 Good morning, everybody. Hope everyone's doing well. Thank you for coming. Welcome to CSIS. For those of you who are new to the new center here, welcome to the new world headquarters of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Juan Zerati. I'm a senior advisor here at CSIS, and I'm honored to be presiding over this panel. As you know from the invitation from the event, this is a two-hour panel entitled entitled The Syrian Conflicts Foreign Fighters, Concerns at Home and Abroad. I'm honored to have three distinguished guests, deep experts and practitioners who've been looking at the issue of the return of foreign fighters. And what we're going to spend this first hour of the conference on is a discussion about the nature of the problem and how it impacts our work. Let me start first by thanking the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Department of Homeland Security for their support. They've been helping to organize and to drive this conference. It's an issue of deep interest and import to both the Dutch and American governments, and so we want to thank them for their support and their visit. There's no question Syria has become a cauldron of conflict. The humanitarian atrocities and refugee problems are plain, well known to all of us. The regional instability created by that conflict is unfolding. And certainly we've seen a rejuvenation and rise of violent extremist groups to include foreign fighter pipelines, which is the topic of discussion. We've seen now the flow of thousands of fighters into the conflict from around the world, and now a great and growing concern echoed publicly by American and European officials of the return of foreign fighters into the West. Secretary of Homeland Security J. Johnson has called the Syrian conflict now a homeland security issue. FBI Director Jim Comey has talked about his concerns over the foreign fighter flow and the Dutch and other governments have spoken publicly about their concerns. And so today we're going to discuss what this means for the West, what this means in terms of radicalization, what this means in terms of training of foreign fighters, what this means in terms of the overall network of these groups as motivated individuals return to the West. And I can't imagine, frankly, a better panel than this to discuss these issues. And so what we'll do is I'm going to introduce our panelists, ask them to make opening remarks, and then open this up for a broader discussion. And when we do, I will ask those in the audience who want to ask questions to raise their hand. We'll have microphones. We ask that you stand and identify yourself and then ask a question. And I will moderate that. But let me start first with Dick Schuf, who is the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In many ways, the strategic hub of how the Netherlands not only thinks but also deals with counterterrorism and security issues. He's held numerous high-level positions within the Dutch government, particularly Director General for Public Safety and Security in the Ministry of the Interior. He was also the Director of Immigration and Naturalization Service, among other duties. And so he has not only core responsibility but deep expertise in these issues. To his left is my very good friend, Ambassador and Secretary Frank Taylor, who is now the Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis in that job for about six weeks now, Frank. But Frank is not new to these issues. In fact, I can't imagine a better person to be in that position. Former State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism, former Assistant Secretary of Diplomatic Security, and former member of the President's Civil Liberties and Oversight Board among other distinguished positions over a 35-year career. And to his left is Andrew McCabe. Andy is also a close friend, a distinguished public servant, and comes to us from the FBI. Andy is currently the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI's National Security Branch. He was most recently, before that, the Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, a longstanding and deep reputation for expertise in terrorism out of the New York Division of the FBI. And I will say the first director of the High Value Interrogation Group set up by the U.S. government to deal with high-level interrogations and terrorist suspects. So we have the best panel I can imagine on these issues. And what I'd like to do now is turn to Dick and ask him for his opening remarks. Dick. Thank you. And I really appreciate being here, and I want to thank the institution that I'm able to present some views on the foreign terrorist fighter issue. Ladies and gentlemen, the foreign fighter issue in itself is not new, but Syria gave it a whole new dimension. And this new dimension, what I'm convinced of is that it will lead to a sustained threat in the next coming years. And that we maybe have thought for a year ago, two years ago, that it will slowly go away, but it will not. And this new dimension is also facilitated by the fact that there are a lot of non-Syrians going over to Syria, which is a big difference, for example, with the Somalia. And arriving in Syria, they end up with UN-listed terrorist organizations affiliated to al-Qaeda, in particular to al-Nusra and ISIL. Having said that, I want to raise a few points about the Dutch approach, a few Dutch figures, but not so much. And also from your perspective, because as you can imagine in Europe, we were very closely together on all levels, and roughly have the same policy, although there are some slight changes in the way we try to conquer this problem. The Dutch, we like to say that we work on a comprehensive approach. And this comprehensive approach goes along with the fact that we believe that becoming a terrorist is a process rather than a phenomena in itself. That we need to have a combination of preventive and repressive measures, that we have close cooperation, need to have close cooperation between security organizations, intelligence police, prosecution, but also local communities, local authorities, et cetera, et cetera. And that we need to connect local, national and international dimension of this terrorist, foreign terrorist fighter. That is really very important. A few figures. I think in Europe we now speak about 2,000 to 3,000 people going over to Syria, or what we know of. Most foreign fighters have departed with the intention to join these al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations. It is not human aid. I cannot stress that enough. The major