 Well, thank you all for coming. My name is Brian Fishman. I'm a counterterrorism research fellow here at the New America Foundation. I'm a late ad and fill in for Peter Bergen, who was originally going to host this, but has been pulled away to other things. But we're really happy to have Seth Jones here at New America today to talk about his wonderful new book, Hunting in the Shadows, which is a really real comprehensive history of the fight against al-Qaeda since 9-11. And really even pointing to the time beforehand, this is, I think, a very useful baseline for understanding not just what has happened, but where we need to go from here. And I hope that you will all ask questions of Seth about that when we get to the Q&A. The way this will run, I'm going to turn this over to Seth. He's going to talk for 15 or 20 minutes. I'm going to pester him with questions. And then I'm going to turn it over to all of you. And I hope you will pester him with hard questions. When we get to that point, please stand up, state your name, your affiliation, and then run him through the ringer a little bit. So with no further ado, Seth, please. Thank you very much for the introduction. Thanks for agreeing to host this. It's an honor to be here. We did this before my last book in the Graveyard of Empires as well. And it was quite a useful discussion both for those here, but particularly those online listening subsequently. What I'll do here is I'll outline in my own view first about the situation right now. And then I'll walk through what I'll call historical waves against al-Qaeda. Now, I see there are a range of people in this room with a deep background on al-Qaeda and have worked it from multiple angles in the field. So suspect they will ask or provide comments later on from their own perspective. I first became sort of interested in writing this, spending a lot of time in Afghanistan and Pakistan, working along the border for US special operations about two years ago. The challenge from my standpoint was what could I talk about? And I turned, in particular, to a range of the court trials, which are an unclassified, sometimes quite revealing picture of what has gone on in the struggle against al-Qaeda, interviews, and then a whole range of other ways to provide information. But let me just start off with what I would say is a picture of the movement today. Because I think we're at a point where I would say you're probably hearing multiple things about the state of al-Qaeda today. There are some arguing that al-Qaeda has largely been defeated, or is at least close to it, especially on the Pakistan front. And we've heard some government officials commenting along these lines. I'm going to provide a very different picture of the situation today, because I think the situation is much more complex. And I'll pull from the wave argument in the book along these lines. What I'll argue is that we're probably in the early stages of what I call a fourth wave. And that is, it does appear that al-Qaeda is trying to resurge on multiple fronts. And we see that in several cases. We see an effort to increase their number of attacks, and they have done so in several theaters, in an attempt to increasingly hold on to, and in some cases expand their territorial control, and they have done so in some cases. And then also to increase their franchises in some areas. So what we see, and I think if you look at the headlines over the last couple of days, it's an indication along these lines. The activities of AQI Syria, al-Qaeda in the Iraq-Syria front, including al-Nusrah, they're not the main element in the Syrian front right now, insurgency against the Assad regime. But their increasingly lethal component has been involved in vehicle-borne, provides explosive devices over the past couple of weeks. We see an element in Yemen that has slightly expanded its control of territory around the Gulf of Aden, despite some drone activity. We see an ally in Nigeria, Boko Haram, which we know has connections to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and to some degree al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that was in contact with bin Laden before he was killed, has been involved in a range of increasingly violent attacks in Nigeria. And an element in Iraq with a US military departure from Iraq that has become much more lethal that's involved. And the US spotlight has shifted from Iraq because we don't have military forces there anymore. And what we see now is roughly on average, according to some US government data, about 25 attacks per month over the past four months in Iraq now by al-Qaeda in Iraq. So my point is not that they're a 10-foot-tall monster that will succeed in establishing their mid- or long-term goals, which we'll go over in a second, but that I think we are at the point where we have got to be honest with ourselves about what is going on. They are not on the verge of strategic defeat. They have been weakened, as we'll talk about on the Pakistan front for a range of reasons. But I think we have got to be honest with the situation today, including what al-Qaeda looks like. And that's where I want to start. Now, there are a range of people, including Phil Mudd in the room, who have outlined what al-Qaeda looks like. My own personal take is that al-Qaeda today is a series of, you can think of it as a series of concentric rings. At the center would be central al-Qaeda. That's Ayman al-Sawahiri, Abu Yaya al-Libbi, and a range of individuals, including some Pakistanis that they've recruited from theater that do retain a little bit of a command role in Pakistan. They've been weakened considerably. I would say I don't see a lot of evidence that they're actively plotting, at least to the degree they were, two or three years ago. But when you start to branch out, you get a range of affiliates. Four major affiliates now. These are groups that have sworn bayat to al-Qaeda's emir. And they're in Yemen. They are in Iraq. They're in North Africa. And they're in Somalia. The most recent, obviously, was Al-Shabaab in February of 2012 that became public. Third would be a range of allied groups. These emirs have not necessarily sworn bayat or allegiance to Zawahiri and al-Qaeda central. But they do cooperate in various ways. And we see them from Africa, including Boko Haram, through a range of groups that the central element in Pakistan interacts with the Tariq-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taybah, the Haqqani network, and others. And now we've seen some fronts in Syria and several other places where they have as well. And then finally, you have an element that are really just a kind of an inspired network. And we've seen some of those organizations that work even in the United States with arrests. Over the past year, the FBI has arrested individuals involved in inspired plots with no direct or core connection. What I'd like to do, though, is especially to try and put some context to this debate about al-Qaeda is to argue the way I would say the media portrays this struggle is almost linear. That they're maybe weakened now. And I would say when you look at data like civilian casualties, al-Qaeda civilian casualties, cases where they have not just conducted attacks but also killed people, what you get is three and I would say now a fourth wave. I want to take a moment or two to outline, in my view, what those look like. Wave patterns, as I'm arguing here, are cases where we're seeing surge of al-Qaeda activity, surges and attacks, and then followed by declining efforts because of arrests or a range of other steps that are done by US or other allied forces. The first wave, I would argue, began in the 1990s. Al-Qaeda was established in the late 80s. It really began to pick up with the embassy bombings in Africa and then the US's coal and then peaked in 2001 during the attack on New York City in Washington. That was then led by a reverse wave as al-Qaeda was severely weakened. It lost its sanctuary in Afghanistan in Pakistan. There was very good US cooperation with the Pakistanis over capturing and in some cases killing senior al-Qaeda leaders. And there was a major pushback in some of the propaganda and information against al-Qaeda in Iraq. So by about 2003, I would say al-Qaeda's wave, first wave, was largely over. If you read