 Good morning. I'm afraid I woke up with laryngitis this morning, but that's the bad news. The good news I'll be off the podium in five minutes. Welcome to CSIS and to our preliminary reassessment of al-Qaeda revisited a decade after 9-11. My name is Arno de Borgera for those who don't know me and I direct the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. While all eyes and ears are on Egypt, the most dangerous country in the world, let me remind you, is still Pakistan, home to more terrorist organizations than any other country. On every issue that matters to us, Pakistan in the 21st century will be crucial. Nuclear proliferation, nuclear war, transnational terrorism, the future of jihad, the future of democracy in the Islamic world. Pakistan, both victim and sponsor of Taliban terrorism, and the recurring nightmare of Pakistan as a jihadist state with nukes. Also, a country where 64 percent of the people still consider the U.S. as the enemy. As a foreign correspondent, I covered every war in the subcontinent since China invaded India in 1962, and every war in the Middle East since the invasion of Suez by the U.K., France, and Israel in 1956. Now Egypt, as you can see, is back in the mix with the renewed threat of the Muslim Brotherhood whose five guiding principles have been subsumed in its good, neighborly political camouflage. And they are, one, Allah is our objective. Two, the prophet is our leader. Three, the Koran is our law. Four, jihad is our way. Five, dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Well, some have been loudened. Number two, as you know, Iman al-Zawahiri came out of the Brotherhood. The way we've been pushing Mubarak to resign before a proper successor processes in place in my judgment simply empowers Islamic radicals, and Egypt has lots of them. My first encounter with the Brotherhood occurred in Cairo, January 26, 1952. Sixty years ago, I had arrived in Cairo the day before on assignment for Newsweek, Ned Kalman of CBS, and I were the only two U.S. journalists in town to witness the torching of some 300 buildings and businesses in Cairo, including the Sheppard's Hotel where we were staying. Thus ended the only six years of democracy that Egypt has known in 5,000 years of history. Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a bloodless coup six months later whose main purpose was not the overthrow of the monarchy, which was a side order bonus, but to block the Muslim Brotherhood from undermining the system with a view to taking over. The Brotherhood's assassination attempt against Nasser failed two months later, but the one against Sadat, 20 years later, succeeded. Now officially banned, it has resurfaced under a different name and with a considerably diluted agenda. The new Vice President Omar Solomon, head of intelligence for almost two decades, invited the Brotherhood leaders, as you saw on television a couple of days ago, to a meeting that he shared with other political leaders, but no sooner back on the street than they denounced reconciliation. The Brotherhood, let me remind you, is also close partner with Hamas and Hezbollah. British PM David Cameron used the Egyptian crisis to remind Europe to stamp out intolerance of Western values within its own Muslim communities as well as the provocations of far right groups. We won't defeat terrorism simply by the actions we take outside our borders, said Cameron. Europe needs to wake up to what's happening in our own countries. Several terrorists involved in attacks or attempted plots in the U.S., Sweden, Denmark, and Norway over the last two years had links to British-based clerics. Well, enough about what we're going to be talking about this morning. Let me remind you that General De Gaulle once said that the graveyards of the world are full of indispensable people, but I make an exception today for our first speaker. Such an exception, as you've guessed, is Juan Zarate, a senior advisor at CSIS and the senior national security consultant and analyst at CBS News. He's also an ambulatory encyclopedia on transnational terrorism. Juan Zarate served as the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisors for counter terrorism for five critical years through 2009. Prior to joining the National Security Council, he served as the first assistant secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Funding and Financial Crimes, where he became 007 for domestic and international efforts to attack terrorist financing, build comprehensively anti-money laundering systems, and expand the use of Treasury's powers to advance national security interests. Juan also served as prosecutor at the Justice Department's Terrorism and Violent Crime Section, where he worked on the USS Cole investigation or the Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole October 12, 2000, which killed not only 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 39 and immobilized a billion-dollar warship for two years with a repair bill of $250 million, all at a cost of $10,000 for Al Qaeda. So I give you one, Zarate. Now you know in part why I love Arnaud. Arnaud, thank you for the very kind introduction, and I will tell you it is an honor for me to be here and associated as a senior advisor to CSIS in large part because I get to learn and work with Arnaud. Not only a legendary journalist, but a continuing groundbreaker in terms of the threats that we face today. And so I'm honored to be a part of this organization because Arnaud is. I want to thank you all for coming today. I think today for us is an important launch, not just of this report, but making public a project that has been underway for some months now and is part of a year-long project to look at the future of Al Qaeda and associated movements. This is an important report, I think, at a critical time. We had Director Leiter of the National Counterterrorism Center speaking to CSIS last year, where he said at no period since 9-11 has there been a more complicated threat environment that we've seen. And I think he's absolutely right. I've talked about a terrorist hydra led by Al Qaeda that we are seeing, which has evolved over time and which is often both misunderstood and misspoken about. And I think one of the things that this report does, entitled The Threat Transformed Al Qaeda and Associated Movements in 2011, is to give granularity and rigor to what is now a very different threat than what we saw post 9-11. The report talks about three tiers of the threat. I think for those who follow these issues, the categorization will not be new. Understanding the Al Qaeda core, the traditional Bin Laden-Zawahiri-led core. Then the Al Qaeda affiliates and like-minded groups. Finally, the Al Qaeda-inspired but non-affiliated cells and individuals. And the report gives rigor to the methodology to look at all three as component parts of a cohesive whole. Looking then at the ideological ligament that ties all of this together with the common narrative that draws them together. For the policy community, and I can speak to you as someone who suffered through policymaking and often what I call policy thrashing from threat to threat, from incident to incident, from reactionary policy to reactionary policy. This kind of a study is important for policy makers, I think in part because it helps define not only the lexicon and how we talk about the threat. You've heard the administration talk more and more about the syndicate terror. And I think this report talks to exactly the lexicon. But it also helps shape policies that are forward-looking, that don't rely on post-911 paradigms, that may not be applicable. And I think this report and the project that we're undertaking also helps understand the dynamics of a very different global environment. I think we're seeing much of that in Egypt today. The role of social networking, the internet, what I would call Al-Qaeda 2.0, and understanding how those dynamics not only are affected but can be affected. For those of you who have a report before you, you know that there are three sections to the report. The first section discusses the evolution of Al-Qaeda core, the organization led by Ben Laden, beginning in the 1990s. Section two talks about the rise of Al-Qaeda affiliates and non-affiliated cells and individuals. And then section three examines Al-Qaeda and associated movements and the threat they face, we face today from them. I think the bottom line in terms of the report is that we are facing a changed enemy, a changed environment, an Al-Qaeda that's been affected by the environment but an Al-Qaeda that also leverages and tries to influence the environment. As I mentioned, this report is the first product of several as part of a year-long study that we call the AQAM Futures Project. This report is the foundation for that. The purpose of the project is to forecast the nature and evolution of AQAM into 2025. That is to look at the nature of the movement and the ideology, its potential geographic reach, operational capabilities, how trends and potential shocks may impact it, all with the goal of allowing governments, particularly the United States, to forecast but also to plan policies that will constrain and counteract the evolution of AQAM. Again, an attempt to refute the thrashing from threat to threat and the reactive policies that often define how the U.S. government reacts in a counterterrorism venue. Finally, let me speak a little bit to the products that we intend to produce. The first obviously is the report before you. We intend to have a number of podcasts over the next couple months, but ultimately we will have a final report released in September of 2011. We'll release that during a capstone conference examining the evolving threat of AQAM 10 years after 9-11. We've brought together a number of senior counterterrorism experts to help us with this study. We have an excellent research team led by Tom Sanderson and Ozzie Nelson, who are the authors of this report, but we also have assembled a global network of counterterrorism experts, social scientists and anthropologists to help us understand what is the potential future trajectory of this movement. I'm honored to lead that group. It's a senior advisory group which Arno and I oversee and which is providing oversight and guidance to the overarching study. This study and this project is sponsored by the Department of Defense and the Government of Singapore. They are our primary sponsors. I'd like to thank them today for that sponsorship. And this will be undertaken, as you know, by the Transnational Threat Project led by Arno de Borshkov, Deputy Director Thomas Sanderson, and the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Project and Program led by Ozzie Nelson. Again, I'm honored to be a part of this project. I think this is incredibly important as we look to the evolution of al Qaeda and I'm looking forward to today's events. We will hear from Tom Sanderson first and then Ozzie Nelson to describe the report and then we'll open up the forum to questions and I will moderate. Thank you again for being here and I look forward to the session. Thank