Vigilance of the American Public. Host when you say managed and contained what do you mean . Guest if we had this conversation after 9 11 and the anthrax attacks and i predicted 45 americans would be killed by jihadi terrorist that would have seemed like an optimistic projection. But that is what happened and each of the 45 deaths is a tragedy but they are not on the scale of 9 11 1 or even the pars attack. You will not hear politicians saying we managed and contained the threat. You will not hear them say by the law of averages someone is going to get one through because both of those statements are correct. Host you write americans suffer from historical amnesia and the golden age of terrorism was in the 70s. Guest yeah, there were more than a hundred hijackings and a slew of attacks by the weather underground, puerto rican nationalist, and black panthers. There was a lot of Political Violence in the 70s and that pretty much disappeared. Host this is not to say the public should overlook the dancdance dangers of islamic extremist. There have been benefits with everyone from stangers raising alarms on plots and progress to more often family and Community Members of radicalizing militants alerting the authorities. You may recall a case where five young men from Northern Virginia went to join a pakistani talibans. How many investigations are underway in the United States . Guest the fbi says 900 in all 50 states. Host 900 separate people . Guest 900 investigations. We are not seeing the kind of groups like the 9 11 attackers. They are socalled lone wolf usually. Married couple in San Bernardino, and boston bombing two brothers. So that is 2015 did see more jihadi terrorism cases than any year since 9 11. Host those 900 cases how do you define jihad . Guest the people i profile in the book say it is a war against the people of islam and another meaning that is the spiritual struggle you have internally to act in an islamic nature which is what most people chose. The minority view is the perceived wars against islam. Host Nidal Malik Hasan. Who is he and where is he now . Guest i just got a letter to a colleague from nidal hasan who is in fort levanworth. He is facing the Death Penalty, although it is unlikely to be carried out, for killing 12 is civilians at fort hood. His family ran businesses and he is typical of the profile of a lot of people i write about. Nonobser nonobserveant muslims who came or observeant over time. They are very well educated. Same average income as the average american. And the problem for Law Enforcement is they are regular americans not foreigners coming into the country. Host where did the conversion happen with nidal hasan . Guest his mother and father died in their early 40s and late 50s and that turned into a more fundamentalist version of islam and over time a more militant version. I interviewed his first quest n question. And it was pointed out he was unmarried, turning 40 and worried about going to afghanistan in a war zone. He was moted by islam but there were other factors. This is a personal mix of motivations. No onesizefitsall expl explanation. Sometimes some people enjoy being part of a jihadi group. It is fun and exciting. Host you said you got a letter. Have you had a chance to read and write him back . Guest i try to reach out. A lot of these people are in prison n and some of them are dead. I try to talk to the perpetrator themselves but often time they cannot. One person i profile in the book i got a hundred page letter. He is in colorado in max and you would not wish that on anyone. He is from Northern Virginia, high iq, converted and became a jihadist on the internet. The English Speaking jihad, which is motivating people around the United States and in the uk and australia, has been fermented by american citizens. Host anwar alalaki was from Northern Virginia. What is the Northern Virginia connection . Guest for some people many people in Northern Virginia. Yes, born in new mexico, spent time in san diego, being a moderate cleric. He was invited to the pentagon after 9 11 even. He became, he is the most important englishspeaking cleric in the world of jihad. He was killed boy a cia drone strike in 2011 but even in death his writings show up and his cases, inspire magazine, which was he was involved in helping published, shows up in all of the cases you look at and indeed in the boston bombing case they got their bomb making recipe in part from inspire magazine. Host you say there is no connecting thread or onesizefitsall for people being radicalized . Guest islamic ideology, desire to belong to something bigger than yourself, some people are very young and it is exciting. I profile one of the first people who created an english jihad website, he is from charlotte, North Carolina and was working in a call center as a Computer Support specialist, moved to yemen and he is part of alqaeda. It was enthralling by his own account. The more you know, the more individual each person is, and the mix of motivation is not just radical islam, or objection to Foreign Policy, it is all of them. Lots of people have personal disappointed and objections to the american law and dont go out and murder complete strangestrang strangers like the boston bombing. They killed americans for what . It was pointless and the more you get into the why at a certain point you hit a brick wall because at the end of the day they are inexplicit. Host James Clapper talking about isis and the threat the homeland. I want to get your reaction. At least 38,200 foreign fighters including 6900 from western countries have traveled to