theyre not really wolves at all. If theyre truly lone wolves, they have broken from the pack and have no connective tissue from the group which i argue would have inspiration and that definitely exists. The problem of lone offenders or at the europe report puts it lone attackers, is very real. And while the israelis have done some really, really interesting and Effective Work in being able to mine social media postings, not everybody is posting on the social media. And even when they are, were not always able, especially in a country the size of the united states, as opposed to israel, able to mine that data in a timely manner. And the biggest concern, therefore, isnt just the issue of encryption and the ability to follow those messages that still exist between people who are part of a group, the problem is also that people can be radicalized. People are radicalized today so quickly, its not like when i started by career in counterterrorism in the 1990s, there was a lead time. The flash to bang. The period of time between radicalization and mobilization can be very, very, very quick. Days or even hours. And that doesnt leave Law Enforcement or intelligence a whole lot of leeway or much of a window to be able to catch on to what could happen very, very quickly. And when youre talking about doing something as simple as picking up a knife or getting in a car, or in this country, lets be honest, its not difficult to get your hand on a handgun. Then we are talking about the very strong likelihood that as we move forward, as the Islamic State continues to crumble, what i said last year will no longer be true, or will not only be true, that is to say, it will still be the case that we have have enabled and even directed plots in the near term. In the near term those are likely to increase as the Islamic State collapses, and the europe report specifically says theres data intelligence, and there is concern about the Islamic State now trying to infiltrate trained operatives into the with he is into the west and do things while theyre collapsing at home. Parallel, at the same time as that, the likelihood that individuals will try to carry things out on their own increases, that means that the nature of the threat will be more than just isis or al qaeda. It wont only be organized. It will also be Something Else and thats going to be much more difficult for us to tackle, even if, as youve heard, the attacks that they may be successful in carrying out are likely to be much less lethal. But a few people kill their wounded a bunch of People Killed and wounded is horrible and the terrifying effect. The terroristic effect on society and the economy would be significant. Thank you very much. [applaus [applause] that leaves us plenty of time for q a. Ill take you in the order i see you. We will start here in the blue shirt. Im going to pingpong across the room so we get everybody in the room. Im retired from service i had he a id like to follow up on remarks from israel, the possible payments of families of prisoners or families who are killed. Number one, how much of an inspiration do you think those payments account for. Number two, what is the likelihood that some governments either in the u. S. Or european union, as has been suggested by Prime Minister netanyahu, ought to somehow make some kind of a linkage between those statements and reduction of support to the Palestinian Authority . And if indeed those types of payments were reduced or can cut, what would be the likelihood of the effect of that . I think its good a good question. Its been very much in the media lately because the pa gave out information regarding to its budget. So i was looking at the information this week, and the context of the study to look at what proportion of its budget, what was happening in this context. The numbers are almost 200,000 of the payments are paid for martyr families, the families of these children, a 9 increase from last year. And that they would i mean, i didnt look to check the data with these names yet, i think its something i would like to do, but that would include paying the families of terrorists, even if the terrorists, attempted terrorist, get payment that they didnt succeed as part of this plan. Just as a parent of children, you know, what influences children, i think children want to be want to be able to be relevant and were thinking about culturally, could it influence a child if he knows he commits a terrorist act that his family then gets paid of money after his heroic act from what he sees, i would say that could have an effect on a child. One of the things i was looking at in the study is consistent messaging. As relates to youth, most parents know that children dont do well with mixed messages. The governments want to be consistent in the message theyre giving in all channels. You hope that the educational system gives a message that terrorism is wrong and say nothing that lauds terrorists at all or official funerals or anyone killed in a terror attack. You want to protect children from being encouraged from that. You dont want to see payments to the families. Usually tell children this is a criminal act. People who commit the acts get justice. And that would be the messaging that would be consistent with trying to look at terrorist attacks. Right up in the front. Hi, im trudy from the philadelphia inquirer. Matt and anyone else who wants to answer this, two things id like to ask, first, is there a worry that individual attackers can develop techniques that would lead to larger numbers of casualties . The nice attack, obviously, was one way and one has seen other vehicle attacks that had fairly serious numbers, you could think of drones, you could think of things that an individual could concoct, or might read on the internet. And so thats one thing i wanted to ask. Well, let me stop there. I wont be able to go to sleep tonight. So again, the good news is that lone offenders tend not to have great capabilities. For most of the things that are going to lead to larger casualties, you really do need at least a little bit of training. Explosives, explosives with chemical precursors, its not possible and not like there arent people out there who have training capability, but