Intelligence in Defense of the Homeland, University of Texas symposium

INTELLIGENCE IN DEFENSE OF THE HOMELAND
by Intelligence Studies Project
Free
DATE AND TIME

Thu, March 23, 2017

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM CDT
LOCATION

Etter-Harbin Alumni Center

2110 San Jacinto Boulevard

Austin, TX 78712

View Map
DESCRIPTION

The Intelligence Studies Project and Business Executives for National Security, along with the Strauss Center for International Security and Law and the Clements Center for National Security, will host this year’s Spring Symposium, “Intelligence in Defense of the Homeland,” on Thursday, March 23, 2017 at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center.

Thursday, March 23, 2017
The Connally Ballroom, Etter-Harbin Alumni Center

Session 1:

9:00 – 9:30 am
Arrival and Registration
(Light breakfast served)

9:30 – 9:40 am
Welcome by Stephen Slick, Intelligence Studies Project Director

9:45 – 10:45 am
An Evolving Domestic Threat
A Discussion with Bruce Hoffman and Peter Bergen
Moderator: Michele L. Malvesti, Professor of Practice in International Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University

11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Keynote Remarks by James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Introduction by UT System Chancellor William McRaven
Discussion and audience questions moderated by William Inboden, Executive Director of the Clements Center for National Security

Session 2:

12:15 – 1:15 pm
Challenges for State and Local Governments in Countering Extremist Violence
A Panel Discussion with Steve McCraw, LtGen John Bansemer, and Robert Griffin
Moderator: Samuel Rascoff, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Law and Security at New York University
(Buffet luncheon for participants and registered guests)

1:30 – 2:30 pm
Keynote Remarks by Thomas Bossert, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Discussion and audience questions moderated by Stephen Slick

Session 3:

2:45 – 3:45 pm
Safeguarding Civil Liberties while Defending the Homeland
A Conversation between Ben Wittes and Hina Shamsi
Moderator: Robert Chesney, Director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law

3:45 – 4:00 pm
New Approaches to Securing the Homeland
Closing Remarks by Norton Schwartz, President and CEO of Business Executives for National Security

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Intelligence Studies Project

The Intelligence Studies Project (ISP) was established in 2013 as a joint venture of the Clements Center for National Security and Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law out of a conviction that the activities of the U.S. Intelligence Community were increasingly critical to safeguarding our national security and yet were understudied at American universities. The ISP is building at the University of Texas at Austin a premier center for the study of U.S. Intelligence through a variety of programs, including new course offerings and research projects, as well as periodic conferences and other public events focused on intelligence topics.
PROFILE CONTACT
Intelligence in Defense of the Homeland at Etter-Harbin Alumni Center
2110 San Jacinto Boulevard, Austin, TX 78712

House Committee on Homeland Security testimony

Hearing: “The Future of Counterterrorism: Addressing the Evolving Threat to Domestic Security.”

Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence (Committee on Homeland Security)

Tuesday, February 28, 2017 (10:00 AM)

HVC-210 CAPITOL
Washington, D.C.

Witnesses

Mr. Edward F Davis
Chief Executive Officer, Edward Davis, LLC
Added 02/24/2017 at 03:53 PM

Mr. Thomas Joscelyn
Senior Fellow, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Added 02/24/2017 at 03:53 PM

Mr. Robin Simcox
Margaret Thatcher Fellow, Heritage Foundation
Added 02/24/2017 at 03:53 PM

Mr. Peter Bergen
Vice President, Director, New America
Added 02/24/2017 at 03:53 PM
Hearing Record