some of the now declassified comments from senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Saif al-Adl, he was blunt by 2002 and 2003 that al-Qaeda had been severely weakened. By late 2003, with the large conventional US invasion of Iraq, I would say what we saw at that point then is the beginning of what was a second wave. That led to and was probably most acutely consistent of attacks in Madrid, which was not al-Qaeda core, but we know now that al-Qaeda was aware of and had supported in several ways the Madrid attacks. London in 2005, which was an al-Qaeda plot, Bali, Casablanca. And so by about 2005 and 2006, you had a full-born second wave of al-Qaeda activity that I would say hinged at least in part on the invasion of Iraq and what was a radicalization in several fronts in the UK, in the US and elsewhere reaction to a US invasion. That was then followed by a second reverse wave, where what al-Qaeda does interestingly is it oversteps its boundary in Iraq. The killing of large numbers of civilians decreases its support base. And while a lot of people have talked about the surge as being significant in Iraq by 2007 and 2008, I would say if you look very carefully at provinces like Anbar, it's the covert clandestine work that was done in 2005 and 2006 that really began to tip the balance in Iraq. And that was the covert clandestine work by US special operations, US intelligence units on the ground, and a range of others that took advantage of a groundswell of animosity against al-Qaeda, partly because they were killing so many civilians. Well, by 2006, the unborrowed awakening had severely pushed back al-Qaeda in chunks of Iraq. By 2007 and 2008, I would say what we saw then is a third wave. If the first wave was in large part about a sanctuary in Afghanistan and the second wave was in part a sanctuary and inspiration because of activities in Iraq, the third wave was to a great degree hinged around the activities in Yemen, and particularly about Anwar al-Alaki. Now, what's interesting in my view is I looked pretty carefully about Alaki, talked to some family members and individuals who worked with him. He was interesting not just because of his social media, command of social media, and propaganda. And he was quite dangerous because of his ability to push out propaganda on Constance of Jihad and a range of other lectures online. He was probably the first person, certainly the most successful senior al-Qaeda leader, to be involved in getting the message out in ways that took advantage of social media that I think very few people had been as successful in using Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and a range of other out Facebook to push out that kind of information. But what made him particularly dangerous was also his operational and tactical level involvement. In looking at the FBI debriefs, which have now become public of the underwear bomber, Umar Farouq Abdul-Muttalab, we now know the operational and tactical level involvement of Alaki in 2009. When Abdul-Muttalab made it to Yemen, Alaki spent considerable time with him, as actually did Ibrahim al-Asiri, who is being hunted now, the bomb maker for constructing that bomb as well as several others since then. Alaki made it very clear to Abdul-Muttalab that he wanted him to go through multiple African capitals in then Amsterdam before he made it to the US, so he would lose anybody potentially trailing him. He wanted to wait and detonate the bomb over American airspace because he wanted US civilians killed over the United States. And he was intimately involved in overseeing the training of that. So Alaki was really at the cutting edge of this third wave where Al-Qaeda was able to increase its activities. And if you look at even basic data on Al-Qaeda attacks and fatalities over the course of 2008 and 2009, they increased. They increased in North Africa, they increased in Somalia, they increased in Yemen, and they increased in Pakistan, where Al-Qaeda was involved in some cases in attacks. Well, by the 2011 with the death of Osama bin Laden and a range of deaths, Sheikh Said al-Masri, the general manager, and a number of others, Ilyas Kashmir, the head of external operations, by 2011, Al-Qaeda had probably come to the end of this third wave. Its attack numbers came down, and it had been beaten back on several fronts. Then I would say, and where we're at now is, and let me project into the future before we move over to question and answers, is really, I would say, at the beginning of a fourth wave. So the first was partly a sanctuary in Afghanistan, and the second was Iraq. The third was Yemen. The fourth, I would say, is a much broader result of what we're seeing now with the Arab Spring. And while so many people were so exuberant about the Arab Spring and bringing democracy across the Arab world, I would say what has done, for the time being anyway, is weakened regimes in a number of key areas and provided an opportunity for Al-Qaeda to attempt to establish a foothold in a range of countries. You look at North Africa, everywhere from Nigeria, into Mali now, where we know elements of Boko Haram have moved up to conduct training. Al-Qaeda has pushed some fighters in to attempt to latch onto the Tuaregs. AQIM has also been involved in trying to expand its presence in Egypt and Libya. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, in Syria. I think there are growing concerns as I talk to government officials from the region about Jordan, Lebanon. My point is not a doomsday issue here, but I think what we're seeing and what we should be concerned about is there are opportunities because of weakening regimes in some places for Al-Qaeda to take advantage of a window of opportunity. It's done so in Syria, we know, among other things, with the Al-Nusra Front, that it's cover operations in Syria for conducting attacks. Again, it's not the largest group operating in Syria. It's not the main one. It appears to be a fairly small activity there, but it is an active one at the moment. And I suspect that will likely increase. And actually, it puts the US into a difficult position here because think of what happens now in supporting, if one wants to support the opposition in Syria, one has to be very careful now about what is a very complex heterogeneous element in Syria. So as we look forward, let me just highlight a couple of things that would continue to affect a fourth wave. One is the Arab Spring in general. And I think what I would be extremely concerned about is the strength of governments across this region and being able to provide basic services and security within their areas of operations. The weaker the governments in some of these areas, the more likely, I think, we'll have challenges in Al-Qaeda gaining a foothold. And if you look at countries like Yemen right now, you've got a government not only that is politically weak, but also has insurgencies on multiple fronts, not just Al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula in the southern part of the country. A second is what I call a light footprint. I would say that the US tends to be on sounder ground when it's counterterrorism efforts primarily leverage intelligence agencies. That is not just CIA, but FBI, which has a growing presence overseas and a quite useful one when it leveraging the other US intelligence agencies, NSA, NRO, NGA, special operations, but when the footprint is generally small and covert rather than big. And that becomes an issue, just to think if the US were to be attacked as we have several times, that issue would come back to the surface again. How would we respond to a TTP attack that we saw in 2010 in Times Square? Had that device gone off, what would the US's response have been? That's the Faisal Shazad attack in Times Square. Had that bomb actually gone off, what would our response have been? Another issue along the light footprint side, I think, is these discussions about a US Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities and what could potentially come as part of that, I think, would be if that were to seriously deteriorate, would be another way of potentially contributing to an increase in a fourth wave. And the final thing, though, is some of this is obviously in al-Qaeda's hands. Al-Qaeda has generally tended, as we've seen in past