you Juan and thank you Arno and thank you folks for joining us today. It's great to see so many faces familiar and new for such a timely topic. Obviously we're several months ahead of several months in front of the 10-year anniversary here and we'll be doing quite a bit in the run-up to that. First, I'd like to thank Arno and Juan for their excellent oversight and contributions to the reports, their experience in government and in journalism across 100 countries in Arno's case provides incredible input and insight into this and that's to the benefit of Ozzie myself in running this project. Importantly, I have to recognize Ozzie and I have to recognize we all do that we are co-authors of this report including three others that need to be recognized and that's David Gordon and I'm not sure where David is. Ben Bodurian and Amy Bagia are co-authors in this report that did a tremendous amount of work and thank you for all of that. We also had an excellent number of people working on the research team including Muhammad, Zach, Rob, Emily, Siddique, Jason and Jackie. So thank you for that incredible effort that you put into this. Let me just start off by first talking a little bit about Al-Qaeda today and its differences a little bit about its history and then we'll talk about the three different levels and I want to point to a few books that have been very helpful to us in doing this of course if you want exhaustive detail on what took place you go to the 9-11 report it's excellent. The Looming Tower was also a superb resource for us in addition to the people that we we met with and just by chance today my good friend sitting in the front row here Ron Marks has published a great book that we all look forward to hearing about this afternoon so well done in that Ron. Al-Qaeda today as Juan mentioned poses a far different threat than it did on September 11, 2001. At that time it was a hierarchical organization composed of Osama bin Laden and his associates which has grown now to include regional terrorist groups small cells and of course individuals which has been a great concern in the United States. Our report terms these Al-Qaeda and associated movements are AQAM. The three basic tiers as Juan laid out very briefly include the first tier with bin Laden and his close associates comprising Al-Qaeda core the group responsible for 9-11 now based in western Pakistan and while they are protected or at least inaccessible to our forces they are significantly degraded and restricted in their ability to conduct operations one of the good things that certainly come out of our 10 years of combating them. Al-Qaeda affiliates and like-minded groups is the broad category that includes groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Jamal al-Mia in Indonesia and several other regional terrorist organizations and these are groups that have regular contact and affiliation with Al-Qaeda. Then we move to a third tier Al-Qaeda inspired non-affiliated cells in individuals. This is a diffuse tier comprising of radicalized groups and individuals that are not regularly but infrequently affiliated with and draw clear inspiration from an occasional guidance from the core and its affiliates. So it's not just that they're associated with the core but perhaps with the affiliates themselves. These are the individuals who have heard the call to battle, who've applied the internet, who've been approached by radicals and others to join up in light of this narrative that the West is at war with Islam and that is one of the most concerning elements of this. Our report discusses how these groups came about some of the history but the main focus is on the contemporary trends and then of course in the future of this so we'll only go into AQ's history just a little bit which again is detailed significantly in these books and many others. So nine and a half years on from 9-11 it's well known that bin Laden and militants associated with AQM participated in the resistance movement against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Something that Arno covered by going to the area and actually interviewing Mujahideen at the time. This experience greatly empowered bin Laden. We know that he and others believe that with the withdrawal in February of 89 of the last Soviet troops in the fall of the Berlin wall just several months later in November is something that greatly empowered this group and gave them the sense and the feeling that they could go on and challenge their home countries the near enemy and then of course challenge the United States the far enemy so very important component as we all know. But that experience proceeded more than a decade's worth of of alliance building and increasingly lethal terrorist activity for the core and ultimately culminated in the 9-11 attacks. Some of the most important of those attacks that preceded that of course are the 1998 dual bombings in Kenyan Tanzania which killed I think 212 people and then the 2000 USS coal bombing that Arno detailed just a few moments ago. Of course the real game changer was the multi-point attack on 9-11 and that's that's our launching point for today. So as the U.S. decimated many of those actors following our October 7, 2001 intervention and assault into Afghanistan we then saw a rise of a number of regional affiliates. Later in the decade policymakers group very concerned increasingly concerned that cells and individuals started to spread and pop up that were clearly affiliated some and others not affiliated but which drew the inspiration from these groups. This is a deeply disturbing trend we've seen it for some time now but this of course followed on our focus of a single group now looking at this amalgam of threats. Some of the affiliates that we've mentioned already Jamaz Lamia known for its bombing of the Bali nightclub in October of 2002 that killed 202 people. Of course that group was active for many years in Indonesia with its antecedent of Darul Islam. Al Qaeda in Iraq which in October 2004 declared a formal allegiance to Bin Laden. AQIM Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria which in September 6 September 2006 became a second formal AQ affiliate. AQAP Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which was reinvigorated by February 2006 prison break in Yemen. In January of 2009 it declared a formal allegiance to Al Qaeda core so they're starting to rack up. Al Shabaab and Somalia declared support for Al Qaeda's core gen in February 2010 and then finally amidst all this activity Al Qaeda core in Pakistan grew increasingly close to a syndicate of militant and criminal groups operating in western Pakistan and in eastern Afghanistan. So what are we to make of this rise of affiliates this association? Well first I'd offer a caveat one thing that we've been very careful about is that though we term this as Al Qaeda in associated movements there is tremendous diversity across this group. Many of the groups disagree over who the primary enemy is strategic direction. The practice of excommunication or taqfir in a range of other issues. No two alliances between a core the core and the affiliates are between individuals and the core are the same. In Al Qaeda core is rarely exercised strict operational control over these affiliates and that's why we term bin Laden as inciterate chief rather than a commander in chief. Somebody's been able to inspire to maneuver groups at the margins and do a number of influential activities. But still one common and increasingly important theme across these alliances shows up over time and that is they grow increasingly focused on western targets while still having local targets. This is something that the great Norwegian Al Qaeda specialist Thomas Hegghammer calls ideological hybridization and this is when you co-opt a group's local agenda and add on the patina or even a thicker layer of Al Qaeda's global jihad of this assault by the west on on on Islam. A good example of this it would be AQIM with its attack on U.N. headquarters in Algiers in 2007. Though they have very specific local goals they've also engaged in a larger attack. Finally over the past few years we've seen this rise in small cells in individuals particularly in the U.S. and Europe. Recent cases that I think we're all aware of Najib al-Azazi who was stopped from doing the New York City subway attack. Major Nidal Hassan of the Fort Hood attack. Faisal Shassad from Times Square. And I would like to reinforce here that all these individuals have varying degrees of connection to Al Qaeda. That's why we put them in the in the third tier. They do not have regular connections. They may have come in contact with facilitators, with trainers, with the two layers of separation but there is some layer of connection there. Lastly and definitely not least is the internet. Something that Arnold D'Borgrave is a leading thinker on who did reports on this back in the 1990s on the power of the internet for cyber terrorism and whatnot. Is that the indispensability of the internet has been a tremendous multiplier for this movement of groups. Whether you're talking about moving money, whether you're talking about looking for improved tactics, techniques and procedures, looking at footage of how to conduct an IED attack, going to chat rooms, radicalization, figuring out safe routes into Iraq and Afghanistan. This has been the all purpose tool for these groups and it is the biggest safe harbor, the biggest ungoverned territory for this threat and it's tremendously important. So if I could give you in summary some takeaways from this AQ Corps being degraded following 9-11 but with this rise of formal and informal affiliates, individuals around the world who have bought into this call to battle this narrative. They develop, they illustrate just how difficult and intractable this threat is when you have so many different individuals, it's a flatter organization decentralized yet with some common themes in ideology that runs through them. So with that, I think I'll turn it over to Ozzie Nelson. Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that. Again, it's important to to emphasize on this report that this is the baseline assessment as we call it. This is the standard of where we think this threat is today and the crux of our research is going to be with the release of the futures portion of this in September. So Tom covered in a very brief succinct manner the evolution of threats. It's important to understand that. What we're going to focus on today are some of the ideas going forward about the future of this threat and what it means in the near term. We talk about the decentralization of the threat. And again, as Juan and Arno noted, this isn't a new concept. You know, it clearly Bin Laden and Zahiri called Al Qaeda the base for a reason. It was never meant to be the movement. It was meant to be the base of the movement. And in 2004, Tom and I and our colleagues wrote 25 pages. Al-Siri, Abu al-Masabu, Al-Siri wrote 1600 pages in 2004 about the importance of a decentralized movement. What he noted was that Islamic extremist groups in the past had failed because they were too hierarchical in their approach and for them to be successful and withstand the test of time and counterterrorism operations that needed to be a more decentralized movement. Certainly not giving credit to Al-Siri for this, but certainly his message resonates with what's currently underway here. So what I think that we've seen and what we think that we've seen in some is basically a transition from Al-Qaeda being a hierarchical organization, an organizational structure that was required to jumpstart the movement to one where the ideology, the Al-Qaeda brand has become more effective and has become self-sustaining self-sustaining effort. And that's critically important because it determines and it impacts how you're going to do counterterrorism operations how you're going to address this threat. But that's something our future analysis will address. The important thing to know on this decentralized movement is it is a diverse set of subcomponents. No one is saying this is a coherent movement. But what we are suggesting is this ideology serves as a common linkage between these groups with disparate goals, sometimes very regional goals. And that ideology and that brand, that brand to U.S. the Al-Qaeda brand and the narrative that the U.S. is in west is at war with Islam is not a sound bite. It's like any other but there's a reason why the United States we protect property rights so dearly that brand has value and the Al-Qaeda brand has value to these individuals and has value to these groups. The current threat from Al-Qaeda core going forward is Tom articulated. Certainly Al-Qaeda core is the brand. They are the keepers of the brand and the ideology. There have been very limited as Tom pointed out and their ability to conduct operations but make no mistake about it. They are still intent on attacking the U.S. intent on attacking the West and given the opportunity they would repeat 9-11 on any scale they possibly could do. With that said I think you see bin Laden and Tom and I think you see bin Laden Zawahiri more in symbol terms right now than you do in leadership terms. The question is always asked what is the importance of bin Laden Zawahiri. It's personally I believe that capturing killing or bringing to justice bin Laden Zawahiri will not bring about the end of the Al-Qaeda movement but you can't begin to bring about the end of the Al-Qaeda movement without bringing those two individuals to justice. The groups that are most troubling of our three-prong model here is the affiliated movements and the inspired. We broke the affiliated and like-minded groups down into evaluation into three basic categories. One is the groups we looked at the capabilities in attention. As far as capabilities are concerned it's the ability for these groups capability these groups to attack Western targets their ability to inspire to plot into support of AQAM's agenda and its capacity to destabilize a particular region and the regional issues is something that can't be overstated and the attention is determined about how a group is allocating its finite resources. Clearly all of these groups are intent on destabilizing regions and attacking the West and the United States and the Postate Regimes. That there's no mistake about that. But it's how they're allocating in many ways their precious resources and achieving their goals. We talk about as Tom talked about it we talk about the relatively small groups we're talking about those that possess neither the capability nor actually the intention to strike Western targets or destabilize a region. Under that rubric we're talking about groups such as ETIM the East Turkestan Islamic movement a small group but a noteworthy group and once being tracked by multiple analysts but at the end of the day they don't lack the resources or the capability to destabilize the region or to attack the West. The next group that we're talking about are the groups such as AQIM and Islamic Jihad Unit IJU. They would like to attack the West but they lack the capability. But they will continue to pursue the capability and that's one of the narratives we're going to talk about moving forward with al-Qaeda and the al-Qaeda brand is how they can co-op that brand in order to get the capabilities that they need to achieve their goals regional or global. The most dangerous groups of this subset of the affiliates and like-minded groups are the ones that Tom mentioned such as AQI let and AQAP. They have the intentions clearly they have the resources and as we've seen in the last year and a half they certainly have the capability to come against us at various disagrees. We look at a group such as al-Qaeda in Iraq it certainly has limited intentions on attacking the United States but certainly can undermine the United States in Iraq or our troops and our diplomats are stationed. It certainly can undermine the region and destabilize Iraq to some degree even to parts of Iran and the rest of the peninsula if Arabian Peninsula if they so chose. You look at LET LET we did not say this in a report but personally I believe is one of the most dangerous if not the most dangerous group terrorist group in the world in that it can destabilize a region and possibly bring the worst case it nuclear exchange because of its position and situation there. And then when you look at El Shabab El Shabab is very effective cruising methods underway inside the United States arguably no other group terrorist group al-Qaeda affiliate has the ability to reach into the United States and recruit individuals like El Shabab can and does. And then obviously the group that has received the most publicity of recent is al-Qaeda and Arabian Peninsula where they continue to take their agenda globally to attack the United States to attack Europe for multiple reasons which we cover in the threat. And then the last part of our tier going forward is arguably the most dangerous and this is one of the things we're going to look forward and look at going forward. And that is the non-affiliated cells in individuals. And Tom talked about who those are and how their varying levels of affiliation. But what's challenging about these individuals is they're so difficult and so hard to track. They're so you know as we saw with anyone who takes an extremist bent such as in Arizona it's very difficult to determine when an individual you know especially United States to regard free speech so clearly when an individual evolves from rhetoric free speech to violent action and that's extremely difficult thing to address an extremely simple thing for the long forced community to take on. So laying that out going forward what are the dynamics for al-Qaeda and affiliated movements as a broader movement? There has been a lot of talk about the support for bin Laden decreasing over the years. A lot of that has been grounded in the fact that the majority about 90 percent of al-Qaeda's casualties the casualties they've inflicted have been other Muslims and that has began to erode as we see with Egypt one of the positions that I put forward is that you know one of the interesting things about Egypt is that the people of Egypt were able to achieve what al-Qaeda couldn't which is bringing about the end of what al-Qaeda considered an apostate regime whether that's true or not it will see as it unfolds but certainly has to give I think al-Qaeda some pause but going forward the groups the affiliation or the desire to be affiliated with al-Qaeda still remain strong in fact if you look at some of the charts we have in the research here you'll see that when you when polling data demonstrates from 2006 to 2008 that the al-Qaeda goals the elimination of the apostate regimes the elimination of U.S. military presence in the Islamic countries the U.S. support for Israel when you look at this polling data the countries where al-Qaeda is targeting that message still resonates in fact the greatest support of the countries in the polling data for al-Qaeda's message actually comes out of Egypt where you're seeing 60 and 70 percent support for some of al-Qaeda's goals so while the movement and bin Laden may be bin Laden may have be less popular and declining there still is a growing amount of support for the al-Qaeda narrative that the U.S. and the West is at war with Islam and in fact you're seeing a growing number of groups affiliate itself with al-Qaeda not a decrease so while the popular support might be coming down the actual number of groups that are co-opting or buying into the al-Qaeda narrative for whatever its reason is whether it's achieve its regional goals or what not certainly on the increase so why are they doing this why are groups joining al-Qaeda and continue to be affiliated with al-Qaeda more appropriately it's obviously there's the pragmatic reasons that we mentioned is the branding by calling yourself part of al-Qaeda you get instant validation you can now begin recruiting more effectively you can get resources all of those things at any group that's it's inspired to be more regionally effective or even globally effective would need but it's also the issue people are buying into the narrative that at U.S. and the West is at war with Islam and that narrative I called out we call it al-Qaeda stock narrative continues to resonate throughout the Muslim communities to embrace this radical and perverted form of Islam and it continues to drive drive how they're going now all of this is under the context of the internet and I always joke and you can't say the internet with this big hand wave if you don't know to the older generation in the room if you don't know what web 2.0 is and you don't know what's social media is or user driven content is I encourage you to go and do some research on it because it's changing rapidly more rapidly and again then our policies and our laws can keep up with and what the internet is going to to meaning going forward is it unlike 20, 30, 40 years ago and I'll let Arnau attest to this but 20, 30, 40 years ago if you had an extremist group and you wanted to collaborate you would have to meet in person you would meet in a safe house if you wanted to radicalize someone you'd have to bring them to a group meeting or to a mosque or to a church or wherever you wanted that radicalization to take place you'd have to train them and bring them to camps and while we still see that with al-Qaeda in its affiliate movements what you're seeing is a growing ability for them to use the internet to to have undertake the entire radicalization process so now an individual who's disenfranchised for whatever reason whether it's issues with US actions in Muslim countries in Afghanistan because you don't have a job now you can venue shop and you can go to the internet you can involve yourself in chat rooms you can be you can go through the radicalization process you can receive training you can receive funding you can receive operational guidance and you can receive your orders to execute all virtually without ever having to meet those that radicalized or recruited you and that's one of the reasons why individuals such