Hearing: Witness List [PDF]
Added 02/24/2017 at 03:53 PM

First Published: February 24, 2017 at 12:19 PM

The cleric who altered the course of modern history, CNN.com

February 19, 2017 Sunday 1:17 PM EST

The cleric who altered the course of modern history

BYLINE: By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

SECTION: OPINIONS

LENGTH: 2586 words

Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Egyptian cleric who inspired terrorist plots in New York during the early 1990s and who died in an American prison on Saturday, was also the spiritual guide of key 9/11 plotters.
More specifically, he was the source of a laminated card of Arabic script that is critical to understanding why nearly 3,000 Americans lost their lives on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The Arabic on the card reads: “A fatwa [religious ruling] of the captive Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman … To all Muslims everywhere: Destroy their countries. [The Americans, Jews and Christians]. Tear them to pieces. Destroy their economies, burn their corporations, destroy their businesses, sink their ships and bring down their airplanes. Kill them in the sea, on land and in the air.”
The author, who was jailed for life in 1996 for his role in terrorist conspiracies in New York, signed the fatwa: “Your brother Abdel Rahman, from inside American prisons.” Explaining that his instructions were his final will and testament, he ordered his followers to: “Take my revenge on [the Americans] and do not let my blood be wasted in vain.”
The fatwa was first publicly distributed by the leadership of al Qaeda at an extraordinary press conference in Afghanistan in May 1998. But its significance to the terrorist organization has largely gone unremarked.
Sheikh Rahman’s fatwa was the first time that anyone associated with al Qaeda had given religious sanction to attacks on American aviation, shipping and economic targets. The fatwa, with its exhortations to “bring down their airplanes,” “burn their corporations” and “sink their ships,” would turn out to be a slowly ticking time bomb that would explode first on October 12, 2000, when a suicide attack blew a hole the size of a small house in the USS Cole in Yemen, and then again with even greater ferocity on 9/11.
The cleric’s spiritual authority
To understand the significance of the fatwa, you have to understand the spiritual authority that its author, the militant cleric, exercised over al Qaeda. That terror group was led by Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri, but neither of them had any standing as religious scholars.
Sheikh Rahman had a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Harvard of Islamic thought. He also had a long history of guiding terrorist groups. Rahman had long been the spiritual guide of Egypt’s two most violent terrorist organizations, members of which later occupied senior leadership positions within al Qaeda.
The special reverence that al Qaeda had for Sheikh Rahman was underlined by a two-hour propaganda videotape that the group’s media division released in the spring of 2001, when the 9/11 attacks were in their final planning phase. Half way though the tape, in a segment entitled “Reasons,” bin Laden explained why Muslims should wage a holy war against the United States.
Over a picture of Sheikh Rahman, bin Laden fumed, “He is a hostage in an American jail. We hear he is sick, and the Americans are treating him badly.” Rahman is the only religious figure mentioned in the course of the two-hour videotape.
Indeed, the American incarceration of Sheikh Rahman was a hot-button issue for al Qaeda for many years. In 1997, during his first television interview, bin Laden told CNN that “Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman is a Muslim scholar well-known all over the Muslim world. He represents the kind of injustice that is adopted by the US. A baseless case was fabricated against him even though he is a blind old man … The US sentenced him to hundreds of years … He is now very badly treated.”
In September 2000, Al Jazeera aired a videotape of al Qaeda’s leaders in Afghanistan sitting under a banner reading, “Convention to Support Honorable Omar Abdel Rahman.” On the tape bin Laden vowed: “We promise to work with all our power to free our brother, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.” Off camera one of the sheikh’s sons shouted, “Forward with blood.”
Decades of sanctioning terrorism
The intense interest that al Qaeda took in the fate of Sheikh Rahman may come as something of a surprise to most Americans. If they remember him at all, Americans may dimly recall television images of the corpulent cleric when he lived in New York in the early 1990s, invariably dressed in flowing robes and a red felt hat denoting his senior clerical status, along with dark sunglasses that disguised his blind, opaque eyes.
On television, Sheikh Rahman came off like a cuddly Middle Eastern Father Christmas who had somehow morphed with Ray Charles.
The reality was more sinister: The blind sheikh was the Zelig of Islamist terrorism, repeatedly cropping up as the spiritual inspiration or instigator of the most spectacular terrorist attacks of the past two decades, from the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Cairo to the 9/11 plot itself.
Sheikh Rahman was important to al Qaeda not only because of the high regard the terrorist organization had for him as a religious scholar but also because he was long the spiritual guide of the Egyptian militants who were at the heart of al Qaeda’s operation.
The Egyptian terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, first came to prominence in Egypt during the 1970s when it started a campaign of robbing and killing Christian Copts. It was Sheikh Rahman who issued the fatwa that sanctioned the killings of Christians, according to Gilles Kepel, one of the world’s leading authorities on Egypt’s militant groups.
In 1973, Ayman al-Zawahiri, then a medical student, helped to found a sister organization to the Islamic Group. This was the Jihad Group, which confined its attacks to government officials and buildings.
Sadat’s assassination
In early 1981, the sheikh agreed to act as the spiritual guide for both the Islamic Group and the Jihad Group, who joined forces in an effort to assassinate Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat following a peace deal he had struck with Israel.
According to multiple news accounts, Sheikh Rahman gave his blessing to Sadat’s assassination, and, on October 6, 1981, an army lieutenant named Khalid Islambouli sprayed Sadat with machine-gun bullets. Sheikh Rahman was subsequently arrested and charged with giving his imprimatur to Sadat’s killing. Zawahiri was also charged, one of some 300 militants who were tried in the wake of Sadat’s assassination.
In Zawahiri’s 2001 autobiography, “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” he remembered Sheikh Rahman’s “famous testimony” during the Sadat assassination trial with admiration: “Sheikh Rahman was roaring in the courtroom and speaking these words to the judge: ‘I am a Muslim who lives only for his religion and is prepared to die for it. I can never remain silent while Islam is being fought on all fronts.'”
Rahman was acquitted on charges that he had ordered Sadat’s assassination, even though he was found to have preached that “apostate” leaders should be overthrown.
The journalist Mary Anne Weaver interviewed Sheikh Rahman in 1993 about Sadat’s assassination, eliciting a candid response about his role in the plot. Weaver asked, “At your trial in the Sadat assassination case you told the judge it was lawful to shed the blood of a ruler who does not rule according to God’s ordinances.”
The sheikh replied, “Yes, I told the judge that whoever does not rule as God orders is an infidel. And if you apply that rule to … Sadat and Mubarak [Sadat’s successor], they are all infidels.”
By branding Sadat an “infidel,” Sheikh Rahman was also branding him an apostate who had rejected his religion. To be an apostate is a major crime in Islam, and the sheikh’s supporters would have immediately understood that anyone guilty of such a charge had to be killed. The blind sheikh’s followers also tried to kill his successor, Hosni Mubarak. Indeed, Sheikh Rahman’s involvement in a plot to kill Mubarak while he was visiting New York in 1993 is one of the charges that landed him in an American prison for life.
Advising from prison
Meanwhile, most of the conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing worshiped at mosques where Sheikh Rahman preached. The mastermind of the 1993 attack, Ramzi Yousef, in the only interview he ever gave, told the Arabic newspaper, Al-Hayat that he knew and admired Sheikh Rahman and that one of his goals was to “aid members of Egypt’s Islamic Group and Jihad Group,” the terrorist organizations that looked to the sheikh as their spiritual guide.
Following the 1993 attack, the sheikh’s followers also planned a series of spectacular terrorist attacks in Manhattan against the United Nations building, the FBI’s New York office and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. Those plots were averted because the FBI had inserted an informant into the sheikh’s circle.
The informer asked the sheikh for his blessing for the attack on the UN building, but the sheikh waved him away from the operation on the basis that it would be bad for Muslims — suggesting instead that the informant find a plan “to inflict damage on the army, the American Army.”
That advice would lead to Sheikh Rahman’s conviction in 1995 as part of “an organization whose aim was to wage jihad, or holy war, of terror against the United States” in the words of Mary Jo White, the prosecutor in the case.
Despite his incarceration in an American jail, the sheikh’s religious directives continued to spark violence in his native Egypt during the mid-1990s. On October 14, 1994, Naguib Mahfouz, the writer whose novels of Cairene life had won him the Nobel Prize in 1988, was stabbed and gravely wounded in an attack outside his house. The frail 83-year-old writer was lucky to survive the assault. Mahfouz’s assailant later said he was carrying out a directive from Rahman.
In the United States, Rahman was largely forgotten once he began to serve his life sentence in 1996. After all, what damage could a blind, aging cleric do from his cell in a federal penitentiary?
Quite a lot, it turns out. A demonstration of the sheikh’s enduring power came in 1997 when Egyptian terrorists massacred 58 tourists in Luxor, the site of several well-known monuments. The torso of one of the victims was split open by terrorists who inserted a leaflet calling for the release of Sheikh Rahman.
Facing a wave of popular revulsion against such tactics, the leaders of the terrorist Islamic Group negotiated a ceasefire with the government. Sheikh Rahman sanctioned the ceasefire agreement from his prison cell.
A year later, Rahman rescinded his support for the ceasefire because of the continued detention and torture of militants in Egypt. His withdrawal of support for the ceasefire in Egypt would resonate in Afghanistan with al Qaeda’s leaders. In his 2001 autobiography, al Zawahiri explained “people of the stature of Omar Abdel Rahman … oppose the [ceasefire] initiative.”
The first and last press conference
The most important message the sheikh smuggled out of his cell was the fatwa calling on his followers to avenge his American imprisonment and “crash their airplanes,” “burn their corporations” and “sink their ships.” It is unclear when, or how, Sheikh Rahman was able to arrange to spirit this fatwa out of prison, but the fatwa made its first public appearance at the aforementioned press conference held by bin Laden at one of his bases in eastern Afghanistan in 1998.
The event, attended by a dozen or so Pakistani journalists, was noteworthy for two reasons: It was the first and last press conference ever given by al Qaeda’s leaders. And it was also the moment when two of Sheikh Rahman’s sons, Mohammed and Ahmed, would reveal themselves to be important players in al Qaeda.
Ismail Khan was one of the Pakistani journalists who attended the press conference. Khan recalls that bin Laden said that there was going to some sort of action by his group in the near future: “He spoke of some ‘good news’ in the weeks ahead.” Nine weeks later, two US embassies in Africa were bombed within ten minutes of each other, killing more than 200 people.
During the course of the press conference, Sheikh Rahman’s sons distributed laminated cards to the assembled journalists with their father’s fatwa, calling for attacks on American aviation, shipping and corporations. (I obtained my copy of the fatwa from someone attending the conference.)
Sheikh Rahman’s sons introduced themselves to the journalist Ismail Khan by telling him that they planned to follow in the footsteps of their father and “continue the jihad.” One son told Khan, “the US prison authorities are not treating father well … They are killing him slowly.”
Hamid Mir is a Pakistani journalist who was asked by bin Laden to write his authorized biography. As a result of that commission, Mir met with bin Laden and Zawahiri several times between 1997 and 2001. Mir says that Sheikh Rahman’s fatwa had an important effect on Zawahiri, even more than on bin Laden. Mir told me, “The language by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in his will is very, very strong. [Up until 1998] Bin Laden … didn’t issue any fatwa or anything against the ordinary Americans. He’s against American troops, American government, but Dr. Zawahiri, he is against every American, because he is directly affected. His leader who is blind is arrested by the American authorities.”
For al Zawahiri, and indeed all the Egyptians in leadership positions in al Qaeda, Rahman’s fatwa to avenge his imprisonment by attacking American airplanes and corporations had the force of a religious order.
The fatwa’s ripple effects
Sometime in mid-1998, Sheikh Rahman’s fatwa to attack American targets also began to circulate in one of al Qaeda’s key training camps in Afghanistan. At the Khaldan training camp, which has graduated several of al Qaeda’s more dangerous alumni, Algerian Ahmad Ressam was learning how to make explosives, a skill he would later put into effect in an ill-fated attempt to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999.
At a subsequent terrorism trial, Ressam testified that while he was at the Afghan training camp he saw “a fatwa issued by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman with his picture on it, a piece of paper with his photograph on it.” At the trial, Ressam was asked what his understanding of a fatwa was, and he replied: “A fatwa is something that a learned person would come up with. If there is an issue that people want an opinion on, the religious, learned man would study the issue and pass judgment on whether it was permissible or not.”
Ressam, like other al Qaeda foot soldiers, understood that a fatwa from the learned Sheikh Rahman gave them a blanket religious imprimatur to attack and kill Americans.
Indeed, Sheikh Rahman’s fatwa to attack the US economy and American aviation was one of the most important factors in the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda’s Egyptian leaders wanted to exact revenge on the United States for the imprisonment and “ill treatment” of their spiritual guide. At the same time, Sheikh Rahman, as he had so often in the past, gave his followers his spiritual sanction for terrorist attacks.
Sheikh Rahman’s fatwas are the nearest equivalent that al Qaeda has to an ex cathedra statement by the Pope. As someone with a doctorate in Islamic law, Sheikh Rahman was able to rule that it was legally permissible, and even desirable, to carry out attacks against American planes and corporations — exactly the type of attacks that took place on 9/11.
Rahman’s death in an American prison on Saturday will almost certainly spark calls from al Qaeda’s current leader, al Zawahiri, for further anti-American attacks.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Trump’s brilliant choice of McMaster, CNN.com