in general, you see people who try to make explosives when theyre following directions off the internet as largely unsuccessful. Not always, look the a the Boston Marathon bombing. There are other things that are possible. Im concerned in this country you can get not just a handgun, but a semi or fully automatic weapon. Look at the weaponry found in San Bernardino, that could have been much shall much worse. Certainly the vehicular attack is something of concern. Dhs and others sent out bulletins at the time and theres a lot of attention being placed to, i guess, again, a new once again years after 9 11, took different ways to protect infrastructure and now there is a concern, especially very recently with drones, weve seen the Islamic State weaponize drones in the battlefield. One concern in general is when somebody sees something succeeding, they think they can do it, too. Its true for the lone offender in general. Why might someone be more likely to be mobilized to violence today in certain circumstances than before . Because theyve seen others have done it and maybe seen others have done it and been lauded, whether by the Islamic State or the in palestinian context, Something Else. When people have seen that the Islamic State has been able to weaponize drones in iraq or syria, maybe they think i can do that here and you can use any kind of drone. There are a lot about these things, Law Enforcement is animated on the subject. Anybody wants to jump in on that. Maybe im a little bit less optimistic than matt on that matter. I would say that we need to understand terrorism, the phenomenon, an evolving phenomenon. Its always changing and we cannot lay back and say, okay, what we know is its what there is. On the other side there are terrorists and the terrorists are all the time look for new matters, new techniques, different targets and so on and so forth. Its a cat and mouse chase and they can in the lay back and say we are fine with that. Having this in mind, i would, of course, not get into details and i dont want to introduce ideas to the terrorists in general or the lone wolf in particular. But i would say that i believe that this is a growing phenomenon. Its not going to disappear, its not going to change traditional terrorism. I definitely share with bruce and matt the concern. With organized terrorism, with big attacks, even the level of 9 11, we should not exclude that. But on top of that, were having a growing phenomenon, not a new phenomenon, but a phenomenon that will challenge us in different ways all the time. I believe and i hope that there are people who bear the responsibility of the attacks. And when we think about what would be the next more effective tactics that a lone wolf might use because i have no doubt in my mind that those who incite them will weve heard about ensitement as a precursor. Those who incite them and teach them trying to be more innovative in this. I want to be more pessimistic. Timothy mcveigh was not an archetypal lone wolf. Nonetheless, he had no direct organizational connection. He was not carrying that out on behalf of an organization. The key variable was he was able to get the information freely available which was 1995. It was infantile compared to the exchange of information now. My emphasis is always on the threat from organization and maybe not another 9 11 but mass of people that can access the information far more easily. You have a large number of foreign fighters. 40,120 countries not only killed off despite some optimistic hopes they will. Some comeback as part of an organized campaign but some may be the lone wolves of tomorrow. The military expertise they had. I would also say as described in the nature of terrorism and its constantly changing. Te optim when i started my professional career as a terrorism analyst in 1981, we worked on a study for the American Intelligence Committee that met the attributes of terrorist groupsna during the 1960s and 70s and the most common vocations forunh unachers than medical doctors. Those of you in university, if, youre not a philosophy professor, you may have ag limited technological capability. More and more engineers are being drawn to terrorism. Herzogs excellent book, and alarmingly high of individuals in jihadi groups in an engineering background. Khalid sheikh mohammed, his nephew, the World Trade Center and the 9 11 attacks at the World Trade Center. As more engineers coming to terrorism, potentially for the own rules. I focus on the organizations, but the potential for lone wolf would be more dangerous and more consequential as its growing. O ill just add that your answer makes me think, by the way, focusing on Islamic State and al qaeda, that there is an equally important need to Pay Attention to the rise of terrorism and potentialthere is homegrown terrorism where they are tend to be people who do have military expertise that could make things more dangerous. Just. Neil thank you. Thank you for the terrificic presentation you gave us. My question is you prayed for the internet for the tool for understanding tomorrow and we can develop counter narrative encounter messaging. As a terrorism researcher, i guess he would support unimpeded access to the content online. Have you thought about to what extent he would support takingl this material down and what sort of material which you say that would be okay to do . Thank you, just. It is a great question. Maybe i would have. Its always between the ability to monitor over the internet or what they do, what they say and trying to prevent this process, maybe the communication between them through the internet. Pros and cons, but between you and me, we cannot prevent them. We cannot steal the internet, the misuse of the internet. If you still one nation, you would develop another. N effo always this effort to work. So i would say that what can be done and what should be done is to identify those negative and dangerous messages and menus true facts. The need to develop a new type of capability that will monitor the discourse over the internet, over the social networks. It can be done. It is being done today, but it should be much more sophisticated in order to identify the early stages of the process, the sentiment