waves, to put itself in a very difficult situation when it kills civilians, including Muslims. That stuff needs to be taken advantage of. If al-Qaeda is much more careful, and it has been a little bit more so on some fronts and does not kill civilians, at least en masse, it often will be able to hang on to its support base rather than when it kills en masse. And we've seen al-Qaeda in Iraq in particular and now in Syria get into the killing civilians more than some of the other fronts. If it goes and continues to go in that direction, that's obviously one area where I think could weaken its ability to establish a fourth hold. So there are several factors at play that we can talk about in more detail. But let me just conclude with this as we look forward. Two comments. One is, I'm gonna push back very strong on arguments that al-Qaeda, as sort of I defined them early on, its central node, its key affiliates, those organizations that are sworn by yacht, and its allies where we actually see a direct relationship in some capacity like Boko Haram, that organization or movement is not dead. And in fact, I would say in some areas is desperately trying to revitalize itself. And so for us to create Department of Defense doctrine or strategic postures to move increasingly and rebalance toward the Asia Pacific, I would strongly suggest we think very carefully about not losing focus on an organization that is still committed to attacks in the US homeland. And second, I'm a little less optimistic than some people are about the Arab Spring being a harbinger of all good things across the Arab world. I think what it has done again in some cases is weaken a number of regimes. And I would say as we look towards the next four or five years, what we will likely have is a massive struggle in multiple countries, including in Syria, including in Egypt, now over hearts and minds of locals, because there clearly are a range of efforts underway now by al-Qaeda, its affiliates and allies to try and take advantage of what it believes as a window of opportunity. There's a lot more to talk about. And I'm happy to go into a lot of different directions, but I'm going to hand back to you. I'm going to ask a couple of questions to start off and then we'll go to the audience. I don't know, do we have somebody back there with a mic? I don't know if we do at the moment. The first question I have is that this fourth wave that you're talking about differs from the first three in that the man at the top is different. It's Amin al-Zawahiri. And so I'm wondering if you see any important strategic differences in how Zawahiri thinks about where al-Qaeda ought to go and how they ought to operate from bin Laden. And some of those seem to come out in the documents that were declassified last week or the week before, whenever it was. With this idea about bin Laden being sort of skeptical of the al-Qaeda brand warning Shabab, not necessarily to take the al-Qaeda name, Zawahiri seems more willing to sort of use the brand and apply it to affiliates. But does that matter? And are there other strategic differences that we should be aware of between bin Laden and Zawahiri going forward? Yeah, a couple of things. One is I would, I'd be very cautious about drawing too many conclusions from 17 documents. It's if you took 17 emails of mine out of the last year and tried to make a broad conclusions about 17 emails, you could come to a very skewed picture. So what we know is there are hundreds of thousands of pages of text on a whole range of issues and only a small percentage that have been declassified. But I think the broad question about Zawahiri is an interesting one. I would say a couple of things. One is, I mean, we know historically that he's not played the role of being the sort of soldier on the ground fighter inspiration that bin Laden was. In the 1980s, he generally stayed back. His reputation recently and even over the last decade has been much more erudite, providing ideological vision to the organization. It's been in publishing books like Knights Under the Prophet's Banner. It's been in his statements about the Arab Spring recently. His contribution has been in attempting to provide an ideological vision to the organization. And I would say a few things on him. One is, all affiliates have sworn biot loyalty to him. I would not take too much or take, I'd push back a little bit on questions about his credibility, at least from some areas, because he appears to have enough credibility or at least the senior management now with Abu Yaya Alibi and several others to have its primary affiliates swear allegiance to the central node. So it's unclear how much damage that has done to the central element. The drone strikes have clearly impacted his ability to communicate. That central node's ability to get involved regularly in operations, because I think they're just trying to survive right now. But I would say it also looks like where he's trying to take advantage of the organization right now from Pakistan is, it appears to me anyway, is less involved in directing operations towards the US. The threat streams appear to be coming from other areas right now, including Yemen, not the core element in Pakistan, at least as far as I can tell. Not having left government about a year ago and so not having access to that anymore, there may be things in there that point otherwise. But as far as I can see, his role is to be supporting and encouraging Al Qaeda to take advantage of what he perceives as a vacuum in the Arab Spring. So he's made statements on Egypt, obviously. That's where he's from. He's made statements on Syria and encouraged AQI. He also appears to be involved in trying to, as he has with AQI historically, trying to be careful that they not overstep boundaries by killing too many civilians. I know he's been on record saying that with declassified documents that you and others had looked at as part of the counter-terrorism center in the nodes back and forth to Abu Musab al-Zarkawi. So he may not have the presence of a soldier that bin Laden has, but he does appear to have enough legitimacy that the affiliates are swearing bayat to him. And again, it appears that where he's trying to take the organization, as far as I can tell, is taking advantage across the Arab world of what he perceives as vacuums. That looks like where he's moving the organization. And I would also say, look, the guy's a survivor too. As much as we can make fun of him. And certainly, we can point out, he's had public fights with Hamas, public fights with the Muslim Brotherhood. He's had public fights with a range of organizations. He's been controversial. He's also survived. He survived in Egyptian prison. He survived in Pakistan. He survived in Afghanistan. He survived in Sudan. He survived in Afghanistan again. And he's survived in Pakistan right now. So I would not totally discount his ability to survive as well. And I would say my final comment is we, I think, have a tendency to underestimate the danger that he poses as well. At the end of the book, and what you've said here is sort of a three-pronged strategy going forward, sort of a special operations covert effort, a relatively small footprint effort to go after these guys, working with allies, and then taking advantage of Al-Qaeda's mistakes. I want to push you a little bit on the working with allies element. This has been a part of our strategy for the since 9-11 and beforehand. But it's also an element that has been very problematic over the years, right? Key allies, like Pakistan, have not always been as forthcoming as we would like. Other key allies, like Saudi Arabia, are perhaps not as forthcoming as we would like at times. And yet this recent operation in Yemen shows that they are critical. But I wonder, how do we think about how to better work with these allies to make sure that our interests in theirs line up going forward? Are there mistakes or lessons from our work with allies over the past decade that we should take forward from here? Sure. And how we work with allies is obviously different in some places. If you look at our efforts in Somalia over the past several years, it's been mixed. I think right now, there's been a renewed effort to focus on keeping a very small footprint in Somalia, US footprint in Somalia, but focusing