Trump’s brilliant choice of McMaster
Peter Bergen
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 9:19 AM ET, Tue February 21, 2017
donald trump picks h.r. mcmaster new national security adviser sot_00000000

Peter Bergen: In his selection of H.R. McMaster for national security adviser, Donald Trump made a brilliant choice
He says McMaster will need to draw on his vast capabilities as Pentagon mulls options on fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria
Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.”

(CNN)President Donald Trump’s appointment of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to be his national security adviser is a brilliant decision.

McMaster, 54, is the smartest and most capable military officer of his generation, one who has not only led American victories on the battlefields of the 1991 Gulf War and of the Iraq War, but also holds a Ph.D. in history.
McMaster is, in short, both an accomplished doer and a deep thinker, a combination that should serve him well in the complex job of national security adviser.
McMaster’s views
A key to McMaster’s thinking is his 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.” Published two decades ago when McMaster was only a major, “Dereliction of Duty” caused something of a sensation in the US military because it took US military leaders to task for their dereliction of duty during the Vietnam War.
McMaster painted a devastating picture of the Joint Chiefs, who told President Lyndon Johnson what he wanted to hear about how the Vietnam War was going. He described how they went along with Johnson’s ill-considered attempt to find a middle ground between withdrawing from Vietnam and fighting a conventional war there that — divorced from on-the-ground realities — had no chance of success.
The Joint Chiefs never provided Johnson with useful military advice about what it might take to win the war, according to McMaster.

Instead, they accepted Johnson’s preference for what the President termed “graduated pressure” against the North Vietnamese. This took the form of a gradually escalating bombing campaign that did not bend the North Vietnamese to American will, and instead confused activity — bombing raids and body counts — with progress on the battlefield.
The major problem Johnson and his military advisers had, McMaster found, is that they went to war in Vietnam without a strategy. He explained: “The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of The New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.”
After Trump announced McMaster as his national security adviser, “Dereliction of Duty” became an instant best-seller on Amazon.
Its lessons will surely be weighing on McMaster’s mind now, as Pentagon brass prepare to present to Trump and his national security team within a few days a menu of options for how to fight the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Another key aspect of McMaster’s thinking is that war — as the Prussian military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz pointed out almost two centuries ago — is a fundamentally political endeavor. In an article that McMaster published in The New York Times four years ago he wrote, “Be skeptical of concepts that divorce war from its political nature, particularly those that promise fast, cheap victory through technology.”

McMaster, who I first met in Afghanistan while reporting there in 2010, is fond of quoting Thucydides, who 2½ millennia ago said that wars resulted from “fear, honor and interest.”
McMaster believes that not much in the nature of war has changed since. However, in his view the United States has too often believed its technological superiority will prevail on the battlefield when, in fact, it is political and human factors that often blunt American power.
McMaster wrote in his Times article “… in the years preceding our last two wars, thinking about defense undervalued the human as well as the political aspects of war. Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.”
This is an important lesson to remember as the United States and its allies continue to increase pressure on ISIS. The Sunni militants that make up ISIS are not the underlying problem in Syria and Iraq, but rather they are a symptom of other deeper problems. McMaster knows that there surely will be a “son of ISIS” and a “grandson of ISIS” if there is not some kind of political solution to the wars in Syria and Iraq that produced ISIS in the first place.
McMaster at war
McMaster has fought in the key American wars of the past 2½ decades. He understands what it is to fight in a classic, state-on-state war, such as the 1991 Gulf War, in which the United States forced the army of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in only 100 hours.
He has also fought in the messier counterinsurgency wars the United States is still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today and that have ground on for 14 and 16 years respectively, with no end in sight.
In the Gulf War then-Capt. McMaster led a US tank troop in the Battle of 73 Easting on February 26 1991. McMaster’s armored forces, acting as scouts, suddenly encountered a large force of the Iraqi army. In a 2014 interview with National Geographic Television, McMaster recalled, “I can see the enemy with the naked eye. I mean, they’re at very close range.”
In a battle that lasted only 23 minutes, McMaster’s force destroyed an astonishing 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and more than 30 trucks.
This battle is often studied by young US military officers as the exemplary case study of high intensity conventional combat.
The lesson that McMaster took away from the Gulf War: “There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid. Asymmetrically means you’re going to try to avoid our strengths. In the 1991 Gulf War, it’s like we called Saddam’s army out into the schoolyard and beat up that army.”
Almost a decade and a half later McMaster was back in the Middle East. This time he wasn’t fighting the orderly tank regiments of Saddam Hussein’s conventional army, but instead the guerrilla forces of al Qaeda in Iraq, which had taken over much of western Iraq and were proving to be a far harder nut to crack than Saddam’s military.
Al Qaeda had also learned from the Gulf War and wasn’t fighting “stupid;” it was fighting “asymmetrically” and not engaging the US military in a conventional war.
McMaster’s innovation
In 2005 then-Col. McMaster led the first successful full-scale battle against al Qaeda in the western Iraqi city of Tal Afar, a city of a half-million people.
In his National Geographic interview, McMaster recalled that al Qaeda had turned Tal Afar into a living hell: “All the schools were closed because of violence, all the marketplaces were closed. There was no power. There was no water. The city was lifeless. People lived in abject fear.”

McMaster established 29 small outposts in the city. His regiment lived among the Tal Afar population and partnered with tribal elders to offer protection against al Qaeda. The citizens began to trust the Americans and provided them with intelligence on al Qaeda’s movements. Within a few months al Qaeda had retreated from Tal Afar.
McMaster’s approach was the exact opposite of the US strategy of the time, which was to hand over ever more control to the Iraqi army and withdraw the bulk of American soldiers to massive bases.
Instead of reducing the American footprint, McMaster pursued a strategy in Tal Afar of increasing the US military presence in an effort to tamp down the intensifying Iraqi civil war and undermine al Qaeda. McMaster also implemented classic “clear, hold and build” counterinsurgency operations.
McMaster’s Tal Afar campaign is considered by many military experts to be the classic example of counterinsurgency tactics during the Iraq War.
His work there would also become a model for the George W. Bush administration’s new military strategy in Iraq.
In October 2005, Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in congressional testimony said that, “Our political-military strategy has to be to clear, hold, and build: to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions.”
This approach would also soon be codified in the US military’s new counterinsurgency manual, written by Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. James Mattis, who is now the secretary of defense.
McMaster’s lesson from the Iraq War: “We didn’t adapt fast enough, largely because in the beginning of the war in Iraq we were in denial. We wouldn’t even call it an insurgency. We wouldn’t call it insurgency because it evoked the images of Vietnam.”
Al Qaeda in Iraq would eventually morph into ISIS, which controls the city of Tal Afar today. McMaster knows this ground well, which will help him as the new plans are presented to the President in coming days about how to shape the final phase of the war against ISIS.
After Iraq, McMaster deployed to Afghanistan, where he was tasked by Petraeus to lead an anti-corruption task force.
Again, McMaster’s on-the-ground expertise in Afghanistan will be very useful as President Trump considers his options there.
The Taliban now control or contest a third of the Afghan population. That’s 10 million people; more than ISIS controlled at the height of its power in summer 2014, when it might have controlled 8 million people at most.
Whether with Afghanistan or the fight against ISIS, McMaster has his work cut out for him, but he is the best man for the job and credit should go to President Trump for making this inspired choice.