as Anwar al-Alaqi and Hamami are so critically important to this process they are the ones that are getting these individuals to cross those lines from rhetoric from free speech to violent action and I think that that's what's going to fuel these affiliated movements going forward and it's certainly going to fuel these individuals that are inspired towards this extremist bent so just to summarize before we go into questions and answers the main takeaways from where we are on this study and I also like to point out as we move forward with this study we'll have a web page dedicated to this project online which we'd encourage you to go to is that the threats emanating from AQAM its constituent parts are highly varied and severity and impact the movement is expanding and diversifying despite signs of eroding legitimacy among former supporters influential religious figures and Muslim public writ large the ongoing residence of al-Qaeda's core grievances the negative impact of certain western policies and counter-terrorism activities and the benefits as associated with being associated with al-Qaeda still drive the trend for al-Qaeda's al-Qaeda associate movements to increase and then lastly the internet as I just stated is expanding their ability to do this very rapidly and very very quickly and allows this movement to continue to be a very dangerous towards us so how do we describe this movement going forward as Juan pointed out this is a movement that's in change we're not ringing alarm bells per se but what we're saying is this movement is changing and is changing very rapidly and it's going to be imperative that U.S. Western and international counter-terrorism policies evolve as the threat is evolving and that's what we're hoping to uncover some ways forward in the future components of this study so thank you for all coming we appreciate your time Tom Ozzy thank you for a great summary let me just before we start the Q&A just say for those who wonder what the threat looks like in real terms you just need to look to the end of 2010 the Europe plot the Mumbai style attacks that we were all warned about driven by Al Qaeda core the package plots driven by Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula the various homegrown threats Portland, D.C. Metro Maryland Recruitment Center the lone wolf unaffiliated cells and then within the context of the home groans you've got the Zazi case driven by Al Qaeda core the Shazad case driven by Pakistan Taliban and then the assortment of other individuals that we've seen over the last year year and a half and so this is not theoretical it's real and we've seen the manifestation of it in very real ways I think over the last few months so that let's take some questions Richard we've got microphones and I ask first of all obviously ask a question but identify yourself first please this is being taped and will be online afterward Hi Ron Marks of various organizations actually for you guys sort of in general there's a lot of foot stomping that goes with this in the sense of they're on the net there are many they're putting messages out there are people who are agreeing etc there have been any number of attacks and that seems to be increasing as time goes along I guess the question I would ask in terms of a longer term strategy for them what are they what are they looking to do I mean we see Egypt at this point it is a group of people who are in the streets for pushing something democratic it's a huge nation being changed what exactly do they think they're doing at this point outside of and I don't wish to dismiss the threat but either aggravating or otherwise pushing us to spend more money on on counterterrorism what what do we see as sort of next steps what do they look are are they looking to ramp up is this just a harassment operation or is this something that they're if they're looking for beyond the you know the elite fate of the world I'll make an initial statement on that and then I think Juan wants to jump in of course and I know you know this wrong from your long experience in the intelligence community but there are so many goals out there there are some that are focused locally some that are clearly looking at a regional effort to establish a regional caliphate think about Jamaz Al-Mia to those that want to survive and those that are involved in more sectarian oriented conflicts like AQI in Iraq so the goals are varied and and I think that you know some of them are clearly focused on continuing those battles some who want to ascend to a new level and and disrupt those at home who they believe are apostate corrupt venal leaders supported by western leaders I think what's going on in in Egypt right now is a very tricky moment for us where we appear to be dragging our feet a little bit and which strengthens the narrative and I find that very troubling that's getting a bit outside your question the range of goals is is really quite wide and I think it ranges from mere survival to really ambitious goals of vanquishing Muslim and Arab lands of the the leadership that they feel is illegitimate If I can just really quickly Ron I think we always have to keep in mind that if you think about the al-Qaeda core itself and the strategists behind it the Saudis and the Egyptians behind it they've got the long-term goal in mind and their long-term goal doesn't shift all that much what's interesting about the current environment I think is they are trying to assess the environment themselves and trying to figure out how they can leverage it and I think that's what's been interesting over the last year and a half from my perspective is watching how they have moved some of their rhetoric both at the local level and strategically to a baiting and bleeding model that is to say they want to bait and bleed you've seen that with al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula talking about Operation Hemorrhage I mean this is really a nutrition model the other the other element is whether or not a disruption versus destruction model actually becomes part of their strategic impetus and I think that that may be right seeing how we've overreacted in some cases to the failed attacks over the last year and a half and I think generally you've seen this from Anwar al-Laki and the American-minded elements of the al-Qaeda network AQAM the notion of inspiring broadly giving broad credence not only to the narrative but also giving justification broadly to the attack of fellow citizens I think is an attempt to cast the net widely to see who takes the bait and who will attack and I think Juan's point at the end there is crucially important and I want to give al-Qaeda too much credit for this but it is a dynamic that's worth exploring is they have to perpetuate the ideology to keep the movement going and so while the individual inside the United States who gets recruited may not be recruited because he wants to see the establishment of Islamic Caliphate it may just because he's just enfranchised about whatever it may be but if they can get him to take action under the al-Qaeda rubric of the ideology it serves to perpetuate the ideology the actions of one will get multiple media attention it will serve as someone who's inspired by al-Qaeda and the movement continues on for those that are actually the keepers of the core ideology which goes back you know hundreds of years arguably the one touched upon and the affiliates with their regional grievances like Tom said there are many whether it's in Somalia or Yemen they have really regional goals but then they're stronger working together than they are working individually and again they're all stronger by keeping the movement in the public eye and getting people to continue to join it Next question let's go in the middle here and then Suzanne you'll be next ma'am I'm Diane Perlman at the Center of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason anyway in before the in 2001-2003 I was at the Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Penn and we were all predicting that this would happen and for people who study conflict dynamics and analysis that this is all predictable and a lot of the strategies I'm not saying that these don't have a part but we're dealing more with the symptom and then the cause and looking at you know some of the just grievances or moral outrage or the kinds of policies that might support recruitment so does your is there any way that you're considering some of these issues some of them like Bob Pape talks about and dying to win about occupation having bases in Muslim countries that support this I think absolutely I think we have to because I think our policies impact the environment in some ways feed the narrative and I think you have to be conscious of it I think the balance at least speaking as a former policymaker the balance is how do you not provide the enemy a hecklers veto over what may be necessary national security policy while also being sensitive to the fact that as you described there are underlying grievances that may be driving some of the dimensions of this movement and so absolutely as we look as we try to project into the future one of the things that we're looking at especially in this next stage of the project is how have our policies actually not only impact to the environment but maybe influence it in a way that has allowed it to morph in certain distinct ways in different geographic areas and I think looking at how this movement evolves in terms of the internet and in terms of social movements and the fluidity of that I think we have to be extremely conscious of how policies impact that and frankly you know one of the arguments I've made is you know one of the tricks for the United States is how we extract ourselves from this narrative you know how do you how do you actually extract yourself even though al-Qaeda is purposely drawing us in this sort of debating idea and I think that's one of the challenges because I think one of the long-term goals is to take ourselves out of it while remaining a key protagonist in many ways and that's a fine balance yeah and again this is what we're going to explore going forward but the idea that you'll be able to eliminate all of these underlying grievances is just not can happen there will always be grievances and at some level the issue is how do you mitigate those how do you mitigate your actions and actions in the international community how do you mitigate the threat that those that are intent on exploiting those grievances from killing innocent people that's what you're ultimately trying to do is mitigating the effect of that threat and I think that one again is right on the veto issue we talk about this a lot is it just you know part of the stock narrative is talk about are there larger numbers of US troops and Muslims lands before after September 11th there are larger numbers after September 11th that's no way should dictate again US foreign policy what it simply says is that we need to be very careful to consider the effects of our actions going forward and again we're going to look at that during our field research