predominantly on leveraging locals. Now, the reason this is obviously complicated is the transitional government in Somalia is weak. So I think what that means, and I would say the US has begun to shift in this direction, but I think it took too long to answer your question, is also supporting, and this has to be done carefully, but the Kenyan government and the Ethiopian government, which have now backed the Somali government in pushing back. What we've seen of Shabaab and southern parts of Somalia is they appear to have been considerably weak in the south of Mogadishu, at least in some areas, because of a united front that's involved what's left of the Somali government. Several of the key neighbors, the UN mission there as well, with support from the US and several other allies on the clandestine presence. That ability to cobble together an alliance against Shabaab, I think is a fairly helpful approach that probably took a little too long to put together, but I think as an example, I think how working with allies on one major affiliate side can work. On the Iraq front, look, I think we made mistakes in leaving. Now, we could argue about whether the US government did enough or not to take advantage of the situation on negotiating an agreement, the SOFA, with the Iraqi government, but I think we made a huge mistake in ultimately agreeing and then pulling out all military forces from Iraq. Now, maybe it made sense to agree to pull out our conventional footprint, but we've now lost even a notable special operations footprint from Iraq. And again, we've seen the number of attacks per month go up this year in Iraq. Now, people may not be focusing on Iraq, because we don't have forces there anymore, but al-Qaeda in Iraq appears to now be surging in its levels of violence and trying to establish a footholds in multiple provinces, including Anbar. So does it make sense at some point to, even if it's quietly rethink our approach in Iraq based on al-Qaeda's resurgence, including their push into Syria, I think that's another case where I would question some of the steps that have been taken. Yeah, I tend to agree with you on al-Qaeda in Iraq. Actually, I would point to even a year, year and a half ago, I think you could see the early stages of this. The last question I'm going to ask before we turn it over to the audience is about these three ways forward. Is this a strategy for the strategic defeat of al-Qaeda? Is there a strategic defeat of al-Qaeda? Or fundamentally, is this a strategy of suppression over the long run, but not defeat of this organization? I mean, how does al-Qaeda die or do they? And is there a time where you can say, OK, we can take the foot off the gas a bit? Or fundamentally, are we defining a national security strategy that requires a perpetual use of force, covert force around the world to counter this threat? All good questions. I would say a couple of things. One is, as I've argued in other places, terrorism does not end by crime. Terrorism changes forms, changes groups. Terrorism will persist. It has persisted. It persists now, and it will persist in the future. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates and allies, I think the goal from a purely US national security perspective, if I were to summarize, would be to largely end, diminish the threat to the US homeland and its major interests abroad, meaning embassies and other places, meaning where we would, I think, get over the hump, I would say, is where we really stop seeing over a period of time very little of any external plotting against the US homeland and very little plotting against, say, the US embassies in Africa. At that point, I think you know that the organization has changed. And it may change. You may have groups that increasingly go back to what they did before, like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or the GSPC in North Africa, which was largely a regional organization, took on a little bit more of the global jihad, have become involved in a little bit more global activity, certainly be plausible at some point where they go back to playing more of a regional role. And I think in that case, the continuation, even of an organization like that, with slightly different goals, it gets rid of the global jihad. It stops its plotting overseas. That, I think, for all intents and purposes, the US will largely have gotten out of the woods on ameliorating the threat from al-Qaeda and its allies. And I think that's kind of what would be in our, because it's sort of like talking about Hamas or Hezbollah. Hezbollah appears in general not to be plotting a lot of attacks against the US homeland, at least not at the moment. I mean, that could change. But I think there will be groups like that that persist, terrorist groups, and maybe certainly groups that exist in North Africa, the Horn, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia will exist. The question from our standpoint, and I think from the book standpoint, is at what point will they stop targeting the US and actually actively plotting against the US homeland? But there is a feedback loop to a certain extent, right? I mean, there are people out there that are targeting the homeland. When we go out to get them, rightfully so, perhaps, more people decide they want to target the homeland. Is there a way out of that loop? Well, I think the issue becomes how we respond. I would say what we've seen historically is where the response, where we've generally put large conventional boots on the ground, triggers the kind of activity you're talking about. There may be an argument, although I'd say it's not clear. I mean, people have made this argument about Pakistan right now, and the drone strikes have increased radicalization. I'd say that's not clear. Is it actually empirically true that there has been more plotting against the US because of the drone activity? It's possible, but I think that's a hypothesis. It's not a fact, at least not that I've seen. So again, I would go back to efforts to rely on covert clandestine forces, both in the US homeland, that's organizations like the FBI and law enforcement, JTTFs, overseas, a range of the organizations we've talked about, especially ones that can work with host nation governments where feasible. And look, there will be cases, as you noted earlier, like Pakistan, where that's a serious problem. I mean, I'm not going to paper over the fact that we were most successful against al-Qaeda in the cases where we were cooperating jointly in the 2002 and three and four period when we captured Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, which is a joint effort, or Abu Fraj Al-Libi, or a range of others. And we're not at that stage right now, which actually is another reason we should be quite concerned with the possible reemergence of the core central element at some point down the line. So I would say if we are very careful in our use of force and use of violence overseas, I think that can generally limit the blowback effect against target in the US homeland. And I would just point out again that the US invasion of Afghanistan, which was in 2001 just a small presence of clandestine forces, CIA and special operations, just barely over 100, was done after the attack. So this group was committed to attacking the US before, well before we had sent in forces into Afghanistan. All right, I've been hogging questions from the audience. Please state your name and affiliation, Jennifer. My name's Lee Young. It's something always part of me, just because the media, they don't really tell you the truth, official, they tell you maybe the opposite. And before that, we have all those Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and Arab uprising. And here in the USA, you have occupied Wall Street, occupied Department of Justice, occupied almost everything. So I just will try to link these together, and check today why they want to attack US or even other countries because of US-based military or something, exactly why they don't like civilization as USA try to claim or they don't like democracy or freedom or it's just opposite. I just want to check today why they don't like US or why they don't like something that because US destroyed their families or destroyed their moral value. They think they should be something. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. That's a good question. I think that's a question we've got to repeatedly come back to. Why, what's the cause for them to, you know, why, what motivates Al Qaeda, its affiliates and allies, to attack, to continue to plot and attack. And look, I'll be the first one to say, we have to be careful about who we're talking about. And so I'll try and be careful and say, look, when you look historically at the writings and the statements of somebody like Eman al-Sawahri, who's now the head of Al Qaeda, one sees a very, I would say straightforward rationale. And that is what he would like to do is to establish his interpretation of Sharia in a range of countries. Overthrow regimes in a range of countries in Egypt. He said it about Pakistan, Afghanistan, a range of other countries that lie roughly in that caliphate area. Overthrow those regimes. Establish his version. And look at how he talks about the writings of, you know, when he reads through milestones, for example. He reads through Sayyid Khutub, the Egyptian philosopher who's killed by the Egyptian government for his writings along these lines. He would like to establish that regime, that kind of a system in a range of different countries across a pretty decent expanse. So where the United States comes in and it's foreign allies is, A, we have backed and supported some of the regimes he's trying to overthrow. We have in various ways supported the Yemen government, which they're actively trying to overthrow. We've supported the government in Afghanistan, which they're trying to overthrow. We have supported the Somali government right now, which Shabab is trying to overthrow. So we get involved that way. Second, we have also provided a range of assistance to groups on the ground. So I think, again, we're really the far enemy, what's called the far enemy. The focus of al-Qaeda primarily is overthrowing the near enemy. But the United States is a target in the British and a range of other countries because of their support to these regimes. And so I think that's the primary goal is I read Zawahri's writings over the years and his statements today, that is where he takes. So if they can conduct an attack in New York City, weaken our economy, get us to pull our forces out, that would be ideal because then they can concentrate on overthrowing regimes across North Africa and into the Arab world. That's my view of what the organization is pushing to right now. Those are its objectives, and that's why it's targeting the US as well as several others. Other questions? Yes, sir. Bill Rankins, you haven't mentioned anything about financing of al-Qaeda. Could you share your views on that subject? Where al-Qaeda gets its money from? Yes. And we haven't talked about a whole range of things. Part of the discussion is focused on the security side as well. The answer in part depends on who one's talking about. The core central element, the affiliates or allies because there appears to be a fair amount of redundancy across the movement more broadly. It certainly appears to get funding from wealthy donors in the Gulf. It appears to get some funding from non-governmental organizations, including charities, that are pulling in money. Sometimes unaware of those, they will establish and have established front companies so they can pull in what appears to people providing money to appear to be legitimate operations. They can funnel some of that back into the unit itself. So some of it may be coming from charities. In several areas, they appear to be involved in gaining money from, we know in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they've gotten money from kidnapping and ransom. They appear in some areas to be involved in criminal activity and making money off of some of the gem trade that goes on in some areas or other illicit or illicit activity. They have, when al-Qaeda in Iraq or some of the affiliates have been able to raise money, they've been able to funnel it through countries like Iran. We know that publicly because of information that's even come out over the last six months from the State Department and Department of Treasury on key financiers like Yasin Alsuri, who was helping raise money and funnel it through Iran from areas like the Gulf into Pakistan, where the central or core element is. So they've been able, A, to move it through different foreign fighter networks, but they've been also able to raise it using a range of redundant resources. And in other cases, too, they have tried to establish what I call a symbiotic relationship with groups in their area. So groups in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tariqi-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistan-Taliban, Hujji, whom they have established relationships and leveraged groups in countries that they operate. So if you were to actually do a deep dive on al-Qaeda's finances, what you find is how its affiliates get money varies depending on whether you're talking about Yemen or Somalia or Iraq or Pakistan or North Africa, like Algeria. And as we've started to look at the allies, it's slightly different in Nigeria and now Syria and other locations. Other questions? Yes, sir. Karwan Zabari with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Can you shed a little bit more light on Syria, where al-Qaeda stands in Syria? Is al-Qaeda confused in Syria? And I say that, because Syria is an al-awit-ruled state. Syria used to be a sanctuary place for during the second peak of the second wave in Iraq, which has come right through the border. And US has a strong position against Syria. I mean, where does al-Qaeda stand in Syria and where will it be? Thank you. That's a great question. Where does al-Qaeda stand on Syria? And I would say, again, I think there are probably multiple definitions of what al-Qaeda, it looks like al-Qaeda central in Pakistan's view and al-Qaeda in Iraq's view may at times be conflictual. But I would say several things. One is, you're exactly right to point out that Syria has been an important foreign fighter network area for pushing. As we saw with the Sinjar records and any of the work that's come out of the counter-terrorism center at West Point, there've been a lot of foreign fighters that have come through Syria into Iraq, with in some cases support or at least blind eye by the Syrian government. This is a little bit of a blowback. I would say al-Qaeda in Iraq simply appears to be trying to take advantage of what appears to be a window of opportunity there with a regime that is teetering, at least has been weakened somewhat, with a groundswell of support across part of the Arab world for change in Syria. Al-Qaeda appears to be trying to take advantage of a governance vacuum to some degree so they can expand its presence in the region. That's where I see al-Qaeda trying to go, to influence the future of Syria based on, it's essentially picked aside, it's switched sides, now picked aside, almost a sense of where it thinks, if you were to see where Egypt is gone, where Libya has gone, it appears to be taking a bet that Syria may go in the same direction, that the Assad regime in some form may fall, and that it wants to be involved in the discussion or influence about the future of Syria. Now the challenge is it's mode of operation right now, I suspect it's probably creating friction within the opposition movement in Syria. We've already seen elements of the opposition blame the Syrian government for some of the attacks that it appears that al-Qaeda in Iraq has been involved in. I would interpret that almost as a way of, look al-Qaeda in Iraq is putting itself in a difficult situation now in Syria because it's alienated itself from part of the opposition, it's now also alienated itself from the Syrian front, the Syrian government, and so it's in a bit of a delicate balance, so it's, I think this is why the element in Pakistan appears to be trying to get the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda to not conduct a lot of the more high profile attacks like the one we saw in Damascus last week, and to kill civilians but can involved in much more of the day to day fighting. I think that's where the Pakistan front would like to see al-Qaeda future in Syria, and that's not where it's gone in some cases, so in that sense, is