wave of departures were in 2012, 2013, but it's still going on. Not in big numbers, but it's still going on. In the Netherlands so far about 125 went over to Syria. And several foreign terrorist fighters have died in combat in the Netherlands around 12. Predominantly they are male, but a growing number of female are now traveling abroad. Some are Dutch converted Muslims, and I said before most of them are non-Syrian, in the Dutch case mostly from a Moroccan origin, and have double nationalities, double passports. And they radicalize before they go and they radicalize even further when they are there, and they experience a great, in this conflict zone, a lot of violence and act with a lot of violence as well. And the way they radicalize is in a way that they alienate from everybody. They alienate from their parents, they alienate from their friends, unless their friends go along. It's a kind of cult, and they alienate from mainstream Muslim communities, they alienate from the mosque, they alienate really from everybody. And that's important when you try to reach out and talk about the radicalization process in itself. Countering foreign terrorist fighters, we try to see it in four changes and challenges. First of all violent extremism, trying to prevent people from becoming violent extremists and from becoming willing to travel abroad. Of course you look in the recruitment of facilitation process, but the recruitment of facilitation process is quite different than we used to see. There is no clear recruitment risk facilitation, and of course it's very easy to travel abroad and to travel to Syria. And the fact that there's no real recruitment has probably something to do with the radicalization process and the way these groups organize themselves, as a kind of network, and we used to say as a kind of swarm of bees. Of course we try to prevent them from traveling, but that's rather difficult because how do you prove that they intend to go over to Syria to fight and to become a terrorist? And of course the real threat is in their return, not in the traveling away, not going to Syria but in their return. And the threat you might say is threesome. They may become a loner, either inspired, maybe disillusioned, maybe traumatized and take up a weapon and shoot with any possible mean. The group of friends we traveled abroad or became friends may become, coming back, inspired by the al-Qaida thought, organized themselves, not organized from the al-Qaida affiliates, but inspired to create an attack. And of course the biggest risk you might say is organized and sent by the al-Qaida affiliates on a mission to Europe. Because let be sure, let be frank, it's not a real Dutch problem, not with our borders. We almost don't have borders in Europe. We are almost border free, so the attack can happen anywhere. But at the same time, not everybody is returning as a terrorist. So some of them pose a threat after their return. And that was also the reason, as a national coordinator, I had to rise to the threat levels of the Netherlands just a few days after I took this pose as national coordinator to the threat level substantial, we got only one left, and that's when we know of an immediate attack taking place in a few days. What we try to do is to work on a very focused basis, because we know that the groups of people traveling over to Syria are geographically very focused as well in three parts of the Netherlands. So we try to work very closely with those organizations, those Muslim communities, those local authorities, in trying to prevent travel and to get information from the people when they return. We also try to work on a fairly tailored approach, an individual approach on trying to stop them when leaving, but also when returning. A tailored approach. Sometimes very repressive, but sometimes somebody is not a real threat to that society and then we need to give them some help so they will not alienate any further in the way we try to deal with them, makes them a potential terrorist by the way we are treating them. One of the measures we took is what is important for us as well as administrative measures. We are now discussing changing the law in which we can create a loss of nationality only in case when there is a double nationality actually or a loss of fighting abroad in a terrorist organization which is not possible yet. Loss of nationality can only be the case if you are fighting with a foreign power. Cancelation of those passports which we are very active in. We took away about 25 passports. Termination of benefit payments and allowances, asset freezing and revocation of residence permits. At the same time we are trying to prosecute and try to prosecute but probably all you are aware is trying to to get the evidence on terrorism is very difficult and what they are doing in Syria is also very difficult also for the intelligence organizations not to comprehend but to gather the right information so they can prosecute in the Netherlands but at the same time we can prosecute them sometimes and this is important as well and of course looking to recruitment although I said recruitment is not in the way it used to be and we are looking for training for terrorism. Radicalization as we discussed earlier as you mentioned in your introduction is key in trying to get a grip on the foreign terrorist fighter because they are radicalized before they travel and they radicalize even further when they are over there. What we have seen in the Netherlands radicalization was more or less in control the last years but the new Syria development and the foreign fighter issue the glorifying of the foreign fighter the martyrdom of those who die in Syria the way they talk in social media about what they are doing over there creates a new injection to sort of rejuvenating of the radicalization process so radicalization is again high on our agenda and our intelligence service together with my organization is releasing shortly a report on the radicalization process in which we see the numbers of radicalization growing and therefore a new breeding ground for new people wanting to traveling to Syria. So we are trying to reach out again to the local communities, local Muslim communities the local mosque in trying to work together with them in a counter narrative in a de-radicalization way but in preventing the people from really radicalizing and therefore a multidisciplinary approach is really very important prevention and repression both. The challenges that lay ahead for us are a strategic communication you might say building bridges on one hand zero tolerance toward violent extremism but on the other hand reaching out to the communities because this is not a religious question it's about violent extremism safeguarding the balance between preventive and repressive messes and of course the role of social media on the radicalization process and in what way we can intervene and try to prevent the social media play the role in the radicalization as well and one last remark maybe you would not expect it from a coordinator on counter terrorism that we should not lose sight that all measures taken to prevent crimes have to be taken with respect to the rule of law and democratic values, human rights and fundamental freedoms. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dick. Actually something we would expect from a Dutch counter terrorist. Just we've got a packed house and very happy about that if there are folks in the back that need a seat there are five seats up front here welcome to come up don't be shy thank you Juan and again it's great to be back in government service again and working in DHS Dick has already done I think an excellent job of framing the issue and it's not just a Dutch issue it's a global issue why is Syria so important to our department Homeland Security our secretary in his first public speech about Homeland Security mentioned the threat from Syria as a Homeland Security threatened for many of the same reasons that Dick has outlined in the Netherlands we have Americans who are volunteering to go to Syria to fight some for humanitarian reasons others to join Al Qaeda after being radicalized all of them have the right to return home and when they return home to the US or return home to places in Europe and Asia it's not just Europe it's Australia it's other places around the world we have no understanding of what they may or may not do what they may or may not have learned while they were there and therefore what their plans may be that Al Nusra and ISIL continue to move the Al Qaeda ideology forward and attacking the West attacking the US is still a very big part of their their plans that they want to execute and how these people may play into those plans becomes a matter of concern for the security of the homeland and therefore we work very closely with our foreign partners our partners within the US to try to better understand and frame the threat the point that Dick made about you know the challenge of privacy civil liberties the American Bill of Rights are all issues that we are all concerned with as we try to shape and understand this problem nonetheless we have to understand the radicalization is occurring people are getting training that could potentially result in threats to the US homeland threats to our partners in Europe and other places around the world and our focus has been a coordinated effort around across US government to attempt to address where are they training what are they being trained on where are they departing from where are they coming back to our partners in Europe or coming back to the US working with our colleagues in the FBI and I know Andy will talk a little bit will talk extensively about the FBI efforts in this area to try to better understand the phenomenon to allow us to win appropriate interdict an act of terrorism from occurring here in the US in Europe or more broadly to prevent the radicalization that occurs that encourages young men and in certain cases young women to go volunteer to go to that part of the world to learn new tactics techniques and procedures that can be then turned against their home countries countering violent extremism is a huge part of how we approach that in Homeland Security talking to communities here in the US so that they better understand the radicalization process and spot these issues before they become problems as we've done in the Somalia diaspora we're doing it with the Syrian and the diaspora and other groups that are here who have whose members of whose groups have volunteered to go and fight in Syria we believe very strongly that this is a global international problem not just a US problem and that the coordination and cooperation with our international partners is key in sharing tactics techniques procedures understanding travel patterns and all the other things that allow us to use the tools that we have defensively to protect our aircraft and the transit of potential dangerous people across our borders for interdiction purposes so Dick has really defined the issues that concern us as it does the Netherlands and some of the tools that we would use in concert with our US partners to try to attack that and also with our foreign partners in trying to attack this phenomenon which again is a global phenomenon it's not just Europeans and Americans it's a global issue involving citizens from many countries around the world I look forward to the discussion in depth on those issues going forward thank you Frank Andy with your indulgence we have such popular demand for this conference we're going to actually lift this wall and add additional seats Andy I think it's your presence that may have added a few more bodies in the audience so if that's okay we're going to raise this we're going to raise the CSIS headquarters and for those of you who are near watch your hands and feet keep them inside at all times so give us just two minute hiatus we'll lift it and then we'll proceed we know you're just showing off it's okay let's hope it works mic check one two three mic check like the retractable roofs of the major stadiums around the world thank you so in the Hoover building we have walls that are liable to fall down but we don't have any that will go up automatically well good morning and thank you Juan thank you to the Center for Strategic and International Studies for having me here today it's an honor to address this group and to hopefully provide some insights as to how we at the FBI see the current CT threat and specifically the issues emanating from developments in Syria I'd first like to say thank you to my fellow panelists and that I concur with their remarks and certainly the lay down of the threat I will try to keep my remarks brief I know you all have many questions and we're anxious to get to those but just to give you a little bit of context to see how we how Syria fits in with the overall CT picture that we've been as you know challenged with for many years the threat generally from our terrorist actors if you could characterize it in one word it is fractured it is far more complex it is more diverse than the threats we have seen on the CT