over the internet. They develop systems and the need to develop a doctor in how to work with this new data because it would mention even if you know that somebody says something, what do you do with that right now . Ed tha there is no longer preparation. The guy could Say Something over the internet, grab a knife and ran to rage jihadi in his view. So there is a lot to do here that can be done, should be done to many to be be done on this respect. The other thing and i think we see the beginning of it is the cooperation of the internet services, the facebook, google, telegram and others that need to be more cooperative than they used to be a year or two years ago. They need to be much moretelegr cooperative because theres a lot of responsibility here and if they would not do it, then i wouldnt recommend to have laws against them, but they would definitely be done, in closing those insightful messages, i would encourage the big guns of terrorism and the families to sue them for not doing that. Right over here, please. Pret excuse me, bob, academic philosopher. [laughter][lau use spoken about the need to monitor the internet to try to identify in a more sophisticaten way who potential terrorists would be epa theres been a lott of discussion about the need toe develop the countermeasures on the internet and no one is really elaborated on nightstands. I wonder if any members of the panel can tell you think we are coming on in identifying terrorists using the internet, but in developingter messag counterpropaganda, counter messaging, whatever terminology you want to use and is that really every of the stick and affect his countermeasure in your judgment . Thank you. I was jumping to say that my panelists are absolutely right. This is an area where we didnt have a whole lot of movement and all of a sudden we do. I would point there are many examples to point to come in particular google suffered some Googling Youtube itself to redirect people when they dotub. Certain searches to certain counter messaging. It is not just the decision to redirect, which has kind of a media social abashed social media platform is a pretty big deal for them to make this determination. But then, do what you direct them towards . The cuttingedge research recently on one of messages work , sending people to interview people who are captured from cases where people defected from a face, sending people to work, to interview people interviewing in europe to see what is working, interviewing mothers, et cetera. They tried coming up with some pretty effective counterib messaging tool. One of the things they areno grappling with right now as we speak come as youve heard us all say, this is nonstatic. Its always changing. How should we anticipate that the message will change . How much of it will be that the caliphate genie is out of the bottle and only the last could have had a caliphate, you wouldve gotten better. Trust me. How much of that will be something relating to the poor acculturation of refugees or their relative responsibility of the west for what is going to continue to happen in celiac and maybe even in iraq or yemen. You can think about how the message is changing because you cant assume it would have been yesterday or today or tomorrow. In fact, you need to assume it is not. Theres a lot of work being done. I would add to that in the argument, youre talking about countermeasures and i were translated to counter narrative. What is to be said in order toat counter the narrative of those at the internet and i would say i believe that we are still far from understanding the narrative that we will be able to develop the counter narrative. Theres a lot to be done, first while extending the narrative itself, i was containing my presentation one way of thinking and i definitely believe we do some research and understandlie much more and everything is space information on now. The honorable thing to do is the narrative. By the way, the flip side of the honorable thing to do isropaga humiliation. All ov it was the organization, al qaeda, moving on to isis. Hat tht you will see in the messages theyre sending, the concept that is what you need to do or you need to revenge for this or for that. It always has to do with honor and humiliation. What is to be developed in the counter narrative . Now who can do that . The only one who really can counter the narrative and say this is not the honorable thing to do by the muslims themselves. We need to find a way to make it clear to them that they are not doing any favors to us by conveying this message that this is not the honorable thing toino do. This is not what your culture, your religion is expecting you to do. It should come from the muslim community. If you want come from there, i want to use a term which is needed to describe as well. In the back, please. So, it is typical for the conversation to adhere to whatan we might call a sociopolitical rants, but then we are talking about individuals but the psychological angle to this. There is some significant evidence that idiosyncratic objectives become stronglyis aligned with the object is that terrorist organizations. Think of omar mccain specifically in this case. If you would comment on how important it is to understand idiosyncratic dimension, whether there is a role for Public Health to play when it comes to these counter messaging issues. I would like to stay for the record i did not plant that question, but in having been asked, ill take the opportunity to say yes, and we recently did a bipartisan study and balancett extremism focused here in theth united states. The first one to focus specifically on the united states. Several others and the ones that are bipartisan findings is that it is important to have a Public Health model that what ink about this in a much broader way. Not to the exclusive contrary and there is such a personalonnt grievance ive never seen a case in or out of government that ist either grievances or ideology. Almost every case will be someo. Combination which is why its so important that we do lack understanding enough. The most important in understanding we can find the things we can expect to see in each particular case. Because many people, including omar