to figure out how we maybe best do that if I could add that grievances are not mandatory just think of the case of a garage owner in Minneapolis whose son is as finished university he can't find a job and he's online and he reads the magazine in spa the al-qaeda magazine online all sorts of exciting prospects in Somalia and Yemen and here you are at the age of 21-22 bored with your life unable to find a job those people can be recruited and are being recruited thank you very much Catherine here at Fox News I have actually three quick questions if that's possible because it's so rare to have you all together how would you characterize the contacts between AQAP and al-qaeda core what do you make of the fact that Americans increasingly have risen through the ranks to become operational pick on operational roles roles like a locky and do you believe the attack in Uganda was the red flag or the signal that al-shabaab is no longer regional but going global the interesting thing about AQAP which you hear from certain U.S. government experts is being the leading threat to the homeland given their intense focus on attacking the home land the interesting thing to me is you have the deep historical ties between the leadership of AQAP Waiishi for example long time bin Laden ally who has in some ways the global jihadi DNA embedded in him in his forecasting combined with the innovation of Samir Khan and Anwar Alaki Americans that actually makes I think AQAP quite potent because it makes them both part of the core in a sense ideologically but also very much adaptive and that's why I think you've seen some of the innovations in the movement come primarily out of Yemen it's this group and I don't think as Ozzie said earlier I don't think AQ core bin Laden Zahari or anyone else is actually directing their operations but they're certainly sympathical with them and are probably very pleased with what's happening and maybe actually learning from them that the AQ plot in Europe may be a demonstration of that in some ways I get number two Catherine the issue in the United States is very troubling and as Arnaud mentioned it's for Europe as well I would encourage you all to see David Cameron speech from yesterday as it talks about this issue and the crisis that Europe is facing on it and I think one of the things that might take away from David Cameron's speech is that he was very frank is that you have to have a dialogue you have to have a discussion about this and treat it as a fact of what's happening in these communities and sometimes it's very difficult to address this issue because it has the religious backing to it but at the end of the day it's an issue that's challenging us and challenging our democracies and we're going to have to have a conversation regarding it with that said there's no doubt that the recruiting of Americans is a troubling issue if you're a U.S. citizen or legal resident you can travel the world pretty freely it gives you access especially if you have and Ben Bedurin and I wrote a report about this last April if you have a duality a culture of duality where you can assimilate overseas culture with the language and understanding the local customs there and then you can come back to the United States and assimilate yourself there as well and for the United States we have to have a very serious conversation about what this means for us we look at the FBI and the law enforcement community and what they struggle with the law enforcement community traditionally investigate a body trying to change that over the last 10 years but again they're given the task of minding free speech in the United States and allowing people the ability to do that and not going back to the days of McCarthyism right but at the same time they have to determine one individual moves from free speech from rhetoric to violent action and that's extremely difficult to do and if they don't do it they get criticized how come you didn't know this was coming and it's further compounded by the fact that the individuals that will probably first recognize when someone moves in that direction as we saw with Arizona and multiple other cases are going to be friends and family members so how do you create an environment where friends and family members can come forward and want to cooperate with law enforcement individuals to get their friends and family members help without putting them in a situation where we're undermining we're undermining mosques and churches or undermining you know familiar relationships it's a very challenging situation that the FBI is in and it's something that we're going to have to address going forward because it's going to challenge a lot of our civil liberties and their civil rights and I don't know what the answers are but we have to have the conversation in the United States about how much we're willing to give up and have to return for that security because it's such a difficult problem for us Thanks for that great third question because people don't ask that I've never heard it before whether the attack in Uganda by Al-Shabaab Harold's more expeditionary movement by the group they operate in the most lethal and non-permissive environment as far as being able to get outside and do a lot of things this is the in my mind the only fully failed state in the world and to be able to go out and do expeditionary activities I think it's difficult given the security within the area of Somalia so tough for them to do but I think this shows that they're able to do it there's obviously enmity with Christian Ethiopia and that was one of the reasons that drew some of the diaspora back to Somalia which actually I think points to their future capability if they are unable to conduct expeditionary attacks within East Africa and the Horn of Africa then they can potentially draw on the diaspora that's in the United States Canada Australia and other places so to me it's a significant concern and my colleague Dave Gordon and I will head to the Horn of Africa and East Africa to look into this as Ozzie and I and Dave and Ben had to do some of this field work but I do think it's something that they would like to do I think it's very difficult for them to do it I don't think they have the mobility to do that but they can potentially tap that diaspora One more point Catherine sorry I had a question because I to get to it you know when you talk about the issue of Hamami and Aulaki that's a conversation we need to have in the United States and it's not just a conversation we need to come up with what our policies are and our laws are going to be regarding how we're going to address these individuals you know Aulaki's post videos on YouTube that you can go and you can put his name in there and you'll get a gazillion videos he's a U.S. citizen overseas in Yemen obviously directly you know conspiring to commit terrorist attacks against the United States and has blood on his hands what are we in the United States going to do about those individuals we haven't figured that out after these individuals start conducting attacks and conspiring to conduct attacks it's not the time for us to figure this out because we don't want to address our laws and our policies I think in a time of crisis want to do it before the crisis happens so these are some of the questions that I hope that the executive branch and Congress continues to address let me just add on the question about the mosques and the imams and what they're up to when Sarkozy was minister of the interior in France he ordered a study of the 100 most important mosques in France and they discovered that 45 percent of the imams in charge had no religious education whatsoever when asked how they were getting material for their Friday sermons they pointed to al-Qaeda sites on the internet they were all pro al-Qaeda sites and that was a long time ago when he commissioned that study Suzanne and then we'll go in the corner thank you Suzanne Spalding with Bingham McCutcheon I'm interested in the movement hearing a little bit more about the movement from category three the inspired groups to category two the actual affiliated groups and I'm thinking of you know sort of the notion of al-Qaeda wannabes and and I'm I'm wondering for example whether the our reaction to the failed Christmas Day attempt a over a year ago lowered the price of admission in effect I mean the fact that that that was a failed attempt and yet I think largely because and the one you alluded to this our overreaction to a failed attempt within you know a matter of days or weeks bin Laden seeing the political impact stepped up and claimed credit interestingly enough apparently that claim of credit wasn't covered very broadly by the traditional terrorist websites because they didn't give it credibility but whether that the reaction a positive reaction sent a signal to the wannabes around the world that it that it didn't take quite as much to get that valuable al-Qaeda brand name yeah I think Suzanne great question I think you know exactly it builds the brand think about last year when I've heard the Christmas Day bombing we shut down government for basically a month we held hearings we talked about in the media there's a financial cost to that and there's obviously the cost and time and resources of figuring out how to do that and we have to get away from that we really do and I think we'll explore this going forward so I don't want to get too far ahead of the study but we have to weigh what the implications are that we have it goes back to my earlier comments about making policy decisions in advance of the attack because we still wrestle with the fact in the United States I think that taking no action is actually a choice and we wrestle with that and we have to be very mindful going forward that when we do react we do feed as Wands have stated earlier we do feed into that narrative and we can't do that go ahead the one thing I'd say is in terms of the categories as we've elaborated them I think one thing to keep in mind is that the current environment and I think we'll look at this in terms of the future environment is growing more and more fluid such that not only do you have a blending of the groups you know I call it the witches brew of terrorist groups for example in western Pakistan but also the diversity of the operatives and so you could have the lone wolf type who is inspired on the internet simply trying to blow up the local recruitment center we've seen cases of that at the same time you could have the individual who has cultural connections as Ozzy was talking about back into Pakistan who finds his or her way into a Pakistan Taliban camp or into an Al Qaeda camp or into an ETIM camp I think one of the striking things to me about the Abdul Mitalab case the December 25th case was the fact that you had a Nigerian student who had studied in London who actually found his way into the hands of AQAP not into the hands of AQCore which would have been the presumption of the foreign fighter pipeline in the past out of London or into the hands of AQIM which has contacts and reach into Nigeria but instead he finds