syria from at least 120 countries since the beginning of the conflict in 2012. As we saw in the november paris attacks, returning foreign fighters with first hand battlefield experience pose a threat. Iisis demonstrated attacks. Isis including eight established and several more emerging branches has become the p preeminent threat. Isis estimated strength exceeds that of alqaeda. They are inspired to attack the homeland. Although the u. S. Is a harder target than europe isis external operations are a critical factor in the threat assessment for 2016. Host peter bergen . Guest those are sobering figures. The last time we heard there were 4500 westerners who had gone to syria for training and now the director of National Intelligence saying 6900. The last time we had the overall number it was 30,000 and now it is close to 40,000. We significant numbers of people are going to syria for training. The good news is very few are americans. The ones going it is a oneway ticket where they get killed over there. I could only find two examples of people who trained with a jihadi group and came back to the United States. There might be more. But we are talking about handful. In paris, everybody involved in the attack trained in syria. Eight people were involved in the actually attack and probably a couple dozen other people supporting the attack in one way or the other. 1500 frenchmen go to syria to train and several hundred have come back. That is a big problem for france, belgium which has very numbers relative to its population. Problem for britain and germany. Every european country has had a significant number of people who have done. We the United States are protected by geography. We are also protected by the fact the American Muslim Community is integrated into american society. In france, 10 of the population is muslim and 70 of their prison population is muslim. Astonishing high number. So a group that is pretty disadvanta disadvantaged. We dont have the same anger in the Muslim American community. We have a number of cases i looked at since 9 11, a little over 300 of american citizens or residents engaging in some kind of jihad terrorism or crime. But the volume of people who are being attracted to the city in europe is much higher. Host peter bergen, if you were writing this book and you called it france of jihad would you come to the same conclusion . Guest i think france is you could have a paris style attack every year going forward. The french by their own account say to follow one person they need 25 people to do 24 hour surveillance and think about the several hundred coming back from syria. They killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo and four people at a jewish supermarket in the space of two or three days. And the attack that killed 130 people in november. I think the problem will get worse. They are coming into society and fundamentally are hostile to immigration. Look at the rise of the natio l nationalist parties in france or or hungry. It will create more anger and you can see how this thing develops. Host we will go to your calls here in two seconds. We will put up the numbers on the screen so you can talk with peter bergen. The subtitle of this book, investigating americas homegrown terrorist. You didnt use the word domestic but homegrown. Guest that is the idea these people are not associated with a formal terrorist organization but radicalizing in their own b bedrooms or bases and are american as anybody who is looking at this listen to this show. It is an american phenomena which for most people think terrorism comes from outside because on 9 11 we were attacked by 19arab born attackers but this is an american phenomena. The Boston Marathon bombers was a citizen and one a resident, San Bernardino the husband was born in chicago, Nidal Malik Hasan was born in virginia. Host peter bergen was working for cnn in 1977 and produced Osama Bin Ladens First Television interview and he declared war to the western audience that year. Frank is in fort lauderdale, florida. Go ahead with your question. Caller hi, peter, your book sounds valuable and i would like to read it. I would like to tell you about an experience i had moving into miamidade in 1976. There was a bombing at the consulate behind the building i was going to move to. I went by there at night to see what it looked like at night and there were police cars everywhere. It is not just the jihadis versus america. There is an a lot of different of opinions between the different secretator of of the Jihadi Movement and take out their grudges on the streets of america like miamidade did. Miamidade went through Something Like years before what happened in fairfax, virginia which incidently i lived in for seven years. Host got the point, frank. Peter bergen . Guest the caller makes a good point. There has been all sorts of forms of poall Political Violence in the United States that is not jihad. The first attack was in new york city on wall street by an anarchist. If you have a grudge or gripe it was easy to act out on it in the United States. Extreme right wing militants have killed actually about the same number of jihadi terrorist. For example the church in charleston where dylan roof killed nine africanamericans trying to incite a race war. Host 330 americans have been charged with terrorism since 9 11 according to your books. 