side let's say four five six years ago it is more diverse ideologically it's more diverse geographically and it's more diverse tactically nevertheless we see some enduring issues that will be I'm sure you'll all be familiar with each one of them and these are some of the issues that we've been focused on over the last several years of course there is Al Qaeda Corps or AQ Corps as we like to refer to them diminished but not removed AQ Corps we believe continues to present a persistent threat to the United States there is persistent interest in planning an intent on the behalf of the still very capable men affiliated with Al Qaeda Corps and that is an intent to hit us here in the homeland that is something that causes us great concern every day at the same time they've been incredibly effective at developing their network of affiliates those affiliates are greater in number than they were years ago and they're also greater in capability most widely known and of course we believe most lethal and most effective of those affiliates is Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula you're all familiar with the 2009 Christmas Day attempted attack the printer bomb plot in 2010 and then of course the follow on follow on plot that we refer to is kind of underwear too for lack of a better term AQAP continues to thrive in Yemen and again I think you have to put them in the same category as presenting a persistent and competent threat to the United States in addition to AQ Corps and the affiliates one of the issues we've been focused on intently over the last several years are activities presented by our own homegrown violent extremists these make up the majority of the arrests that you've seen and heard about in the media in the last few years the disruptions we've been able to affect here in the homeland HVEs are tough they are hard to find by nature there are individuals who operate many times alone they don't rely on networks they maybe operate individually as they proceed down that pathway of radicalization towards mobilization they are for that very reason hard to find they are hard to cover with traditional investigative techniques they are as a population increasingly aware of our traditional FBI approaches and techniques so they challenge us to constantly stay one step ahead and to remain kind of creative in our approach to disrupting their activities and they are undisputably impacted by the significance of online propaganda as we've seen an explosion in communication capability and techniques everything from social media to online forums there is really no limit to what anyone can encounter on the internet and we find that the ready access very effective very professional professionally produced propaganda that speaks directly to our western based homegrown violent extremists there's no question we see an impact again it has on that population so if you look at those issues that have caused us great concern over the last several years Syria is truly unique because it combines each one of those issues in one or more ways there is no question that Syria is a place of significance for aq core some of the actors and groups and training locations that cause us greatest concern we believe in Syria are impacted in some way by the planning intent or possibly presence of individuals affiliated with aq and its core group on the affiliate front I mean there are probably after aqap probably two of the most notorious and effective right now al-Qaeda affiliates are the islamic state of iraq and the levant isil and al-Nusra front many times we're battling each other for supremacy in that hotly contested area but nevertheless to large effective aq affiliates with clear experience on the battlefield tactical experience and both as general taylor has mentioned both with clear intent to target us here in the homeland and Syria is no less significant to our homegrown violent extremist population it is in fact a commonality that we see among many of our homegrown violent extremist subjects of investigation many of them are motivated by and inspired by the activities that they see taking place in Syria many of them intend to travel to Syria to affiliate with groups like isil or al-Nusra front and to participate in that jihad in fact travel to Syria we feel to become by far the most significant driver of extremist intent and activity here in the United States it's had as our director has mentioned in several in several speeches recently we see Syria impacting the global jihad in a way far beyond the way maybe Bosnia did in the 90s or Afghanistan after that maybe many different reasons for that we talk about those later in the program but nevertheless Syria remains a significant destination for our homegrown violent extremist population and finally of course propaganda I mean much of the reason why our HVEs as we refer to them are interested in traveling to Syria is because of the glorification of that process that they see and participate in with the propaganda they devour online so the question for us is of course what do we do about it and really to go back to my kind of opening if I could sum it up in one word that word would be partnerships this is truly a global crisis it is a global issue and it's one that's far beyond the abilities of any one of our organizations or any one of our nations to address individually we begin that working with our closest partners first so here at the FBI we've worked and continue to work incredibly closely with our partners in the intelligence community and at the federal level here in the United States General Taylor and I have had the unique opportunity of building a special team of analysts and agents who are now co-located in working on this problem set exclusively working kind of shoulder to shoulder together each day in an effort to continually develop to continually identify persons of interest to us who may have traveled to Syria and have now returned to the United States or who intend to travel to Syria for those purposes and of course to develop strategies of how we'll address those potential threats we're also working very closely with our domestic law enforcement partners our state and local partners our tribal partners those folks I am constantly trying to get out the message to a gathering of major city chiefs just two days ago we are constantly trying to send the message that individuals of interest to us folks who we may ultimately be concerned with along the HVE lines are likely to come to the attention of local law enforcement first and our ability to hear about