it confused maybe? But I would also emphasize, at least in my interpretation of what's going on, it's, I don't wanna say it's the largest element, it looks to be a minority element in the opposition, but I would say it is definitely there. Other questions? Yes. Wait for the mic. Yep. Thank you. My name is David Fort. I'm a graduate student. My question is, can you talk more about the relationship between the people doing the hunting, namely the military special operators who presumably are covered under the laws of armed conflict and wear uniforms, and if they're captured, the US would claim responsibility for them, and they'd be covered under certain protections, and the intelligence operators who presumably don't, and sort of what the complications on the ground have been when you have this sort of seamless inter-operation between the two, thanks. So, if I can just push back a little bit, so your first question is what, just to be clear? Well, the question is just, are there complications that arise when you have the military operators from the special forces working alongside, say people from the special activities group, or intelligence operators who aren't covered by the same rules? It's something that Congress started to look at a couple of years ago, but it's not clear what the questions were ever resolved. Sure. You know, my background on this has been, that it's been fairly, you know, look, there, I don't want to pay US government operations overseas as always being seamless and perfect, because that's never the case. It's never, it's not in any government. But I would say the relationship between the special operations units and intelligence ones have been, overseas have been very, very good in most cases. Yes, they do come under different legal authorities, in some cases though, not always. This depends on whether it's a Title X, or Title 50 operation, that would be a different kind of legal basis for operating. But I would say what's been remarkable is the special operations units that have been involved in conducting action that I have been involved in have worked very well in general with intelligence units on the ground. And I think people often make too big of a notion when we talk about intelligence of the central intelligence agency, which obviously plays an important role. We see it in some actions that are taken overseas. But I would say, you know, a lot of this issue and where you see some of the good cooperation is when you start bringing in other organizations. Just think, to do something like a bin Laden raid, not only did you need seals to operate, you needed to collect human, you needed to analyze signals information, you needed satellite imagery. So in that sense, there was cooperation from multiple different organizations. And I think in general, there has been, from what I have seen and been personally involved in very good cooperation in general between special operations and a lot of these units, is it always perfect? No, but I think the level of cooperation certainly than before 9-11 is absolutely and fundamentally different. Let me follow up on that really quick. What is your take on some of the other governmental reforms the post 9-11 reforms with the creation of DHS, the DNI, NCTC, are these structures in your mind working the way that they were intended? Are these structures that can carry us not just through the first decade of fight against Al Qaeda, but into the next and beyond? Yeah, good question. I have not worked in DHS. I have not worked in NCTC, though I've worked with them. That's, some of those questions are probably better answered by other people in this room that have. But I would say that our domestic organizations have done fairly well. I think the biggest area that I see some concern with actually is our relationship to communities in the United States. What concerns me in particular is cases like Najibullah Zazi, okay? Zazi is really probably the last major Al Qaeda senior operation in the United States or at least the last one that came as close as it did to an attack. And Zazi was building his bomb in Aurora, Colorado. We now know, because it's come out of the court trials and I've looked at the thousands of pages of court documents, that he was watching videos, Jihadist videos in his uncle's apartment or townhouse in Colorado, and mixing chemicals, bomb making chemicals in his uncle's house. And there were family members that were coming in and out and people knew what he was doing or roughly knew these were ingredients for, they were explosive ingredients and he was watching Jihadist videos. Nobody went to law enforcement. Nobody went to, or even if not law enforcement, nobody went to the government to, whether it was DHS or local police in the area, but people knew about it. So my question is with several of these kinds of incidents, why are, what's going on in these communities where individuals are not reporting these kinds of, is it a bad relationship between local authorities or federal authorities, state local or federal authorities and these communities? Is it, is it something else? What is going on that locals are not reporting this activity? Because I think we've got the potential to miss actions because in some areas we are not as well attuned to concerns in local communities as we should and the Zazi case is really an ironic one because people had information about his operations and nobody reported it and that's the kind of case I think where we should be able to get, because once we've identified an operation as we did eventually with Zazi but that was an intelligence catch, which I do talk about here which has become public now and intercept, then you can put all sorts of resources on it but it's that community outreach that is I think where we're probably missing the boat in some cases. Interesting. Other questions, yes ma'am? So probably have to be our last question. Go ahead. I'm Chantal Valerie, I'm the Justice and Security Reporter with AFP, the French news agency and it's a bit a follow up of what you've just said. Can you talk a bit more about the homegrown terrorists and that are apparently inspired by Al-Qaeda and can you tell us if it's the major threat today? Well it appears to be at least a major threat. The, you know, it's interesting that the proliferation of social media has definitely provided a way for individuals to at least partly radicalize by reading in ways that probably would have been much harder 10 or 15 years ago. And so several people that have been arrested recently have radicalized in part like the Fort Dix plotters back in 2007 based simply on what they read and watched without having any connection. That is definitely a threat but I do not believe that is, you know, that the downside of the homegrown groups with a couple of minor exceptions is that many of them without that connection overseas whether it's Yemen or Pakistan or Somalia if that were the case with Shavab, the ability to go to those locations, conduct training there like Zazi had, like Shazad had to some degree, like the 2006 transatlantic plotters, like the 2005 London bombers. The ability to go there and conduct training, counter surveillance training, bomb making does generally provide them with an ability to make explosives, to try and evade detection to some degree. Some of the developments we're seeing on general commercial capabilities, maybe of some concern anonymizers, ways to minimize your cyber footprint that people can use along those lines can be of concern. But where I think the homegrowns maybe of some concern are especially those with a background like Timothy McVeigh or even Major Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, background in the military, people who have left the military or with a potential law enforcement background where they can either build bombs or can shoot and can get access to guns because of their background. That's where the homegrowns can be dangerous. But I definitely think we do have a serious threat from overseas. If you look at the last year and a half of arrests in the US or FOIL plots, you definitely come back to Yemen. We've had someone arrested in the Woodbridge area of Virginia, just south of here, within the last year and a half on was in touch with the son of the head of La Shkari, La Shkari Taiba. That's an allied group. So there are concerns, there have been some concerns about other organizations plotting overseas as well. So I consider both of them, those the homegrowns and the al-Qaeda affiliates and allies, still a very serious threat to the US homeland. I think they badly want to hit the US. I frankly think it's probably a matter of time. We actually have a little bit more time. I lost track, so Doug. Hi, Doug Alavent with New America. 