his way a Nigerian student out of London into Yemen and so I think that speaks to the diversity issue speaks to Catherine's question earlier about the the operatives that are out there I think one of the challenges with a group like Al Shabaab is it can recruit not just Somali expats or from the diaspora but can recruit from other ethnic groups and I think one of the things you hear from security agencies around the world is they're concerned about not just the blending of the groups but the diversity of the operatives and so I think over time you're going to see in these three categories a blending so somebody could by circumstances end up in that third category but at the same time they could by circumstances end up in that first category being deployed by Al Qaeda Corps because they happen to have been captured and sent as part of a plot so I think that's going to be part of the very complicated environment moving forward Suzanne your question also points to the lowering barriers of entry into the internet not just that this attack says hey anything you can do the smallest ankle bite is effective but with internet penetration increasing ever more then you have a lower barrier of entry to find out how this is working to be inspired by such a move and to see the commentary on that and that just it shows again the thread that the internet runs through all this the corner here and then to Raymond in the middle Daniel Morrow from size Johns Hopkins I happened to be in Kampala last summer the day that it was bombing after three weeks were recovered about 90 or 95 bodies and two extra feet I went to ask the authorities why they were unable to identify all the people they said we in Uganda don't have the record of the people living in the country we don't have the record the official record of the number of the identity of the people living in Uganda I think the European and the the western countries could give the money and the opportunity to this government at least to know who is living in their country because we tend to do to to speech of you know global systems so and it's very practical this because they don't know how many Somali because in this case was inside the Somalian community because mainly were Somali killed by other Somalis the second is a question for the journalist being me a journalist from Italy I think during the Cold War we did a great job explaining with Radio Free Europe and many BBC and so to the people of the communist bloc what was happening inside them why do you think we are not doing enough because it's clear that we are not doing enough explaining for you just to give you an example why don't we explain to the Egyptian people that 10% of the population one month ago the Christians were killed part of them by the other Arabs leaving Egyptian like them not American not Western European were killed by other Arabs why don't we explain better that the Algerian French monks were doing kid caring in Algeria and they were killed by Al Qaeda they were killed doctors taking care of Algerian boys not taking excuse me the way I would answer that is that when I started my career 62 years ago you had 2,500 American foreign correspondence around the world today you have about 250 I don't think that the world has been covered as badly in the print media today in my lifetime it's the worst that I've ever seen I read obviously the financial times every morning and I'm just amazed at the amount of important stories in the financial times that have been ignored by our mainstream media including the New York Times and the Washington Post so and most people as you know get their news online these days you get your quick news fix but you're not really reading in depth anything because allegedly you don't have the time anymore but I think there's was that I'm sorry did I say something that wasn't but I think that is at the root of the problem that you raise beyond that I allow your speculation I think it's as valid as anybody else's I think on the on the first issue I think there are major challenges in countries that have difficulties manning their borders have refugee populations I think there's been a lot of effort to try to help countries build capacity to understand flows of individuals and now especially suspect individuals I think that's just a major challenge it also does speak to the reality that there is still a physical dimension to this problem that al-Qaeda and its affiliates especially its most lethal affiliates have taken full advantage of the physical and geographic safe havens around the world the seams in the world that offer them opportunities to interact collaborate and train and so that's why Somalia, Yemen the Sahel Western Pakistan are so important in the context of the movement where you see the major elements of the movement you happen to also have physical safe haven that's enabled then by the internet and other factors and so I think building capacity to understand flows of of individual suspects individuals incredibly important and I would commend you as since you're an Italian journalist to take up the issue of passenger name records which is now in dispute between the US and the EU and I think incredibly important to maintain the flow of that information and the connectivity of that information between US and Europe without it we're blind and I think there have been some naysayers in Brussels who don't quite see the value of it and I think that's dangerous Raymond right here in the middle Arnold, you made very interesting comments on the Muslim Brotherhood I'd like to ask the rest Juan, Rick and Tom whether they would want to share their thoughts on the Muslim Brotherhood and the kind of role that they might play in Egypt in the context of what's happening today in that country and also in the context of the study what kind of links exist between the Muslim Brotherhood and AQAM and whether there is any place in the study that we're doing today on this subject to also spend a bit of time to focus on the Muslim Brotherhood in light of increasing prominence in politics in Egypt and the region thank you I'll just Raymond thank you again for that question before we talk about the Muslim Brotherhood per se I think it's important to note be careful what you ask for you just might get it when it comes to you know the democracies in Egypt or anywhere else we look at because we want the United States wants democracies globally which we should have but democracies are going to do what they would need to do they're not always going to do what's in the best of U.S. national security interests so you look at the example of Turkey from 2003 when we wanted Turkey's support to go into Northern Iraq and the parliament voted no it wouldn't let us go into that so on one hand we're excited to see an Arab you know a Muslim democracy sorry Muslim democracy like that a democracy in a predominantly Muslim country make that decision at the same time it wasn't in U.S. national interest so I think in Egypt before you talk about the Muslim Brotherhood if we go to a pure democracy in Egypt then the dynamics that happen under way there may not be favorable to U.S. national security interests or even international community interests but at the same time we have to support the democracy and let the democratic process take place Ray MB has been sworn in that country's side for a long long time and I'm afraid it's going to be now sworn in everybody's side throughout the Middle East I mentioned a moment ago the very close links they have with Hamas and Hezbollah this is a sort of Hezbollah of Egypt they have been brilliant with their camouflage as they increase their popularity it's now about 25% of the electorate but that doesn't impress me because they are extremely well organized Raymond you'd ask for my opinion I'll give you just very quick I think people take solace in the fact that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood different from the other branches but still linked to groups like Hamas etc has disavowed violence has appeared to be more progressive has come under fire from Al Qaeda and Zahari for example but I think Arnau is right in sort of issuing a word of caution here because it's not clear what the Muslim Brotherhood's intentions are I think we also forget that the Muslim Brotherhood is still fractured in some ways and so it's not yet clear where it heads as an organized political movement in an open environment and third it's not clear how these social movements as we're seeing them now in the 21st century evolve especially leaderless movements are defined by what appear to be moderate street protests but may at the end of the day be co-opted by organized more radical groups and so I think we need to be cautious here because I don't think we quite understand how the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take advantage of the environment and what elements of the Muslim Brotherhood will take advantage I think the most immediate dimension of that is what happens then in terms of Gaza because you have the clear links and the allegiances to Hamas does the Rafa border open suddenly for the movement of arms, missiles, and cash and so I think that becomes a tactical immediate question as part of the broader strategic question that you rightly raised What one final comment on that is what we know about the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups similar to that is in the context of what they believe is a permanent state of affairs with Mubarak and power now that that appears to be no longer the case all bets are off potentially and so we have to consider that there now may be a change given that there's an opportunity Let me just make one final comment in this this point of the diversity and importance of the group that we've assembled the group of experts sitting on our group of experts is Scott Atran so someone I respect immensely an anthropologist a friend of mine he came out with the New York Times piece that actually runs exactly counter to what we just said he entitled the Bumbling Brotherhood and talked about not overestimating the Muslim Brotherhood and so I think on our on our board we have a great diversity of views which will add to the richness of our project and studies Let's go over there sir yes Dominic Tripoli the Stimson Center I had a question regarding this sort of a web al-Qaeda 2.0 and this internet generation and I was wondering if you could comment a little bit on Dr. John Horgan at International Center of Study Terrorism talked about you know there's radicalism and then there's violent radicalism and there's a big leap between one and the other and so you know you have this chart that says get the United States to withdraw forces from Islamic countries and there's huge support for that and that's an AQAM goal that's a pretty general statement I think you could find most people in the Middle East would agree with that but that's there's a big leap from saying I want the United States to withdraw from Islamic countries and I want to pick up a gun and start shooting U.S. citizen or or or planning and plotting