White House’s own terrorism list torpedoes the case for travel ban, CNN.com

White House’s own terrorism list torpedoes the case for travel ban
Peter Bergen
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 8:33 AM ET, Thu February 9, 2017

Peter Bergen: The White House’s list of 78 terror attacks is devoid of evidence for President Trump’s immigration order
Few who made attacks came from those countries; French, US citizens were responsible for more attacks, list shows

Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.”

(CNN)The White House’s list of 78 “major terrorist attacks targeting the West” is strikingly devoid of evidence to support President Trump’s halt to immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Conspicuous by their absence on the White House list of terrorists carrying out major attacks against Western targets were Iraqis, Libyans, Somalis, Sudanese and Yemenis, who are from five of the seven Muslim countries that the Trump administration is seeking to suspend travel from.

Instead, the incidents listed on the White House terrorism list identified France, the United States and Belgium as the countries supplying the most anti-Western terrorists.
With great fanfare on Monday the White House released a list of 78 terrorist attacks since September 2014. A White House official described them as “major terrorist attacks targeting the West.”
The list was released after President Trump’s claim that the media is under-covering terrorist attacks, a contention that is not borne out by the evidence.
The White House’s own terrorism list underlines the arbitrary nature of the travel ban because, by the White House’s own account, the countries that are generating the most significant number of terrorists threatening the West are from the West.
The list also underlines the fact that it is American citizens who largely foment terrorism in the United States. This is also the case in countries such as France and Belgium, where it is French and Belgian citizens who are often the ones conducting significant acts of terrorism.
Of the total of 90 terrorists on the White House list, only four are from travel ban countries.
Indeed, 50 of the terrorists — more than half — are from Christian-majority countries in the West.
On the list, which includes the identities of attackers where they are known, France leads the way with 16 French terrorists, followed by the United States with 13 American terrorists, 11 of whom are US citizens and two of whom are legal permanent residents.
Of these 29 American and French terrorists, only two even have family origins in travel ban countries and they are both from Somalia.
Belgium comes in third place with seven terrorists.
In descending order after that are:
–Tunisians (6),
–Libyans and Bengalis are tied with 5,
–Saudis (4),
–Syrians, Algerians and Indonesians are tied with 3 each;
–Afghans, Australians, Bosnians, Canadians, Danes, Germans, Russians and Turks are tied with two each and
–One each from Chad, Egypt, the Emirates, Iran, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
These findings may cause a problem for the White House as it makes the argument that citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen are particularly likely to foment anti-Western terrorism, when the White House’s own terrorism list demonstrates that this is not the case.
For example, an unspecified number of Filipinos participated in a botched attempt to blow up a bomb outside the US embassy in Manila last year.
In 15 of the 78 attacks the perpetrators have not been identified.
I took the White House terrorism list and grouped it by nationalities below. The countries with the largest number of identified terrorists are at the beginning, while attacks where the perpetrator was not identified are listed at the end. The wording added by me is in boldface.
FRENCH
TOURS, FRANCE
December, 2014
TARGET: Three police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Bertrand Nzohabonayo (French citizen, convert from Burundi)
PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2015
TARGET: One police officer and four hostages killed in shooting at a kosher supermarket
ATTACKER: Amedy Coulibaly (French citizen born in France, family from Mali)
NICE, FRANCE
February, 2015
TARGET: Two French soldiers wounded in knife attack outside a Jewish community center
ATTACKER: Moussa Coulibaly (French originally from Mali)
LYON, FRANCE
June, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in beheading and explosion at a chemical plant
ATTACKER: Yasin Salhi (French of Moroccan-Algerian descent)
MAGNANVILLE, FRANCE
June, 2016
TARGET: One police officer and one civilian killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Larossi Abballa (French, born in France, family origin not clear)
NORMANDY, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: One priest killed in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Adel Kermiche (French-Algerian) and Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean (French, from eastern France)
PARIS, FRANCE
September, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in raid after VBIED failed to detonate at Notre Dame Cathedral
ATTACKERS: Sarah Hervouet, Ines Madani, and Amel Sakaou (French, family origins French or unclear. )
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
August, 2016
TARGET: Two killed and one wounded in knife attack at a hostel frequented by Westerners
ATTACKER: Smail Ayad (French, family origin unclear)
PARIS, FRANCE
November, 2015
TARGET: At least 129 killed and approximately 400 wounded in series of shootings and IED attacks
ATTACKERS: Brahim Abdelslam, (French, Moroccan-Algerian family) Saleh Abdeslam, (French, Moroccan descent) Ismail Mostefai, (French, family origin not clear) Bilal Hadfi, (French, Moroccan descent) Samy Amimour, (French, Algerian descent) Foued Mohamed Aggad, (French, Algerian-Moroccan descent)
AMERICANS
NEW YORK CITY, NY, USA
October, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: US person (American citizen, African-American)
GARLAND, TX, USA
May, 2015
TARGET: One security guard wounded in shooting at the Prophet Muhammad cartoon event
ATTACKERS: Two US persons (Americans, one had a father from Pakistan, the other was African-American)
BOSTON, MA, USA
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; one police officer attacked with knife
ATTACKER: US person (American, African-American)
MERCED, CA, US
November, 2015
TARGET: Four wounded in knife attack on a college campus
ATTACKER: US person (American, family originally from Pakistan)
SAN BERNARDINO, CA
December, 2015
TARGET: 14 killed and 21 wounded in coordinated firearms attack
ATTACKERS: Two US persons (American citizen whose family emigrated from Pakistan and legal permanent resident, originally from Pakistan.)
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
January, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: US person (American, African-American)
COLUMBUS, OH, US
February, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in machete attack at a restaurant
ATTACKER: US person (American, originally from Guinea)
ORLANDO, FL, US
June, 2016
TARGET: 49 killed and 53 wounded in shooting at a nightclub
ATTACKER: US person (American, family originally from Afghanistan.)
ST. CLOUD, MN, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 10 wounded in knife attack in a mall
ATTACKER: Dahir Ahmed Adan (American, family originally from Somalia.)
NEW YORK, NY; SEASIDE PARK AND ELIZABETH, NJ, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 31 wounded in bombing in New York City; several explosive devices found in New York and New Jersey; one exploded without casualty at race in New Jersey; one police officer wounded in shootout
ATTACKER: Ahmad Khan Rahami (American citizen, born in Afghanistan.)
COLUMBUS, OH, US
November, 2016
TARGET: 14 wounded by individuals who drove a vehicle into a group of pedestrians and attacked them with a knife
ATTACKER: US person (American legal resident, originally from Somalia.)
BELGIANS
These Belgians were both involved in the Paris attacks in November 2015
Chakib Ahrouh, (Belgian-Moroccan)
and Abdelhamid Abaaoud (Belgian-Moroccan)
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
March, 2016
TARGET: At least 31 killed and 270 wounded in coordinated bombings at Zaventem Airport and on a subway train
ATTACKERS: Khalid el-Bakraoui, (Belgian) Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, (Belgian) Najim Laachraoui (Belgian-Moroccan), Mohammed Abrini (Belgian)
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
October, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in stabbing
ATTACKER Belgian national
TUNISIANS
NICE, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: 84 civilians killed and 308 wounded by an individual who drove a truck into a crowd
ATTACKER: Mohamed Bouhlel (Tunisian)
SOUSSE, TUNISIA
June, 2015
TARGET: 38 killed and 39 wounded in shooting at a beach frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: Seifeddine Rezgui (Tunisian)
PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; attacker killed after attempted knife attack on Paris police station
ATTACKER: Tarek Belgacem (Tunisian)
TUNIS, TUNISIA
March, 2015
TARGET: 21 tourists killed, including 16 westerners, and 55 wounded in shooting at the Bardo Museum
ATTACKERS: Two ISIL-aligned extremists (Tunisians)
BERLIN, GERMANY
December, 2016
TARGET: 12 killed and 48 wounded by individual who drove truck into a crowded market