those encounters and to get those suspicious incidents reported back to our JTTFs around the country is going to be a key factor and our ability to stay ahead of these developing threats the next step in that partnership circle is of course community outreach opening lines of communication opening lines of awareness with our key communities around the country we think is going to be essential to staying ahead of of this issue we had some success in doing that with our efforts to address the travel of folks to Somalia Bob back in 2006 2007-2008 but quite frankly this issue is more challenging there isn't a single easily identifiable community from which our Syria travelers all spring from they are a very diverse group they span the range of religious backgrounds of socioeconomic background of educational background they are of both genders when you put them all together they look like America it's a widely diverse group of folks of all ages and all background so it's our outreach efforts will be challenged in that respect and finally of course working very closely with our foreign partners the robust exchange of intelligence and information about our subjects of investigation is going to be essential to staying kind of the edge of this issue rather than trying to catch up with it so that I'll turn it back over to you sir thank you Andy wonderfully insightful comments from all three panelists let me take the prerogative and ask just a couple of introductory questions and ask the panelists to address them and then we'll open it up to the audience and Dr. Alterman with your indulgence I'll take a couple of minutes of injury time because of the wall thank you I'm going to ask in part to give the audience a picture of what you're seeing is to talk a little bit about the geography of what's happening the roots that the foreign fighters are taking in and out and what that means for the geography of the landscape Andy you talked a little bit about that in terms of the communities there isn't a central locus like with the Somali community where you worried about Minneapolis or Columbus or Seattle so can you talk all of you talk about the geography of this and how that impacts what's happening because I think also from a European perspective one of the challenges is Syria is a lot closer than Afghanistan and it's a lot easier to get in and out of Turkey for example than it was Syria in the rock context and so can we talk and give the audience and those watching online a vision of how you see the geography and how that impacts the way you look at the problem Jack? I'll see if I understand the question well enough I think I'm used to English but if I understand it just a little bit wrong then please help me first of all the geography of the I already said that the non-Syrians in the Dutch case are mostly Moroccans some Turks and some Dutch comforts in Belgium is roughly the same in France it's a little bit different in the UK it's all kind of nationals in Germany it's more Turkish and it has something to do with the flow of the labourers in the 60s which went over and it is not part of a big asylum stream it's maybe important to speak as well when they travel abroad now I must first do another geographical question we see again as I mentioned in my introduction as well a few hotspots in the Netherlands where the relocation process taking place where there are old friends, old groups related somehow to the old homegrown terrorist networks we used to see say a decade ago not very clear but it's there so it's focused as well and I'm not quite sure how other European countries in Belgium we see roughly the same in I think in a few weeks time we have a meeting with some Dutch mayors and some Belgium mayors of the cities where this particularly occurs and then you spoke about the route that's very clear they all went through Turkey no question and of course we have a lot of contact in the European side it was a bilateral with the Turkish to see how we can on the border get the information get the information exchange and what we can do in preventing them from travelling and what the Turkish can do or let them know that they are returning did they understand the question? perfectly even better than I imagine I'm going to turn to my colleague Andy to talk specifically about to follow on some of the things he's talked about already I think for DHS this is a CVE problem and so it's every community across our country it's not just as with the Somali community in Minnesota we because of the nature of who the Bureau and others are seeing getting involved we're doing an outreach across the country using our countering violent extremist outreach into communities and into not just Muslim communities but broader communities so that they understand this phenomenon part of our approach to this as with the Bureau is community awareness local law enforcement awareness a phenomenon that could contribute to future extremism is a very very important part for us so in this particular phenomenon it's across the US and raising awareness of the potential issues so that communities can help us in spotting potential problems that can be addressed either socially or through law enforcement efforts and those sorts of things Sure so completely concur with General Taylor's comments I think that a couple of things maybe are relevant to your question first we're not seeing there isn't a clear one clear kind of jump off point from the United States to travel over to Syria as the general mentioned the population is so diverse if you look at some of even just in the last few months we've had disruptions of individuals who are attempting to travel to Syria for the purpose of affiliating with designated terrorist groups and we've made arrests of individuals in Sacramento California in Chicago Illinois in Raleigh North Carolina in Detroit Michigan so it spans the country one of the challenges of kind of getting your hands around the issue is that of course it is not illegal to travel to Syria it's not illegal to travel to Turkey it's not even concerning in and of itself there are many many reasons why Americans might choose to travel to Syria traveling to Syria for the purpose of supporting the regime or the opposition is not in and of itself illegal there are many folks who travel for humanitarian purposes so it's trying to identify those individuals who have violent intent and who specifically intend to affiliate with terrorist groups those are the folks of greatest concern to us and that is quite frankly not easy in terms of the flows into the country