9-11 happened because no one in US intelligence with the exception of a few dissidents who weren't taken very seriously, took al-Qaeda seriously, no one in government as a whole. It doesn't follow from that that there's no error in the opposite direction. I think I've heard that from both of you today, and that concerns me. I think Seth, any objective look at American interests in Iraq, AQI doesn't burst the top three, and yet your position was we should have compromised other American key interests in order to maintain a presence to go after AQI. Brian, you have said that we need to ask DNI is the right organization to take us forward on the role of al-Qaeda. I would hope they're doing a few other things as well. Are we too focused on al-Qaeda? And what are the opportunity costs for that? What other interests are we sacrificing? You can talk about proposals for soft command and control in that vein, if you like. What are we giving up to put all this focus on al-Qaeda? And is there another threat that we're now missing because we're focused on this in the way that we were focused on whatever we were focused on in the 90s and missed al-Qaeda? Sure, this is a very good question. I think one that actually has to be debated, really what our national security priorities would be. And clearly with the January 2012 shift in U.S. strategy to rebalance, as the word was used in the Department of Defense document from January, that there is an increasing rebalancing towards the Asia Pacific. So certainly some would argue that we need to focus on issues like the potential for rising China, not just for military, but just economic interest and business interests. There are a range of other concerns. Some in the Romney camp have pointed to concerns about Russia as a great power. Certainly there are a whole range of other national security interests that are important to the U.S. I would argue this though, or ask this and then I'll answer it, is what do we see in terms of intelligence, where are the threats to the U.S. homeland and its interest coming from? And I think that makes a huge difference. People have tried to compare what we've done in some areas of Vietnam. I would say again, where is information coming from? Who is threatening the U.S. homeland and its interests overseas? Where are those threats coming from? China and Russia, they may be involved in some espionage and some cyber activity, but I don't see at this point attacks, planning attacks against the U.S. homeland. This is why I keep coming back to an argument that for the moment this movement, if that's the best word, requires a significant amount of attention because they are actively plotting attacks in the U.S. homeland to kill American citizens. I think that axiomatically pushes them up to right up at the top, with a few others, right up at the top of U.S. national security interests and concerns. And until that threat goes away, I would not take my foot off the accelerator. We can debate how we should respond and what responses make sense, but until that active plotting stops, I would consider this organization and its allies and affiliates a grave threat. And that is my very simple criteria. Who is plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland? I mean, we had concerns during the Cold War of the Soviets involved in a range of expansion of activity on multiple continents. Ballistic missiles pointed at the United States. Certainly if we got into a war with Iran in some cases and Hezbollah became a bit more focused on the U.S., that might slightly change the priorities in some cases a little bit, but I would say for the moment, that's what I would come back to. I mean, you're thinking different. Yeah, I see things a little bit differently than Seth. I actually think that, similar to sort of Doug's leading question, that we have focused too much on al-Qaeda, not just now, but perhaps over the last five years or so. And the metric that I would use, and the reason I would argue that is that I think that while al-Qaeda certainly is focused on attacking the United States, those attacks are likely to be relatively containable. I don't think that al-Qaeda is going to be in a position where it's gonna actually have political success. And I think that these other threats in the world tend to be larger dangers to American strategic interests and strategic place in the world over the long run. And so postponing that turn to those new strategic threats, I think puts us behind the ball. If we focus primarily in build a national security strategy around the most pressing tactical threat, I think we can miss the long-term strategic threat would be the argument that I'd make. And I think that's sort of where Doug was coming from. Yeah, go ahead. I could just respond. One, I would not call al-Qaeda a tactical threat. I would call it a strategic one. Second, I think all of us would probably agree, I think you would too, that these things are not mutually exclusive. But I would say again, if a rebalancing to the Asia Pacific means devoting resources that could be helpful in weakening, destroying an enemy, targeting the U.S. homeland, then I would say that's a mistake. I mean, the point that I come back to is that I don't think that al-Qaeda gets strategically defeated in the way that we sort of think about it. I think there's always going to be an element of this group that wants to attack us. And in the same way that there remains today the leftist communist organizations that still occasionally are planning terrorist attacks, there are remain white nationalists that plan terrorist attacks. And all of those problems are manageable, but they haven't gone away. And so that's why I worry that when we talk about al-Qaeda, if we set the bar too high, we will continually push down that funnel and not be able to redirect resources at the end of the day. I just think if you put yourself in a position of a policymaker at the White House right now and taking down an airliner coming into the U.S. as we had a concern about in the last week. Absolutely. That's a big threat. So until we can stop those kinds of events from happening on a pretty regular basis, I mean, Zazi, three suicide bombers in the New York City Metro. Couple months later, vehicle-borne provides explosive device in Times Square. Cartridge bombs, underwear bomber whose initial device detonated and the second one didn't. Now this one is we, this one that came close again. I also remind you at the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, if you remember, two days before those attacks, there was another White House bulletin of a plot to conduct attacks that went back to the Pakistan-Afghan area that had gone up to the top of al-Qaeda's leadership. And that was Zawahri at the time. So, so let me ask you, because we're sort of coming at this from slightly different angles, but in practical terms, there may not be much of a difference in terms of what we're saying. What does this small footprint kind of approach in real practical nuts and bolts terms look like? I mean, it means an ability to get at things in Yemen and Somalia, perhaps an ability in Iraq, a lingering ability along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. What are we really investing? It's unfair to ask you what is this gonna cost over the long run. But on some level, how do we scope this thing compared to where we've been? Because we can draw down a lot if you take out the costs of maintaining hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, still do a small footprint approach and still be able to turn towards, in other directions, relatively easily, right? They're not mutually exclusive. So what, I mean, in practical terms, what does this mean? Look, I think this is, among other issues, when it comes to the resources of Special Operations Forces, not just the Joint Special