ATTACKER: Anis Amri (Tunisian)
LIBYANS
TRIPOLI, LIBYA
January, 2015
TARGET: Ten killed, including one US citizen, and five wounded in bombing and shooting at a hotel frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: As many as five ISIL-Libya members (Libyans)
BENGALIS
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
July, 2016
TARGET: 22 killed, including one American and 50 wounded after hours-long siege using machetes and firearms at holy Artisan Bakery
ATTACKERS: Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam Paye, and Shafiqul Islam Uzzal (Bengalis)
SAUDIS
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
November, 2014
TARGET: One Danish citizen wounded in shooting
ATTACKERS: Three Saudi Arabia-based ISIL members (Saudis)
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
January, 2015
TARGET: Two US citizens wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Saudi Arabia-based ISIL supporter (Saudi)
SYRIANS
ANSBACH, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: At least 15 wounded in suicide bombing at a music festival
ATTACKER: Mohammad Daleel (Syrian)
MALMO, SWEDEN
October, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; mosque and community center attacked with Molotov cocktail
ATTACKER: Syrian national
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
January, 2016
TARGET: 12 German tourists killed and 15 wounded in suicide bombing
ATTACKER: Nabil Fadli (Syrian)
ALGERIANS
TIZI OUZOU, ALGERIA
September, 2014
TARGET: One French citizen beheaded
ATTACKER: Jund al-Khilafah in Algeria (Algerian)
PARIS, FRANCE
April, 2015
TARGET: Catholic churches targeted; one civilian killed in shooting, possibly during an attempted carjacking
ATTACKER: Sid Ahmed Ghlam (Algerian immigrant)
CHARLEROI, BELGIUM
August, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in machete attack
ATTACKER: Khaled Babouri (Algerian)
INDONESIANS
JAKARTA, INDONESIA
January, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians killed and more than 20 wounded in coordinated bombing and firearms attacks near a police station and a Starbucks
ATTACKERS: Dian Joni Kurnaiadi, Muhammad Ali, Arif Sunakim, and Ahmad Muhazan bin Saron (Indonesians)
AFGHANS
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
September, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Abdul Numan Haider (Afghan)
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
June, 2016
TARGET: 14 killed in suicide attack on a bus carrying Canadian Embassy guards
ATTACKER: ISIL-Khorasan operative (Afghan)
AUSTRALIANS
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
December, 2014
TARGET: Two Australians killed in hostage taking and shooting
ATTACKER: Man Haron Monis (Australian citizen)
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
September, 2016
TARGET: One civilian wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Ihsas Khan (Australian)
CANADIANS
QUEBEC, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed and one wounded in vehicle attack
ATTACKER: Martin Couture-Rouleau (Canadian convert)
OTTAWA, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed at war memorial; two wounded in shootings at Parliament building
ATTACKER: Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (Libyan Canadian)
DANISH
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
February, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in shooting at a free-speech rally and one security guard killed outside the city’s main synagogue
ATTACKER: Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein (Danish citizen)
COPENHAGEN, DENMAKR
September, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers and a civilian wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Mesa Hodzic (Danish)
BOSNIANS
ZVORNIK, BOSNIA
April, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed and two wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Nerdin Ibric (Bosnian)
RAJLOVAC, BOSNIA
December, 2015
TARGET: Two Bosnian soldiers killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Enes Omeragic (Bosnian)
GERMANS
HANOVER, GERMANY
February, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Safia Schmitter (German-Moroccan)
WURZBURG, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in axe attack on a train
ATTACKER: Riaz Khan Ahmadzai (German-Pakistani)
RUSSIANS
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
June, 2016
TARGET: 45 killed and approximately 240 wounded at Ataturk International Airport
ATTACKERS: Rakhim Bulgarov, Vadim Osmanov, and an unidentified ISIL operative (Russians)
TURKS
MARSEILLES, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: One Jewish teacher wounded in machete attack
ATTACKER: 15 year-old Ethnic Kurd from Turkey (Turk)
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
March, 2016
TARGET: Four killed and 36 wounded in suicide bombing in the tourist district
ATTACKER: Mehmet Ozturk (Turk)
EMIRATIS
ABU DHABI, UAE
DATE: December 2014
TARGET: One American killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Dalal al-Hashimi (Emirati)
PAKISTANI
KARACHI, PAKISTAN
April, 2015
TARGET: One US citizen wounded in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Pakistan-based ISIL supporters (Pakistani)
MOROCCANS
PARIS, FRANCE
August, 2015
TARGET: Two civilians and one US soldier wounded with firearms and knife on a passenger train
ATTACKER: Ayoub el-Khazzani (Moroccan)
PALESTINIANS
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
September, 2015
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Palestinian national (Palestinian)
IRAN-BORN AUSTRALIAN
PARRAMATTA, AUSTRALIA
October, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Farhad Jabar (Iranian born Australian)
BRITISH
LONDON
December, 2015
TARGET: Three wounded in knife attack at an underground rail station
ATTACKER: Muhyadin Mire (British citizen)
EGYPTIAN
KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT
TARGET: No casualties; vehicle carrying three US soldiers hit by a truck
ATTACKER: Ibrahim Sulayman (Egyptian)
November, 2016
CHADIAN
TARGET: No casualties; attacker arrested after opening fire at entrance of US Embassy
ATTACKER: Chadian national (Chad)
SWEDISH
One of the 2016 Brussels attackers is Osama Krayem (Swedish)
UNIDENTIFIED ATTACKERS
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
November, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; failed IED attempt near US Embassy
ATTACKERS: Philippine nationals aligned with the Maute group (Unspecified number of Filipinos)
KARAK, JORDAN
December, 2016
TARGET: 10 killed and 28 wounded in shooting at a tourist site
ATTACKERS: Several gunmen
EL GORA (AL JURAH), EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; camp used by Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) troops attacked in shooting and bombing attack
ATTACKERS: Unknown number of ISIL-Sinai members
HAMBURG, GERMANY
October, 2016
TARGET: One killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Unknown
LUXOR, EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed by suicide bomb near the Temple of Karnak
ATTACKER: Unidentified
HASANAH, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: 224 killed in downing of a Russian airliner
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives
DINAJPUR, BANGLADESH
November, 2015
TARGET: One Italian citizen wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Unidentified
CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One killed and nine wounded in VBIED attack at Italian Consulate
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL operatives
CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One Croatian national kidnapped; beheaded on August 12 at an unknown location
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operative
EL GORA, EGYPT
September, 2015
TARGET: Four US and two MFO troops wounded in IED attack
ATTACKER: Unidentified
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
September, 2015
TARGET: One Italian civilian killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Unidentified
EL GORA, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; airfield used by MFO attacked with rockets
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives
RANGPUR, BANGLADESH
October, 2015
TARGET: One Japanese civilian killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Unidentified
DERBENT, RUSSIA
December, 2015
TARGET: One killed and 11 wounded in shooting at UN World Heritage site
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Caucasus operative
CAIRO, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: Two wounded in drive-by shooting outside a hotel frequented by tourists
ATTACKERS: Unidentified ISIL operatives
HURGHADA, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: One German and one Danish national wounded in knife attack at a tourist resort
ATTACKER: Unidentified
ESSEN, GERMANY
April, 2016
TARGET: Three wounded in bombing at Sikh temple
ATTACKERS: Three identified minors

Trump’s terrorism claim is baloney, CNN.com

Trump’s terrorism claim is baloney
Peter Bergen
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 1:36 PM ET, Tue February 7, 2017

Source: CNN

Cooper: I know we covered attacks; I was there 02:03
Story highlights
Peter Bergen ran White House timeline of terrorist attacks through media database
Bergen found the 78 cited as under-covered were the subject of 80,000-plus articles
Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.”