we're seeing the same thing stick that you are of course Turkey is a major kind of funnel of travel into Syria but it's you know Syria is is far more accessible we think to western extremists than maybe East Africa was in 2008 or Afghanistan and Iraq were before that it's you know the prospect of travel across Europe is one that a lot of our young impressionable radicalized folks here in the states that's a concept that's very easy for them to kind of get their heads around and plan there's also you know many ways to many routes that take you ultimately to Syria and many times we lose our visibility on those folks and what they're doing as they travel through Europe so it's tough situation one more question this has to do with ideology and the narrative and radicalization each of you has spoken about the role that Syria is playing in your language rejuvenation of the radicalization process are there particular elements of what's happening in Syria that are changing or animating the ideology and narrative in a different way than the ways we've seen in the past is there something that makes this really virulent or problematic to the point of glorification of fighting is there something that's different in this context than what we've seen before because I think a core question I have and I think others have as well is is the ideology itself changing and it's a narrative not only animating more radicalization but is it changing over time because of what's happening in Syria Andy why don't we start with you I think the ideology is similar to the extremist ideology that we've seen be so effective in recruiting young radicalized predominantly men in other theaters for me the biggest difference in Syria is the impact of communication facilities so you know Syria is happening now in the age of social media in the age of internet propaganda and the ability for extremists for radicalizers for recruiters to reach directly out to those populations of greatest concern to kind of glorify with images of the battle what's happening there or kind of present it of course in the light most favorable to their to their aims I don't think that's something that we experienced in Afghanistan or Iraq I don't think it's something we experienced in Somalia I think it's really the impact of social media the ease of communication from the theater battle right back here to the homeland I would certainly agree with Andy I think the other thing that I find interesting is how professional it's become these folks are are really good at what they do they understand the market that they're operating in and they've designed products that appeal you know to westerners as opposed to people living in the west so it's the the increased professionalism with which they've used social media advertisement propaganda to reach the communities that they're trying to reach out to Dick any thoughts yeah both my colleagues are absolutely right in what they are saying it's not about changing ideology but social media and the brutality in which they also professionalist way they put themselves in on social media is really amazing and some other tracks and then there are the numbers at least from our point of view and a few other European countries as well we've seen some individual traveling to Pakistan Afghanistan but not that real contact with the Netherlands and with the France back now there are a lot of them are going over have strong context still so the whole aspect of this glorifying of the martyrdom in a context of this glorifying martyrdom is so very important and it's amazing that nobody says this is idiot and that there is somebody saying this should not be done we had a guy his residential was taken away before but he went on to the internet with five chopped heads I mean this is really amazing and I suppose we didn't see that before and it is being glorified and not being ridiculized so that's I think one part the other part is that it is in the context to say on the other hand that what they are doing is good and that they are trying to get rid of the regime and that they are trying to liberate Syria in which the western world plays its own role and they use that context somehow so that's fascinating as well and one thing we haven't talked about was the recent news reporting of the first American suicide bomber in theater as reported by the media which is a demonstration of what's been described let's now open it up for questions again identify yourself gentlemen in the back and please ask a succinct question we'll try to get as many as possible thank you very much Monser Slayman with El Mayadine TV to what extent this effort preventing or preventive measures goes against the announced policy in Syria if and we heard the president speak yesterday about supporting the moderate opposition what time that it has been discovered that you should resort to measure to stop terrorist or affiliated with Al Qaeda to go from western country and there is any effort with regional countries who are sending terrorist what kind of coordination is going on with those regional countries and what time how much effective if the policy is to invite people to go to Syria to support the opposition and what define moderate versus non-moderate in those groups couple of interesting questions there Frank I'm no longer in the State Department so it's an excellent question and I think I would answer it in this way first of all it's a global issue requiring global diplomatic cooperation and certainly our European partners Turkey, Tunisia Jordan, Morocco have all been engaged in a dialogue around the issues of how do we work together in countering the radicalization now as Andy mentioned it's not illegal to go to Syria and in certain cases people go there for legitimate humanitarian reasons the challenge is figuring out who goes there and for other purposes for the purposes of terrorist acts not only in the terrorist acts back against the homeland so it is a very difficult problem it is unlike problems we've faced in the past but it takes international cooperation which we are engaged in on a continuous basis but also understanding who may have been radicalized for the purposes of conducting terrorist actions back against their home countries as opposed to people who may be there legitimately for humanitarian reasons and are doing good work that needs to be done to help refugees and those sorts of things and trying to figure out who's who and who we need to be worried about as opposed to not to be worried about Up here in front this young lady from DIC I really appreciated