mateen are going to be very confused people. This is islamist orientation once i discovered south of the Islamic State, another point al qaeda, not understanding the differences between them and not understanding they are literally fighting each other to the nail back in the middle east. That was the issue to him. There are groups that enable it to do something honorable and remove humiliation. And therefore, it is critically important to be able to address both the sociopolitical and psychological, the environmental and the global issue and local grievance as well. Nec ve process here or elsewhere that is going to the effect that will have to be able to address all of those. The Public Health model would try and do things at a societal level that would make society strong. When you find a place that seems susceptible in neighborhood or school with injury time you do extra things fair. When you find people being affected by the message come you go in and start doing things specifically for that aswould individuals to Public Health. We go into details there and you can find it on our website. It is critically important not because Public Health is now a head of counterterrorism or incentive Law Enforcement org intelligence, but in tandem. To the best example i can give you, the one you gave omar mateen. Go ask the fbi and others and they will tell you how frustrating it is to have investigated omar mateen and many other cases where things did happen and having run those investigations to ground their realize there is nothing to hold these people on, nothing to s convict them of your strange, obnoxious speeches in thisge country and should be. And yet, there was no one to hand this person off to. There is no local network of clinical social workers and psychologists to say look, this person clearly has disturbing attributes going on and then it became arrestor nothing and that cant be the option. Ironically for those who think the Public Health model is weak and we have a counterterrorism problem, Yvonne Forstmann is saying how and because theres not always going to be aforcem lawenforcement solution much like internationally there will be a military solution to these counterterrorism problems. I want to jump in in order to pave the way for bruce to answer the question. I think your question is a very important question. The fact that this propaganda is being sent to so many people and only a few alluded to thebu messages is proof that you are right. The psychological aspect is true. I defer to myself as a student and i dont want to take any of his time. Anybody who is reading his booke inside terrorism would understand how important it is. I actually turn it over to bruce. Well, to quote another of our colleagues, ryan jenkins who said that the missile of the person who will say he is going to become a terrorist or not. That is one of the main challenges this is i dont think theres any profiling. Is even more challenging because of social media introducing so many different types. They could be spotted, but others who dont. That is definitely the case that marlene was looking out, too. Worse, since you are too humble, i would take the opportunity to plug the latest edition of inside terrorism. If youre interested in these things come you truly understand you will not take it out of the library, buy it and read it. Can we have a microphone over here. Hi, samantha menelaus. Thank you for joining us. I am interested a little bit in the nittygritty of the distribution of messaging, especially in reference to the study. I am curious to rather you had any sense in your study of the mechanisms of distribution. You mentioned that there were flyers, funerals as well as financial and then says. I am wondering, did you find that there are certain locations that have different concentrations of each type of encouragement . And did you find there were certain population centers, certain geological features that contribute to where the different types of messaging go and perhaps how many or what type of people they affect . Its an interesting question because i was just thinking about that angle of distribution this week because i was looking at the connection of the psychological perspective as it relates to suicide. I was interviewing an expertin ab here in washington and i was trying to understand what official glorification, like why would that perhaps be more bridges than others and they were explaining when there is an act, like a suicide here in maryland and they created whole prevention program. They had official acts and when they try to do analysis on suicide prevention, how much information and how many circles and people actually then get influence. The study hasnt gone to that level of resolution and the funeral is simple. They were attended by thousands and thousands of people. On the flyers, how many of the websites looking out fires. We havent reached that level of resolution, but its very clear the information is widely distributed the understanding of the youth from an instinctive basis. You are a child, go to a funeral a friend and with all the bellsl and whistles of every kind of honor that can be given that reaches thousands very clearly. From the context of what i do in the process of peace, for people who live in the region, you want to culture and educate children on both sides and have extent glorification of acts of violence consistent with messaging towards peace. My correction over here. Razor hand. There you go. Thank you very much for this interesting presentation. My craft, counterterrorism. The counterterrorism office. Last discussion reminds me of what Jessica Stern said that they are trying to reinvent to e themselves. There is another dimension that i would like your take on another aspect of the author when he talked a little bit about dealing with the internet and counter messaging. Wonder your evaluation of the effect of ms. So far, but also the effort to reach out to local communities. Dhs and fbi are programs to reach out to local communities here. The british and the dutch have had various programs they are. I think bruce mentioned, referred to resource issues. It is my understanding dhs has cut back on their local brands. The state