(CNN)First, there was the “Bowling Green massacre” that wasn’t.

Now comes President Donald Trump’s claim Monday at the key US military base overseeing the war on ISIS — US Central Command in Tampa, Florida — that the media aren’t reporting terrorism for “reasons” the President didn’t elaborate upon.
Trump told the CENTCOM audience, “You’ve seen what happened in Paris and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
To “prove” that the media aren’t covering terrorism adequately the Trump White House, which is fighting in court to reinstate a refugee ban citing the terrorist threat, on Monday night released a list of 78 “major” terrorist attacks since September 2014, claiming, “Most have not received the media attention they deserved.”
This is one of the biggest baloney sandwiches this White House has foisted on the public since … well … the “Bowling Green massacre,” but it’s a much bigger and harder-to swallow helping of baloney because it is the President who is forcing it down our throats rather than one of his aides.
Donald Trump, the arsonist-in-chief?
Donald Trump, the arsonist-in-chief? (opinion)
Taking the White House timeline of terrorist attacks, I ran it through the Nexis database, which is an authoritative resource for tracking media hits of all types, including in newspapers, magazines, wire service reports, TV news shows and the like.
The results show that terrorist attacks over the past couple of years are, in fact, some of the most well-reported stories of our times. The total number of media hits for the 78 terrorist attacks that the White House released Monday is 80,878, or about an average of slightly more than 1,000 mentions per incident.
And those numbers clearly understate how much coverage the media have given these incidents because a Nexis search only will display a maximum of 3,000 mentions for any given search.
There are 16 terrorist attacks on the White House list of purportedly under-covered attacks that each elicited more than 3,000 media mentions.
The following are a representative sample:
• In Ottawa in October 2014 Michael Zehaf-Bibeau killed a Canadian soldier.
• Two months later in Sydney, Man Haron Monis killed two Australians.
• In March 2015, 21 tourists were killed at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia.
• Two months later in Garland, Texas, two ISIS-inspired militants attacked a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest. Luckily no one was killed except the terrorists.
• In Tunisia, also in 2015, 38 were killed at a beach popular with Westerners.
• In October 2015, 224 were killed in Sinai, Egypt, when ISIS brought down a Russian passenger jet with a bomb.
The terror attacks in Paris and Nice, France, that Trump cited in his CENTCOM speech also received more than 3,000 media mentions.
The terrorist attacks that didn’t get as much coverage were — surprise — the ones where there were no deaths or that took place in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh where there is little independent media reporting.
In three cases, there were no articles listed in the publications included in the Nexis database, and in each of those cases there were no casualties.
The media, including CNN, have exhaustively covered terrorism around the globe since the 9/11 attacks made the issue a central national security concern.
Indeed, the wall-to-wall media coverage of the ISIS attacks in Paris in November 2015 in which 129 were killed and the ISIS-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California, a month later in which 14 were killed was instrumental in boosting Trump in the polls, according to the polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight
Many Americans felt threatened by the ISIS-directed and ISIS-inspired attacks. As the presidential campaign was in full swing at the beginning of 2016, just over half of Americans said they were very or somewhat worried that they, or a member of their family, would be victims of a terrorist attack. This was the largest number to feel that way since just after the 9/11 attacks.
And how did so many Americans learn about the terrorist attacks they were so scared of? Here’s a clue: It wasn’t through telepathy.
Below is the official White House timeline of terrorist attacks since September 2014 with my annotations in bold about the media coverage they each received. (There are a number of incorrectly spelled words I have left as they were in the original.)
TIMELINE: September, 2014 – December, 2016
NUMBER OF ATTACKS: 78
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
September, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Abdul Numan Haider
406 stories
TIZI OUZOU, ALGERIA
September, 2014
TARGET: One French citizen beheaded
ATTACKER: Jund al-Khilafah in Algeria
140 stories
QUEBEC, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed and one wounded in vehicle attack
ATTACKER: Martin Couture-Rouleau
1,509 stories
OTTAWA, CANADA
October, 2014
TARGET: One soldier killed at war memorial; two wounded in shootings at Parliament building
ATTACKER: Michael Zehaf-Bibeau
More than 3,000 stories
NEW YORK CITY, NY, USA
October, 2014
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: US person
477 stories
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
November, 2014
TARGET: One Danish citizen wounded in shooting
ATTACKERS: Three Saudi Arabia-based ISIL members
10 stories
ABU DHABI, UAE
DATE: December 2014
TARGET: One American killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Dalal al-Hashimi
24 stories
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
December, 2014
TARGET: Two Australians killed in hostage taking and shooting
ATTACKER: Man Haron Monis
More than 3,000 stories
TOURS, FRANCE
December, 2014
TARGET: Three police officers wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Bertrand Nzohabonayo
91 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2015
TARGET: One police officer and four hostages killed in shooting at a kosher supermarket
ATTACKER: Amedy Coulibaly
More than 3,000 stories
TRIPOLI, LIBYA
January, 2015
TARGET: Ten killed, including one US citizen, and five wounded in bombing and shooting at a hotel frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: As many as five ISIL-Libya members
837 stories
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
January, 2015
TARGET: Two US citizens wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Saudi Arabia-based ISIL supporter
5 stories
NICE, FRANCE
February, 2015
TARGET: Two French soldiers wounded in knife attack outside a Jewish community center
ATTACKER: Moussa Coulibaly
268 stories
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
February, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in shooting at a free-speech rally and one security guard killed outside the city’s main synagogue
ATTACKER: Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein
535 stories
TUNIS, TUNISIA
March, 2015
TARGET: 21 tourists killed, including 16 westerners, and 55 wounded in shooting at the Bardo Museum
ATTACKERS: Two ISIL-aligned extremists
More than 3,000 stories
KARACHI, PAKISTAN
April, 2015
TARGET: One US citizen wounded in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Pakistan-based ISIL supporters
375 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
April, 2015
TARGET: Catholic churches targeted; one civilian killed in shooting, possibly during an attempted carjacking
ATTACKER: Sid Ahmed Ghlam
612 stories
ZVORNIK, BOSNIA
April, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed and two wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Nerdin Ibric
61 stories
GARLAND, TX, USA
May, 2015
TARGET: One security guard wounded in shooting at the Prophet Muhammad cartoon event
ATTACKERS: Two US persons
More than 3,000 stories
BOSTON, MA, USA
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; one police officer attacked with knife
ATTACKER: US person
627 stories
EL GORA (AL JURAH), EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; camp used by Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) troops attacked in shooting and bombing attack
ATTACKERS: Unknown number of ISIL-Sinai members
0 stories
LUXOR, EGYPT
June, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed by suicide bomb near the Temple of Karnak
ATTACKER: Unidentified
101 Stories
SOUSSE, TUNISIA
June, 2015
TARGET: 38 killed and 39 wounded in shooting at a beach frequented by westerners
ATTACKERS: Seifeddine Rezgui and another unidentified attacker
More than 3,000 stories
LYON, FRANCE
June, 2015
TARGET: One civilian killed in beheading and explosion at a chemical plant
ATTACKER: Yasin Salhi
188 stories
CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One killed and nine wounded in VBIED attack at Italian Consulate
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL operatives
1,085 stories
CAIRO, EGYPT
July, 2015
TARGET: One Croatian national kidnapped; beheaded on August 12 at an unknown location
ATTACKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operative
466 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
August, 2015
TARGET: Two civilians and one US soldier wounded with firearms and knife on a passenger train
ATTACKER: Ayoub el-Khazzani
2,484 stories
EL GORA, EGYPT
September, 2015
TARGET: Four US and two MFO troops wounded in IED attack
ATTACKER: Unidentified
5 stories
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
September, 2015
TARGET: One Italian civilian killed in shooting