listening to what you all had to say Andy you really hit home with me on what you were saying but one question I have is that why is it that we focus on the end place which is Syria and we really are not looking at the intelligence that they're using we use these buzzwords radicalization but we have to understand that the network that terrorism creates begins from within and here in our country they don't get to Syria alone we're not looking at it linked look at Mexico and Central America and the drug trade that goes on and the drug wars they're all linked together maybe we need to look at this more as a chain as links to this instead of focusing on hot spots because all of these hot spots just like the fires in California leap and they join together and they all use social media and the traditional ways in which we are approaching our intelligent ways they're beating us because we're not using we're not looking within we look at the actions of Edward Snowden as an isolated action but is it because the people who use social media are many are economically sound intellectually astute people and in order to promote any form of terrorism you need very bright people who are very capable to manipulate other minds who are not lesser minds but are more likely to be manipulated and we're not looking at it that way we need to listen to their music and we need to really follow social media from within. Excellent points and great question but just have to cut you off because I want to get to a couple more. Andy can you address this and maybe Dick talk about sort of this idea of hot spots and networking? Yeah sure absolutely agree with your comments about it's really a global jihad issue right so we're here obviously convened today to discuss Syria so a lot most of our comments are focused on the issues specifically surrounding Syria but I can assure you that the FBI and our partners at DHS and across the intelligence community particularly are focused on the impact of the most significant terror actors around the globe and and most important within that set is their impact here in the homeland. We are I think the days when we kind of I know internally the days when we chop things up regionally and you know the Pakistan folks didn't talk to the Iraq folks and I kind of said those days are over and we take a very holistic I'll reach back to my organized crime days in New York we take an enterprise approach to the way we investigate these groups and their activities so we're far more interested in the individuals who are recruiting and facilitating that travel because it gives us the opportunity to look into a network but oftentimes we find ourselves forced to focus on an individual who poses a threat or a threat of travel now and so those are kind of the disruption activities that you see publicly but I can assure you are very focused on the network behind the activity. Maybe one small comment because I agree with Andy but the other thing that's happening is that if you want to get up front on the terrorist question you have to go to the radicalization process as well because the radicalization itself is not something that is organized from one organization whatsoever that's much more difficult you have to look into also the psychological effects you have to a total different way of reaching out to individuals try to understand what's happening in their minds in their heads why they radicalize and then make the other steps along the chain and go into terrorism that's very hard work I would also add and your points well taken and I think we've learned a lot in the last 20 years about the enterprise of terrorism and how people move from being normal from being normal people to taking on irrational acts but many of the actions that begin that process are legal in our country it's a balancing act of privacy civil liberties and all the other things that make our country and our other partners our democracy so special so the balancing act of ensuring that protected behavior is protected and not intruded upon while you're still looking at the phenomenon that we all know it's not just for terrorism but how violent extremism starts and how it manifests itself is really the challenge that we all face going through I'm reminded every day that the thing that's unique in our country is our constitution and the rights that we guarantee to our citizens and that always has to be the first thing that we think about is we use the tools that our congress has given us to try to identify these folks and to interdict when something bad happens thank you Mark hi I'm Mark Hozenbaugh from Reuters Washington Bureau I had a couple questions number one for the American people what can you tell us if anything about the background of this person who killed himself in a suicide bombing apparently of the weekend in Syria there's reporting today that the guy's from Florida it's my understanding just as of a few minutes ago that the U.S. clearly knows who he is and that his family have been notified although his name has not been released what can you tell us about who he is how he got there second question is and this is both for the Americans and for Mr. Schluß to what extent have plots been discovered coming back towards people's countries of origins perpetrated by people who have been to Syria and then come back Andy maybe you can take the first one and Dick maybe the second I can take the first one it's not going to be an answer that you like I can't obviously it is an ongoing investigation and so I can't confirm any details about the individual or his background at this time Dick that was going to be my answer too Franco is trying to protect you Dick any anecdotes or plots that you can describe and answer question two? Anecdotes or plots are two different things but I love the answer by the way I think we have the same experience there have been some official press releases related to possible plots in Europe in Europe two more quick questions please this gentleman in the back good morning my name is Bassam I'm a former Syrian diplomat actually I want to answer your last questions what's the difference between ISIS and other ISIS we saw in Afghanistan or in Iraq in ISIS in Damascus or in Syria basically what we do we do mapping of the conflict we do mapping for ISIS where are they here in DC they are getting land and territory in Syria they have now school they have hospitals they declare winner they are moving to establish their own state they are not losing nobody is attacking them in Raqqa they are far away from the regime forces one