and I was wondering if you could speak to that because you know the top three things you have listed here get the United States to stop supporting Egypt I would bet a lot of the protesters right now many of them non nonviolent would probably say you know I'd like you to stop supporting Hosni Mubarak and so there's a big leap between making that an AQAM goal and someone who is angry over United States support for Hosni Mubarak so if you could speak to you know people that generally agree with ideology or generally ascribed to a lot of these beliefs and people that are willing to actually take that next step it's a great question let me take it in parts here one of the things that Ozzie mentioned was the depth of the narrative of the West peanut war with Islam and I think one of the strategic innovations of al-Qaeda in the 90s and post 9-11 has been to to piggyback onto that narrative al-Qaeda's narrative is an adjunct to that broader narrative heard Prime Minister Blair speaking to Charlie Rose and he said one of the things that he would wish he had understood more of now that he's out of government he wish he had understood more of when he was Prime Minister was the depth of that sense the depth of that narrative of the West peanut war with Islam that said you're right that's a different narrative from al-Qaeda's narrative of the violent jihad and of facing the West as the the primary enemy the head of the snake which is the second innovation from al-Qaeda in terms of driving the jihadi narrative and also energies toward attacking the United States so I think in that divide is that question of where is it that we should be worried is it in the context of more radical opposition to US presence and interests or is it simply in the violent manifestations of this in an organized way and I think that question is one of the fundamental questions that I think governments have been grappling with since 9-11 you look at the debate in the UK with respect to their prevent program their counter radicalization program the key issue for them is are we most worried about radicalization that is in essence in opposition to Western values to Cameron's speech just the other day or is it just merely the violent manifestations of it and so can we for example partner with salafi voices credible salafi voices to actually oppose the al-Qaeda narrative even though those voices are in direct opposition to a democratic pluralistic Western ethos and I think you have to explore that dimension in part because radicalization now is so fluid I think there are rings of radicalization which can bring people who are marginally radicalized into the violent sphere very quickly and I think that debate is one that has to be had all the time and has to be calibrated but I don't think you can divorce frankly the radical ideologies that are anti-Western from then the violent manifestations of it because I think the twain meet over and over again in very dangerous ways let's go here no Catherine you had your chance yes thank you Jay Merle reported from the Straits Times newspaper in Singapore I was wondering if the panelists could talk a little about you know the current state of the threat from the GAI they have lost a couple of their top guys in recent years so are they considered a neutralized threat in any way and if not what are some of the emerging new threats in Southeast Asia that you might be looking at thank you great question and thank you very much for that one Arno and I and Dave Gordon spent quite a bit of time looking at the range of groups active in Southeast Asia including having spent a lot of time in the field they're interviewing GAI members and his boutarere more Islamic liberation front and going into Southern Thailand so GAI has always been the 800 pound gorilla in Southeast Asia very significant with links to Al Qaeda individuals who fought in Afghanistan alongside Al Qaeda members but they took a significant hit with the Bali attacks that was seen as tremendously un-Indonesian they took a big hit for that and essentially went to ground now at the same time the Australians primarily in the United States came in to Indonesia and worked closely with the Indonesians to improve law enforcement investigatory practices judicial practices and helped the Indonesians become a real stand out in counter-terrorism and so what the what GAI has done is engaged in outreach Dakwa and continues to operate at schools continues to have a vision of a caliphate the vision out to 2025 ironically with the same year we're looking at but they've also sent fighters to other places non-structural GAI some of these fighters are referred to where they've gone to Mindanao to fight with the more Islamic liberation front some who've ended up with Abu Sayyaf group excuse me they have knocked on the door of the ethnic insurgency in southern Thailand with the Malaysian offered assistance there which was spurned I should say so there are significant threat they remain a threat there's been recent activity in Aceh with a number of individuals there are hundreds in fact who are causing great concern they are significant they are beaten down to a degree they have lost Nordin Topp they've lost Dilmatin the number of figures as you point out have been killed they're captured and that's great and the Singaporeans have been great partners in that but no way are they finished and I think they remain remain a potential problem if I could just add one point on this from a former policymaker standpoint I think Southeast Asia and the threats there and how they've morphed presents a very interesting case study as to how governments have successfully collaborated to constrain the reach of a problem if folks look back and think back to the post 9-11 period the idea of a second front in the war on terror was largely focused on Southeast Asia I mean a lot of the journal articles a lot of the focus with good reason but with good reason we no longer talk about Southeast Asia in those terms I think in large part because of the work of the governments in the region Singaporean governments a good example the Indonesians been very good at doing the hard things in terms of counterterrorism work but then also the soft things like rehabilitation programs etc much of it enabled by the Australians and the Americans so I think as we look at these studies and look at how governments have been able to affect the environment of the threat Southeast Asia actually becomes a very interesting and important model that I think not enough people have looked to to see what a successful model actually looks like Thanks Juan one more thing than Southeast Asia one of the reasons we went there was to show that there's real there are real differences between what's happening there there are ethno-national insurgencies like the MILF in Mindanao the more the ethnic Malays in southern Thailand who are fighting local battles against what they see as oppressive governments then you have groups that are tied to al-Qaeda you have groups that are hybrid criminal extremist groups like Abu Sayyaf group so it's very important that we don't take a blunt one size fits all approach to Southeast Asia there's a real range and we do not need to make enemies where we don't need them but we do need to focus on groups like J.A.I. and others that are focused on the United States that have killed Americans and Australians and others who are in Indonesian target our allies down there so it's important that people don't look at Southeast Asia or any part of the world for that matter is having this monolithic uniform sense that there are Muslims who are fighting and therefore they're all part of this al-Qaeda network no a lot of them have very focused local goals that are open to debate us to legitimacy let's go to this side this young lady standing thank you Catherine Kai CSIS first of all thank you Juan and Ozzie Tom and Arno here's my question with regards to the proliferation of the internet what steps are being taken or should be taken by law enforcement and intel agencies to identify and prevent these online recruiters and homegrown terrorists yeah I mean that's a obviously a great question something we're going to explore going forward I can't again the issue here is we have to we as addressing it and framing the issue our laws and our policies you know could arguably lag behind the evolution of technology and you know the technology will be used for good it'll be used for evil so there's obviously anytime you impose a law or a policy on top of the internet this might potentially have a negative impact on people that are trying to use it for for benefit but we have to ask ourselves that question you know if somebody puts something on the internet for example a video that belongs to Sony music it gets taken taken down immediately because it's an violation of national property rights right so the question is what is our policy what are the laws regarding you know the rhetoric of someone like Anwar Halaki who has you know blood on his hands yes we have to protect free speech but at the same time what is the limits what are the limits of that free speech and what should be allowed to be posted on the internet I don't have the answer to that question I'm not recommending as some have said that I'm censoring the internet but I think that we need to have that that question we need to explore it and say what we're going to accept the same thing with you know with using the technology is residing United States the servers the companies it's there what are we going to do the movement of financial transactions which Juan knows infinitely better than I do they're inside the United States for a microsecond and then they're they're back out elsewhere and I don't think we have it and I think again as we go to the peer-to-peer technologies become and peer-to-peer systems become more prevalent because you know HTTP is dead we're now going to the peer-to-peer applications which are much more difficult to address it's for those of some serious challenges regarding laws international property rights sort of privacy and I don't think we have our arms around that and we need to address this because we don't want to address it my concern is this is a personal opinion not a resolved study my concern is there will be a significant attack in the United States and the Internet will be to quote-unquote be blamed and then we will have reactionary policies the laws put in place that will have a long-term negative effect that's not the time when we want to change the laws of the United States is it is it a time of crisis we need to do that and address those policies in advance I think we also have to remind ourselves of the size of what was was alluded to very briefly the size of the Internet when John Nigropoli was DNI he asked me if I knew what a petabyte was I had no idea he said well imagine the entire Library of Congress with its 40 million volumes and 250 million manuscripts and 10,000 new items arriving every day and 535 miles of shelf space that is 0.20 petabytes and moving through cyberspace every day is several