ATTACKER: Unidentified
788 stories
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
September, 2015
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTAKER: Palestinian national
130 stories
EL GORA, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: No casualties; airfield used by MFO attacked with rockets
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives
0 stories
PARRAMATTA, AUSTRALIA
October, 2015
TARGET: One police officer killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Farhad Jabar
1,826 stories
RANGPUR, BANGLADESH
October, 2015
TARGET: One Japanese civilian killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Unidentified
471 stories
HASANAH, EGYPT
October, 2015
TARGET: 224 killed in downing of a Russian airliner
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Sinai operatives
More than 3,000 stories
MERCED, CA, US
November, 2015
TARGET: Four wounded in knife attack on a college campus
ATTAKER: US person
163 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
November, 2015
TARGET: At least 129 killed and approximately 400 wounded in series of shootings and IED attacks
ATTAKERS: Brahim Abdelslam, Saleh Abdeslam, Ismail Mostefai, Bilal Hadfi, Samy Amimour, Chakib Ahrouh, Foued Mohamed Aggad, and Abdelhamid Abaaoud
More than 3.000 stories
DINAJPUR, BANGLADESH
November, 2015
TARGET: One Italian citizen wounded in shooting
ATTAKER: Unidentified
203 stories
RAJLOVAC, BOSNIA
December, 2015
TARGET: Two Bosnian soldiers killed in shooting
ATTAKER: Enes Omeragic
42 stories
SAN BERNADINO, CA
December, 2015
TARGET: 14 killed and 21 wounded in coordinated firearms attack
ATTAKERS: Two US persons
More than 3,000 stories
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
December, 2015
TARGET: Three wounded in knife attack at an underground rail station
ATTAKER: Muhyadin Mire
44 stories
DERBENT, RUSSIA
December, 2015
TARGET: One killed and 11 wounded in shooting at UN World Heritage site
ATTAKER: Unidentified ISIL-Caucasus operative
286 stories
CAIRO, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: Two wounded in drive-by shooting outside a hotel frequented by tourists
ATTAKERS: Unidentified ISIL operatives
5 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; attacker killed after attempted knife attack on Paris police station
ATTAKER: Tarek Belgacem
97 stories
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
January, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in shooting
ATTAKER: US person
321 stories
HURGHADA, EGYPT
January, 2016
TARGET: One German and one Danish national wounded in knife attack at a tourist resort
ATTAKER: Unidentified
5 stories
MARSEILLES, FRANCE
January, 2016
TARGET: One Jewish teacher wounded in machete attack
ATTAKER: 15 year-old Ethnic Kurd from Turkey
184 stories
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
January, 2016
TARGET: 12 German tourists killed and 15 wounded in suicide bombing
ATTAKER: Nabil Fadli
More than 3,000 stories
JAKARTA, INDONESIA
January, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians killed and more than 20 wounded in coordinated bombing and firearms attacks near a police station and a Starbucks
ATTAKERS: Dian Joni Kurnaiadi, Muhammad Ali, Arif Sunakim, and Ahmad Muhazan bin Saron
2,530 stories
COLUMBUS, OH, US
February, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in machete attack at a restaurant
ATTAKER: US person
108 stories
HANOVER, GERMANY
February, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in knife attack
ATTAKER: Safia Schmitter
60 stories
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
March, 2016
TARGET: Four killed and 36 wounded in suicide bombing in the tourist district
ATTAKER: Mehmet Ozturk
306 stories
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
March, 2016
TARGET: At least 31 killed and 270 wounded in coordinated bombings at Zaventem Airport and on a subway train
ATTAKERS: Khalid el-Bakraoui, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, Najim Laachraoui, Mohammed Abrini, and Osama Krayem
More than 3,000 stories
ESSEN, GERMANY
April, 2016
TARGET: Three wounded in bombing at Sikh temple
ATTAKERS: Three identified minors
197 stories
ORLANDO, FL, US
June, 2016
TARGET: 49 killed and 53 wounded in shooting at a nightclub
ATTAKER: US person
More than 3,000 stories
MAGNANVILLE, FRANCE
June, 2016
TARGET: One police officer and one civilian killed in knife attack
ATTAKER: Larossi Abballa
1,124 stories
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
June, 2016
TARGET: 14 killed in suicide attack on a bus carrying Canadian Embassy guards
ATTAKER: ISIL-Khorasan operative
1,404 stories
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
June, 2016
TARGET: 45 killed and approximately 240 wounded at Ataturk International Airport
ATTACKERS: Rakhim Bulgarov, Vadim Osmanov, and an unidentified ISIL operative
More than 3,000 stories
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
July, 2016
TARGET: 22 killed, including one American and 50 wounded after hours-long siege using machetes and firearms at holy Artisan Bakery
ATTACKERS: Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam Paye, and Shafiqul Islam Uzzal
More than 3,000 stories
NICE, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: 84 civilians killed and 308 wounded by an individual who drove a truck into a crowd
ATTACKER: Mohamed Bouhlel
More than 3,000 stories
WURZBURG, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: Four civilians wounded in axe attack on a train
ATTACKER: Riaz Khan Ahmadzai
283 stories
ANSBACH, GERMANY
July, 2016
TARGET: At least 15 wounded in suicide bombing at a music festival
ATTACKER: Mohammad Daleel
300 stories
NORMANDY, FRANCE
July, 2016
TARGET: One priest killed in knife attack
ATTACKERS: Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean
1,637 stories
CHALEROI, BELGIUM
August, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in machete attack
ATTACKER: Khaled Babouri
10 stories
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
August, 2016
TARGET: Two killed and one wounded in knife attack at a hostel frequented by Westerners
ATTACKER: Smail Ayad
852 stories
COPENHAGEN, DENMAKR
September, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers and a civilian wounded in shooting
ATTACKER: Mesa Hodzic
43 stories
PARIS, FRANCE
September, 2016
TARGET: One police officer wounded in raid after VBIED failed to detonate at Notre Dame Cathedral
ATTACKERS: Sarah Hervouet, Ines Madani, and Amel Sakaou
21 stories
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
September, 2016
TARGET: One civilian wounded in knife attack
ATTACKER: Ihsas Khan
269 stories
ST. CLOUD, MN, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 10 wounded in knife attack in a mall
ATTACKER: Dahir Ahmed Adan
241 stories
NEW YORK, NY; SEASIDE PARK AND ELIZABETH, NJ, US
September, 2016
TARGET: 31 wounded in bombing in New York City; several explosive devices found in New York and New Jersey; one exploded without casualty at race in New Jersey; one police officer wounded in shootout
ATTACKER: Ahmad Khan Rahami
More than 3,000 stories
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
October, 2016
TARGET: Two police officers wounded in stabbing
ATTACKER: Belgian national
31 stories
KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT
TARGET: No casualties; vehicle carrying three US soldiers hit by a truck
ATTACKER: Ibrahim Sulayman
0 stories
MALMO, SWEDEN
October, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; mosque and community center attacked with Molotov cocktail
ATTACKER: Syrian national
26 stories
HAMBURG, GERMANY
October, 2016
TARGET: One killed in knife attack
ATTACKER: Unknown
516 stories
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
November, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; failed IED attempt near US Embassy
ATTACKERS: Philippine nationals aligned with the Maute group
1 story
COLUMBUS, OH, US
November, 2016
TARGET: 14 wounded by individuals who drove a vehicle into a group of pedestrians and attacked them with a knife
ATTACKER: US person
More than 3,000 stories
N’DJAMENA, CHAD
November, 2016
TARGET: No casualties; attacker arrested after opening fire at entrance of US Embassy
ATTACKER: Chadian national
11 stories
KARAK, JORDAN
December, 2016
TARGET: 10 killed and 28 wounded in shooting at a tourist site
ATTACKERS: Several gunmen
2,037 stories
BERLIN, GERMANY
December, 2016
TARGET: 12 killed and 48 wounded by individual who drove truck into a crowded market
ATTACKER: Anis Amri
More than 3,000 stories

SEAL Team 6 raid in Yemen raises questions, CNN.com

SEAL Team 6 raid in Yemen raises questions
Peter Bergen

By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

Updated 6:10 PM ET, Thu February 2, 2017
n
Story highlights

The raid that killed 14 al Qaeda fighters and 10 civilians has raised questions, Peter Bergen says
Those include the raid’s timing, who was consulted and President Trump’s overall approach to fighting terrorism

“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” ”

(CNN)The SEAL Team 6 raid in Yemen on Sunday that killed 14 al Qaeda fighters and 10 civilians has raised questions about the approach President Donald Trump will take to fighting terrorism.
The operation was the first Special Operations raid authorized by the new President.
On the plus side of the ledger, an al Qaeda leader was killed during the raid along with 13 other al Qaeda fighters. Intelligence was also recovered at the scene, which could prove useful.