mile and they are controlling all the water sources or the oil sources wheat sources they have schools hospitals the people pay bills so that's what make them different from Iraq where they were enter heavy attack or in Afghanistan and that's what make them asking other jihadis from all over the world to come because they are winner Assad forces not attacking them the other moderate forces are very weak and they have support from Iraq basically this is the most important thing what make other people to go to join they are not under attack they are winning they are getting a lot of resources thank you good let me maybe convert that into a quick question what do you see of this conflict the potential that you have safe haven and the narrative of ongoing victory and establishment of an actual state in the context of the foreign fighter flow dick as I said in an introduction the threat is going to be sustained and one of the reason is that the conflict in Syria will sustain for quite a while and the two major issues that you were concerned about are more or less in combat and the European terrorist fighters are also fighting each other so that creates even more and more conflict that will stay for quite a long time absolutely we are concerned about it at the end of the day the conflict drives the narrative and the narrative drives the motivation to our HVEs and as the conflict shows no signs of resolution the narrative goes on and its impact gets deeper and deeper on the populations we are concerned about one last question Mr. Salufo in the back please Frank Salufo thank you for an excellent panel the conversation here couldn't have been had two years ago so kudos to all the good work my question is primarily for dick but as it applies domestically and returnees how are you addressing some of the returnees coming to the Netherlands if you can give us a sense of numbers and then specifically how we can integrate some of those efforts into our state and local efforts because Andy I think you were spot on ultimately they are the first line but they are also going to be the last line of defense at some point so dick anything you can do and also from the narrative you were saying we are not pushing back it to be part of that narrative to respond to those who may be inclined to go in that direction if you allow me when somebody returns what we don't do is administrative detention in some European countries it's in debate whether you should return immediately put in administrative detention so the police and intelligence service can question and maybe you can build your prosecution case to court we don't do unless we have but that's not administrative detention we have enough evidence that the prosecution can immediately act what we do is when an individual returns we make a multi-team local authority national authorities police intelligence youth school whatsoever and trying to assess what the risk of this individual is and on basis on that assessment making sure what we can do and as I said before sometimes it will be very impressive and he will be on 24-7 surveillance from either intelligence or police or law enforcement but on the other hand it could be as well to make sure that he get a job and get his life on and only a slow monitoring on it and I think that's very important because it has to be individual and lucky enough with the numbers we still can when it becomes thousands it becomes much more problematic in the Netherlands but 125, 150 we can still manage I suppose Andy do you want to comment? Sure as Dick mentioned it's an entirely each individual is very different as people return from Syria if we have information that leads to the predication of an initial investigation which we refer to as an assessment we'll certainly do that to try to get a sense of whether or not this individual actually poses a threat or has violated the criminal laws of the United States that is very tough to do I certainly cannot tell you that we'll maintain a particular level of surveillance investigation on any number of folks we're very well aware of the fact that as the conflict continues and those numbers continue to grow that will quickly outstrip our abilities to aggressively investigate there's only so many there's only so many resources that we have but nevertheless individuals who when we have information that they have affiliated with terrorist organizations and engaged in terrorist activities overseas we will investigate and pursue those individuals and ensure that they face justice for that activity those are crimes here in the United States even if you've done it overseas and we'll take full advantage of all of our investigative tools to affect those results but those are rare cases and there are going to be many folks who come back who quite frankly our investigative options are limited in terms of what we can do with those individuals yeah I asked the chair if I can make one last remark about international cooperation because that's important as well and it put a lot of stress on local and individual but international cooperation is also key of course within the European Union and we work quite a lot and also together with the European terrorism coordinator, Schilder-Kerkhofer but what is also very important for us is the work we are doing within the global counter terrorist forum which is headed by the United States in Turkey and within that in the so-called workstream violent extremism we have a Moroccan Dutch initiative on the foreign terrorist fighters which really is trying to grasp the more I think you mentioned holistic view in which we can work together and trying to get this problem really at our hands and that's very important because Turkey and Moroccan are so involved and we had for two weeks ago we had a meeting with some ministers in European Union countries which were really involved in this question and I did accompany the minister of security and justice of the Netherlands and there were also DHS was there at the level of deputy secretary Tunisi was there, Morocco was there Turkey, Jordan so we really have to work very closely together and see what we can do and what we would like to make Well wonderful, I think we could go on for hours the fortunate thing is we've got another hour of the conference led by Dr. John Alterman our Brzezinski chair here at CSIS we reached deep into stoppage time so apologies to the next panel but the lifting of the wall served us well I think help me to thank the panelists, thank the Dutch embassy and DHS for their sponsorship and please help me thank the panelists