hundred times more than the entire Library of Congress I think in the end my view on it is the Internet is their advantage over ours they can engage it in a way and access in a way that we can't our ability to respond to it is slowed down by so many restrictions and with so many weapons and capabilities they can jump on it and use it manipulate it modify it to their use much more quickly than we can why don't we go right here to this gentleman Steve Rader from SEIC two quick questions one is AQAM really a Sunni Salafi as opposed to we tend to label things Islamist but is it a largely a Sunni Salafi movement because obviously huge numbers of its victims have been Shia and I think Amadi and etc and I'd like your comments on that and the other is something we haven't talked about here what are the vulnerabilities of AQAM now clearly what we're dealing with here is the Al Qaeda led movement and so we're talking about the Sunni led movement some called the Salafi Jihadi movement so yes we're not talking about the Shiite movements the revolutionary guard or the movements out of Iran for example that forms part of the environment and actually is part of something we'll be looking at but certainly in terms of the AQAM movement itself we're talking about the Sunni derived extremist movement clearly there are inherent challenges for them in that there are conflicts around the world with respect to the Shiite populations you see Iraq much of the program from AQI was defined by its challenges and its fight with the Shia interestingly you see in for example 2005 the Zawahiri to Zarkawi letter where Amin al-Zawahiri asks Zarkawi whether or not it's actually the right moment to begin fighting with the Shia and ask whether or not that's the strategic right move when in fact all the energy should be placed on attacking American interests and American presence and so you see this the defined space that al-Qaeda operates in is not just viewing the United States as being an opposition but also viewing the broader landscape within Muslim communities Shia and otherwise as being enemies I would also say moderate Sunnis being viewed as Takfiri in many ways becoming the subject of targets by al-Qaeda you see Sufi communities for example in Somalia and in Pakistan who have become part of the target group for al-Qaeda strategically moving forward I think one of the things we'll be looking at is how al-Qaeda's relationship with Iran fits into the broader strategic evolution of AQAM we've seen some footsie being played between the two over time because of the common enemy of the United States but as we all know they they hate each other and strategically they would prefer to be fighting each other than collaborating and so how that plays in especially given the potential conflict with Iran is something we're going to look at as one of the potential shocks and factors moving forward with the movement Steve did you have a short follow-up or can we remember? Do you have a right? Yeah AQAM The on the ZDZ Telegram is very interesting because I don't recall the exact numbers but I think one page you know is our cow we spent talking about how evil the United States was in 15 pages talking about how evil the Shias were so this is certainly certainly something that can be used as a vulnerability as a fissure that can be exploited you know I believe personally that an organization or person's greatest strength is across with their greatest weakness so it's the things the vulnerabilities for al-Qaeda are its strengths it's dependent on a brand many companies have had brands tarnished and getting your brand back is difficult United States and the West we need to undermine that brand the network its strength is in its in its decentralized movements networks can be disaggregated that will have to that will occur and also a lot of it the reasons are narrow is U.S. and Western action and what Juan talked about and Tom talked about earlier we can control our actions and what we do and again not suggesting suggesting what we should or shouldn't do but we should just take into account the effect so there can be a lot but this is again this is what the study is going to explore so we encourage you to come back in September yeah Steve the lack of a positive message in the minds of many people in much of the Muslim community around the world of which 80 to 85 percent is Sunni the the rest predominantly being Shiite but J.I. Jamal Zalami points to a good example of a vulnerability is overreach just as al-Qaeda and Iraq did as well two vicious of attacks beheadings doing things that are seen as as un-Islamic as as we saw in Indonesia where you have two huge civic movements that opined on this and in the population general saying this is not Indonesian this is not our brand of Islam and that is a great great tool in our hands if we can use it well I think we'll go with one more question Bill Gacius just curious Juan and others about your descriptions of core and affiliates certainly they seem to have prospered somewhat in areas of the world where the central government is not totally in control of the territory in the past few years I think you've seen probably an increase in associations between both perhaps core and affiliates with criminal elements so I take you to Michael Hayden's departure speech from CIA in which he labeled the second most dangerous threat to the US is the situation in Mexico and I'm just curious what you think because I know this issue has been debated and will you address in your 2025 paper anywhere the possibility of having to be concerned about affiliates and semi-homegrowns operating training surviving in the mess that Mexico is becoming the third war of America as I think Fox News says thanks yeah I mean this is really a credit to Arno in the work that he's done over the years here you know Arno has looked at the the role of international organized crime drug trafficking networks as transnational threats long before others did including looking at the cyber threat and so I think one of the things and we've talked about this I've lectured on this one of the things we're going to have to look at is the blending of the transnational threats and the environment in a sense looking beyond al-Qaeda as a construct perhaps and looking at the stew of bad actors and transnational actors that feed off of each other use each other's access and platforms operatives networks etc to then promote either their profit motive or their ideological motive I think in the context of Mexico it presents a huge concern I think to us from a stability perspective obviously the reach of these Mexican cartels not just into the United States but into Central America and beyond and then how those networks then feed into other networks for example you look at the drug trafficking networks that have evolved of the last couple of years out of South America in through West Africa and up into Southern Europe you've seen for example DEA-led indictments naming al-Qaeda and Islamic Maghreb members who are part of those drug trafficking networks that are then tied back to Colombia and Venezuela and so I think we've got to look very very much so in the globalized environment we're operating in into the mix of transnational threats and actors and I think no doubt you have to look at the drug trafficking organizations in this hemisphere as part of that environment Go ahead Arnav. It was right after 9-11 that we changed the name of Global Organized Crime which I was running in the 1990s to transnational threats because of what we'd already spotted as the convergence between the two in Afghanistan with the opium traffic where everybody's getting its share even the Pakistani ISI al-Qaeda Karzai's government everybody's got his finger in that pie and it seems to me that this is the future there'll be more and more examples of a convergence between the two In this notion is not abstract I'll give you two actual examples that interesting enough involve Hezbollah so a Shiite group and these were two very successful DEA operations Operation Mountain Express and in another one so in North Carolina this is post 9-11 you had the Hamoud brothers who were illegally selling cigarette cartons without the fake tax stamp on them they were shipping them from the Carolinas up to Massachusetts Maine Maryland others and taking the proceeds and buying night vision goggles laser range finders mine detection equipment and blasting caps and sending that back to the Bekaa Valley a second example is again Hezbollah sympathizers and operators in Canada buying pseudo effigynt tablets putting them in the tires of trucks that had fake US mail and FedEx stickers on them driving them to Chicago and Detroit selling them to Mexican meth gangs who brought them down into America's own ungoverned territory some of our national parks where they cooked it up the proceeds then did the same thing they purchased equipment went back through Canada and back to the Bekaa Valley so that happened in the US and that involved Mexican meth gangs that involved Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah supporters in the Carolinas and again the same group in Canada so this is quite a network it's taken place the DEA nailed these two cases and they point to the reality that the United States is part of this terror crime nexus yeah and I would again when we talk about safe havens you know I would encourage us to kind of discard our traditional understanding what a safe haven is certainly Somalia is a safe haven a physical safe haven but there could be safe havens based on a country's laws a democratic construct there could be safe havens virtually as such as the internet so a safe haven as we move forward is going to it's going to be a flux and people are going to exploit these groups are going to exploit any type of safe haven they can and I think you're going to see more of this I think everyone who spoke is correct or see more of this as we become United States and the West and international community come more effective in our counterterrorism and our counter drug operations that these organizations are going to be forced to use each other's resources and either to get it to get what they need done with that said I think it's important though to note that the cartels have very different goals clearly than Al Qaeda has the cartels are about making money period so you know they are not going to just not going to subject their business model to any undue risk so they will continue to weigh that so well certainly those I think those lines are going to be used and something we will explore our study we have to keep into keep in mind what the ultimate goals of those entities that are sharing resources are all about I think that'll do it want to thank you again for attending I want to thank the authors for a great report or no for hosting and we ask that you keep track of the project as we said we will have a capstone conference in September to look at the final report and we look forward to welcoming you then thank you Tom showed you the book that Ron Marx has written Ron Marx's book Ron nobody