29 years old is the average age. 30 are married and 30 have children. Guest my Research Team and myself created this database to help make underlying claims in the book. If you look at the San Bernardino case they actually perfectly match the profile. Both collegeeducated, they were married, they had a child, he was 70,000 a year and a good job with San Bernardino county. And in many respects, they accept the fact they adopted this ideology they were very typical ordinary americans who seemed to be living the american dream. Host michael is in milford, pennsylvania. Go aheadon the republican line. Caller i think thinks in the world are simpler than anyone wants to admit. Syria, allie eastern pattern. The western allies want to remove assad. In 2013, we started arming moderate rebels who were trying to remove the assed regime. Now the moderate rebels with funding and weapons from the United States are no longer moderate rebels they are isis. It is the same group of people. All we are trying to do is remove the assad regime the same way we removed saddam. It is the same playbook. Can you correct me if i am wrong . Guest well syria is very complicated. I am not quite sure i understand the point of the call. I think our factor of position is not necessarily being the immediate removal of assad because if you look at the two most powerful players in syria other than assad it is alqaeda affiliate and isis. Our main goal is mostly trying to attack isis. Russias main goal is the pr preservation and power of assad. There are a lot of different players. The Syrian Civil War, there is an a lot of academic literature on how long civil wars go on and it is 1015 on average. We are in year five. I think the Syrian Civil War could go on for more than a decade. The civil war in columbia went on for five decades. And the people who could put the brakes on it dont seem inclined to do so. The iranians, the gulf states, russia, they are fermenting this. Unfortunately, going back to what clapper said about the foreign fighters and the westerns going to syria, the engine that is online with all of this is the Syrian Civil War and i think we are going to continue seeing, thousands of foreign fighters going to syria from the arab world and many going for training peter bergen is an author, employed by cnn and the new America Foundation where he is the National Security director and vice president. Mark is in lake geneva, florida. Mark, turn down your volume. We will move on to another mark and this is mark in townville, south carolina, independent line. Hello, mark. Guest i wantsan diegos caller i wanted to disgr disgrew disagree with the subtitle. Homegrown terrorism stems from right wing activity. It is far greater than jihadi terrorism over the existence of the country. If he is talking about homegrown terrorism does he mention that in his book . Does he talk about terrorism against blacks and people of color like the kkk and bombing and killing people going to the Abortion Clinics . Does he bring that up . Is there a comparison . It is fought quite fair to talk about homegrown terrorism when you dont bring up the right wing radical christianity. Guest that is a good point. It is not addressed in the book as i said the 48 americans are being killed by antigovernment fanatics, antiabortion militants, and neonazis since 9 11. I focus on jihadi terrorism because at the end of the day we were attacked in 9 11 with the most devastating attack since the british burnt down the white house in 1814. That is the subject of the book. But i dont discount the fact that, you know, whether it is dylan roof in charleston killing nine africanamericans attending a prayer meeting, that there are other forms of Political Violence. Host peter bergen, do you use the term radical islam . Guest no. And probably in the book i talk about militant islam more. You know, the president has been careful to kind of not use the phrase militant islam or radical islam. I understand his reasoning. The more he says it the more it does play into the playbook we are at war with islam. And of course we are not. And the fact is, it is just a fact, this ideology has something to do with an islamic reading and text. The koran is the word of god. And you can cherry pick parts that talk about offensive wars. When Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States he cited a verse in the koran. These are fundamentally religious beliefs. This has something to do with islam. But the good news is the people are most likely able to fight back because they have islamic knowledge and one of the people i profile in the book is a guy from Northern Virginia also and he has intervened in the cases of several young men who are becoming enamored with isis and how did he do that . He is a leading islamic scholar and makes the arguments from the islamic perspectives that isis doesnt represent a utopian version of islam. He has been successful. Host when you bet Osama Bin Laden in 1997 what was your impression then . Guest my impression was he was well informed. Intelligent. He was talking about the leader of shin was meeting with bill clinton at the white house and he had made observations about who are you calling a terrorist . It was jerry adams. At one point he was a terrorist. It is the kind of thing most people sitting in afghanistan, someone who grew up in saudi arabia was informed about what is going on in the world and intelligent. Host charismatic . Guest i didnt find him know but the people that hung on treated him like that. He is charismatic to his followers and i am sure isis and alqaeda are in a dispute on the head of the Jihad Movement but isis is the err of Osama Bin Laden. Isis, i talk about the ideology of bin ladism and it claims to explain the future and present. Bin ladenset out a series of ideas that isis is acting on which is we