Operations Command, the Direct Action Unit, JSOC, but also others, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Rangers and others, that I think the most pressing issue for those kinds of organizations are several fold. One is training local, national, and other irregular forces in the key countries we're talking about to improve their capacity to do this. Second, it's being able to conduct direct action missions when we need them. On the Intelligence Front, it also means having an active CIA and other NSA capabilities in these countries where we're talking about so that we can collect on and occasionally target these organizations, including on the, and that includes the Diplomatic Front, State Department, and the US Agency for International Development. Now, that leaves a lot of room for conventional forces, for example, which is, if one is talking about moving some conventional forces to the Asia-Pacific to deal with arising China, that may be a better use of conventional forces than trying to stick them in a country to conduct counter-terrorist or even counter-insurgency operations. So I think a focus, again, on covert and clandestine units is, you know, it's actually fairly manageable. It's probably not that costly in general, but does mean I think that's a priority for those forces overseas, is those kinds of areas. That would include, obviously, the FBI and its legats overseas in those key countries. This is a little bit of an ambush, hopefully not too much. There's a story in the LA Times today about a report on the village stability operations of a program in Afghanistan, primarily a special operations program, that suggests that that program hasn't been nearly successful at limiting violence in the areas where the ALP has been stood up. I mean, what should we take from that in terms of a strategy based on a special forces footprint going forward? Are there lessons from this? Are there things that we need to keep in mind that we're not in that story? Or is this kind of approach limited, as this report suggests? No, I think as the U.S. approach in the Philippines, Colombia, El Salvador, and a range of other countries suggests, I think one way of thinking about the future U.S. activity in Afghanistan is shifting to a more indirect, irregular approach. And I think what that looks at, I mean, if you look at the successful U.S. efforts in the Philippines, or even in Colombia to some degree, and for people who've argued that Colombia, or sorry, Afghanistan is the longest war the U.S. has fought in since World War II, I would just venture to actually look at how long we've deployed forces to the Philippines or Colombia several decades, and they're still there. And what that indicates, I think, among other things, is that special operations forces can be very effective at conducting direct action, which they should be doing in Afghanistan, and are doing with their Afghan partner units, and building local security forces, providing development and improving local informal governance. I think the program, I've seen it up close for the last nearly three years. I think it's been extremely successful on the ground. Nothing is a magic bullet. It should not be viewed as a magic bullet. Like everything, there are always some costs and benefits. I think, overall, it's been enormously helpful in undermining Taliban control, especially the South. So I think the overall picture is quite positive on that front. So I think that whole Village Stability Operations program, the one you're referring to, has been very successful. Any last questions? Yes, Phil Mudd in the back. This will be the last question. For real this time. Actually, two if I can do it. Two questions. All right. I was gonna ask you two questions. No, I don't work anymore. My name is Phil Mudd here at New America sometimes. Just two scenarios, Seth, to see if you could comment on. The first is the prospect that we get off the hook a little bit on threat, because I agree the Arab Spring is a bit mislabeled, but the prospects for clashes between emerging Muslim Brotherhood elements in place like Tunisia, Egypt, et cetera, and Salafis. We've already seen a little bit of that, but I wonder if, apropos of your comments about the localization of threat over time, whether we'll see some of these folks who had been recruiting where we'd seen recruits for core al-Qaeda actually become places where we have local action. The second broad comment is maybe a fifth wave. Maybe in two to five years you start to see not al-Qaeda but al-Qaedaism lose coherence. That is groups in, let's say, Indonesia or Nigerian elsewhere say, you know, we're kind of al-Qaeda for whatever the heck local cause they want to espouse. Kind of like Che Guevara in a T-shirt for the 99%. Nobody really knows what it is, but they know he's a revolutionary. So I wonder if the movement lives on, even as the idea that we started with 20 years ago is sort of lost all sense of coherence. That's it. On the first one, if I understand your question correct. Yeah, I think we're probably already seeing in some countries, and I think actually Egypt looks like it's one other case right now where I mean, I think that's a case where we've got the potential for increasing friction between individuals al-Qaeda has pushed in and the brotherhood. I mean, just the fact that we have the Muslim brotherhood wants to get involved in the political process is exactly, this is why Zawari has been so incensed at the Muslim brotherhood. It's because that's actually what he does not want to happen. He wants to overthrow the system, not work with it. So I would say in some of these areas, depending on which actors begin to become more legitimate actors, they may actually be quite helpful in targeting al-Qaeda. People have raised considerable concern about the brotherhood in Egypt. And I would say if you go back and look at the brotherhood's fights, verbal fights with al-Qaeda over the past several years, you see a massive history of back and forth, different visions about the future. I think this kind of an evolution would be something that I think I would probably encourage actually. And I think would cause al-Qaeda to lose momentum, especially if it meant losing a support base among some of these populations. That's certainly a possibility. I mean, that would mean losing sort of the way, if you look at, and you know this area better than I do, Phil, but if you look at Saudi Arabia in the early 2000s, al-Qaeda made a concerted effort to establish an active insurgency in Saudi Arabia. And they were decimated, not just because of security services approach, but because they were gutted in the war of ideas. I mean, the entire Sunni establishment came down like a load of bricks on al-Qaeda's movement in Saudi Arabia. And that's certainly one area that would severely weaken al-Qaeda in a place like I think Egypt, if that were the case. On the al-Qaeda-ism, this would be sort of like the Lewis beam leaderless resistance. That's certainly a possibility. I mean, that's kind of the direction that al-Qaeda appears to be sort of going into, at least that we're in the early stages of seeing more decentralization of the organization. So if al-Qaeda-ism loses its central node, it's a more complicated organization to work with. Would that make it easier or more difficult to defeat? A lot would depend on what we were looking at at the time, but I think it would not be in al-Qaeda's interest to go too far in that direction because I think it would lose the ability to move funds from various theaters which they can push fighters and money into various theaters right now. So if you lose some of that, I could foresee a fifth wave of leaderless resistance, if that's the right word, probably a weaker al-Qaeda, and I think if that's the case, then you may continue to try and push them into a situation where they focus mostly on the countries that they're operating with and they lose the targeting overseas. And that may be a better way to sort of steer this one over the long run. Okay. We're gonna have to cut it off there. We're already over time. Seth Jones, thank you very much for being here. We really appreciate it. And everybody go out and buy the book, Hunting in the Shadows. It's great. There's some for sale just outside. Thanks for coming. Bye. Thank you.