On the negative side of the ledger, the SEALS went into a heavily fortified and well-defended al Qaeda complex and suffered casualties.

The raid resulted in the death of US Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday, “It’s hard to ever call something a complete success, when you have the loss of life or people injured,” but concluded, “It is a successful operation by all standards.”
Three US service members were also wounded and a $70 million Osprey helicopter that took a “hard landing” was destroyed.
According to medics at the scene, 10 civilians were also killed, including women and children.
One of the victims was the 8-year-old daughter of the militant Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed six years ago in a CIA drone strike. She was the second of Awlaki’s children to be killed by the United States.
Initially, the US military said there were no civilian casualties.
On Wednesday US Central Command, or CENTCOM, acknowledged the raid likely resulted in civilian casualties, including children. The speed with which this admission was made was unusually swift.
The raid has also angered the Yemeni government.
So, the first, big, obvious question is: What was the rush to mount the raid?
In the past, Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, of which SEAL Team 6 is a key component, has only launched ground raids in Yemen when the lives of hostages held by al Qaeda seemed at risk.
Indeed, the Trump-authorized raid was only the third ground operation that JSOC has carried out in Yemen.
There is good reason for that. Yemen is in the grip of a brutal civil war and pretty much every adult male is armed with an AK-47.
Ground operations are inherently very risky in Yemen. The two previous JSOC raids in Yemen were both in 2014. In the first operation, eight Yemeni, Saudi and Ethiopian hostages were freed and seven al Qaeda militants were killed.
In the second raid, Luke Somers, an American photojournalist, and South African citizen Pierre Korkie were both killed during the JSOC rescue attempt.
The American who inspires terror from Paris to the U.S.
The American who inspires terror from Paris to the U.S.
The Trump-authorized raid had been in the planning stages for months under President Obama, but Obama didn’t authorize the raid because the first moonless night in Yemen came on January 28 after he was out of office.
Second question: Should the Trump team have waited for the next moonless night in Yemen, which falls on February 26 and gathered more intelligence on the target in the interim?
The third question: Was the Trump administration aware of the substantial number of civilians at the target? If not, why not? And if so, why did the raid proceed?
Final question: The New York Times reported that Stephen Bannon, Trump’s top policy strategist, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were both present at the dinner where the decision to authorize the Yemen JSOC strike was weighed with President Trump.
Isn’t the presence of Bannon and Kushner at this dinner more than slightly strange? Neither have any relevant expertise or experience. It’s not even a given that they are “cleared” for discussions about JSOC’s operations, which are among the most tightly “compartmented” of the United States’ secrets.
Also at the dinner were US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford and Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser who played a key role in JSOC when he was stationed in Iraq during the Bush administration.
When President Obama was planning the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, his top policy and political advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod and others who had no “need to know” and didn’t have the requisite clearances were not included in discussions about the operation that went on at the White House over the course of nine months.
By contrast, will Bannon and Kushner participate in the key national security decisions of the Trump administration? We already have a partial answer to this question, which is Trump’s decision announced on Monday to give Bannon a seat on the National Security Council’s Principals Committee.

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Afghanistan: Prospects for 2017 and Beyond, New America DC

Afghanistan: Prospects for 2017 and Beyond
RSVP
Photo: Shutterstock/Jiri Flogel
When

February 13, 2017

12:15 pm – 1:45 pm
Where

New America

740 15th St NW #900

Washington, D.C. 20005

With his inauguration as President, Donald Trump is the third president to command American forces in Afghanistan. Yet Afghanistan continues to receive little attention in public debates over policy. More than 15 years after American forces first entered the country in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, what are the prospects for the Afghan government and people and how will Donald Trump shape American policy towards Afghanistan?

Follow the discussion online using #AfghanProspects and following @NewAmericaISP.
Participant:

Ioannis Koskinas @HopliteGroup
Senior Fellow, New America International Security Program
CEO, Hoplite Group
Moderator:

Peter Bergen @peterbergencnn
Vice President, New America
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Maxwell School, Syracuse NY

NATIONAL SECURITY MANAGEMENT COURSE
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University

Trump’s big mistake on Syrian refugees, CN.com

Bergen: Trump’s big mistake on Syrian refugees

Reality check: Truth about refugees, terrorism

Story highlights
Peter Bergen says there’s no evidence of terrorists among Syrian refugees to the United States
Syrian refugees are the victims of terrorism, not perpetrators of it, he writes
Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.”

(CNN)On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively suspends the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States indefinitely. As he signed the order, President Trump said that this was “to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.”

This order will achieve absolutely nothing because there is no evidence of terrorists among the Syrian refugees who are settling in the United States.
All the lethal acts of jihadist terrorism in the States since 9/11 have been carried out by American citizens or legal residents, and none of them have been the work of Syrian refugees.
That shouldn’t be too surprising, because the United States has accepted only a minuscule number of Syrian refugees, even though the Syrian civil war is one of the worst humanitarian crises since World War II and has generated a vast outflow of nearly 5 million refugees from Syria.
The United States has taken only around 15,000 Syrian refugees, amounting to a tiny 0.2% of the total number of refugees, the large majority of whom are women and children.

Not only are these Syrian refugees not terrorists, but they are fleeing the brutal state terrorism of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and the brutal non-state terrorism of ISIS.
The refugees are the victims of terrorism, not the perpetrators of terrorism.
Also, any sensible ISIS terrorist is quite unlikely to try to infiltrate the United States as a Syrian refugee.
Anne Richard, a senior US State Department official, testified at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing in November 2015 that any Syrian refugee trying to get into the United States is scrutinized by officials from the National Counterterrorism Center, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, State Department and Pentagon.

They must also give up their biometric data — scans of their retinas, for instance — submit their detailed biographic histories and submit to lengthy interviews. These refugees are also queried against a number of government databases to see if they might pose a threat — and the whole process takes two years, sometimes more.
Leon Rodriguez, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who also testified at the November 2015 hearing, said that of all the tens of millions of people who are trying to get into the United States every year, “Refugees get the most scrutiny and Syrian refugees get the most scrutiny of all.”
By contrast, Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe do not go through anything like the rigorous process experienced by those who are coming to the States, and the volume of Syrians fleeing to Europe is orders of magnitude larger than it is to the United States.

The promise of the United States written on the Statue of Liberty is from the Emma Lazarus poem: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
This has been the promise that has been largely extended for more than two centuries to successive waves of immigrants. Many Americans reading this article know this to be true because their own families came to the States hoping for a better life than the one they had left behind.
Khizr Khan on Trump's refugee ban

Donald Trump’s own mother Mary escaped the bone-crushing poverty of Scotland’s remote Outer Hebrides for the promise of New York in 1929.
America has not traditionally been the cramped, frightened country of Trump’s executive order that bans Syrian refugees.
Next, will the Trump administration rewrite the Lazarus poem that adorns the Statue of Liberty?
“Give me your Pilates-toned, your billionaires, your Botoxed elites yearning for admission to Mar-a-Lago.”