department and the funding efforts have been sitting waiting to be approved. Do you have any evaluation soll far these efforts to date and you think you will have much chance at success . I can say one thing about that. Li maybe its a little harsh a position. There was a lot of bass are being in the recent years at cdh led by the Obama Administration in the 90s dates and with europeans. I do believe it is important, it is crucial and there is a need to bring muslims around the world which are not radical, nonsupportive terrorist act or this to counter the narrative in an effective manner. The problem in the view is those efforts in most cases were very apologetic. Coming with a cautious here toho deal with the problem itself. They think it should be done differently. When you reach out to the muslim community, the message should be god forbid we have nothing against islam like any other religion whatsoever. There is no problem with islam. There is a big problem in islaml right now which is a small minority, but a very dangerous minority with the muslim clerics. He said to the european crowd, its a religion of peace and calamity. Jihadi and those across the doit table. I approached and i said thank you from the bottom of my heart that you share this important messages with us. But why do you spend your time, your valuable time on us nonmuslims. You should preach that everyday to your believers coming to your people in sudan, in iraq, and afghanistan. There have been innocent civilians under the name of islam and what they do is against islamic concept. Not as a favor to us westerners, nonmuslims in order to defend. That is the message that needed to be given to the muslim communities. Here in the united states, i think it is critically important that our cde efforts be as granular as possible and as Community Led as possible. You know, the local police are involved in Community Policing and are able to work out theit most vocal granular, comfortable level for people working in communities, whether religious leaders are librarians or homel. Schoolteachers or what have you. The title of the cd study we did if the ideologically inspired extremism to build Strong Communities and protect the u. S. Homeland. I will not lie to you, this is a bipartisan daddy so it was a heavily, heavily negotiated title. D at w and i think especially as there is ongoing debate and discussion about how i doubt what level the federal government should be involved in this space, we have these debates under the obama pl administration with concerns about legal issues precluding federal government for getting involved in these issues to granularity and currently we have ongoing debates at the Trump Administration and how comfortable it is going to be in terms of dealing with different types of violent extremism. T i think it is all the more important for this to be something that is state and local driven and there is some excellent, excellent examples in los angeles, a very different model in boston, minneapolis and other parts of the country and i think the last lesson is we should not be looking for one model that will work the same way in parts of the united dates but rather state and local authority should decide what works best for them. In massachusetts, the state office of Homeland Security is very involved with the health and Human Services and that is not the way it is working in los angeles for the Mayors Office is working closely with the local representatives of theff federal department of Homeland Security and theres an entire different model in minneapolis and many other places. Has to be a model that works for them and when you have it working, you need to have involved religious leaders have whatever is relevant and having that message because sizes heard for many of us, those of us on the contacts of islamic extremism, those who are not muslims are not credibleno messengers on this issue. We have a microphone appear for sarah. This will be our last question. Thank you so much, matt. This is really,really excellent from all of you. My question is for all of you that particularly in light of what you said, boaz, it is extremely important that wesl encourage these moderate voicesr within islam, not only moderate, but reformers within islam. I have gotten to know a lot ofrw them very personally, people like nonie darwish, judy sasser, his father, jewish mother. At the same is that it is extraordinarily fraid name for them. How do we encourage them when they know that sarah fox was against all of them . Thanks. Well, i have a slightly different view on this dvd. As uneven as the progress is being made, we are facing a new challenge because the Islamic State used to say, help us build a stay. Now they are saying calm and exact revenge and its challenging to frame a message to the people on much more ideological or even theological bases. Youre talking about additional known to man which is revenge and retaliation. The challenge we are going to see is how do you frame a message that has more to do with the earth, the catharsis of violent, the fact that violence, is good and feels good. How do we counter that message . Assert that the moderate voices are enormously. It also means we have to think different on how we address the changing message from the terrorist organization. Absolutely. We could go on for a long timeth [appi know everybody is busy schedules. Please join me in thanking our panelists and for taking the time today. Thank you very much. Sound [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] heading to the senate shortly come to know reporting democrats in the senate urging republicans to work with them on tax reform. They sent a letter to the president. Senate majority leader mitch kabul and utah senator orrin hatch. Tax reform should be an increase of the tax burden on the middle class or benefit the wealthiest. More at the hill. Com. The senate about to gavel and now for work on a judicial nomination. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Barry black , will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Our father, be with us not only in great moments of experience but also during mundane and common tasks of life. Through the power of your