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Survey of Terrorist Groups and Their Means of Financing
SURVEY OF TERRORIST GROUPS AND THEIR MEANS OF FINANCING HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM AND ILLICIT FINANCE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services Serial No. 115–116 ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 31–576 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 VerDate Mar 15 2010 14:03 Dec 06, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 G:\GPO PRINTING\DOCS\115TH HEARINGS - 2ND SESSION 2018\2018-09-07 TIF TERRO mcarroll on FSR431 with DISTILLER HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina, MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking Vice Chairman Member PETER T. KING, New York CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York EDWARD R. ROYCE, California NYDIA M. VELA´ ZQUEZ, New York FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma BRAD SHERMAN, California STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York BILL POSEY, Florida MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin DAVID SCOTT, Georgia STEVE STIVERS, Ohio AL GREEN, Texas RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota ANN WAGNER, Missouri ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado ANDY BARR, Kentucky JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania BILL FOSTER, Illinois LUKE MESSER, Indiana DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio MIA LOVE, Utah DENNY HECK, Washington FRENCH HILL, Arkansas JUAN VARGAS, California TOM EMMER, Minnesota JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey LEE M. -
True and False Confessions: the Efficacy of Torture and Brutal
Chapter 7 True and False Confessions The Efficacy of Torture and Brutal Interrogations Central to the debate on the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques is the question of whether those techniques are effective in gaining intelligence. If the techniques are the only way to get actionable intelligence that prevents terrorist attacks, their use presents a moral dilemma for some. On the other hand, if brutality does not produce useful intelligence — that is, it is not better at getting information than other methods — the debate is moot. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation technique program. There are far fewer people who defend brutal interrogations by the military. Most of the military’s mistreatment of captives was not authorized in detail at high levels, and some was entirely unauthorized. Many military captives were either foot soldiers or were entirely innocent, and had no valuable intelligence to reveal. Many of the perpetrators of abuse in the military were young interrogators with limited training and experience, or were not interrogators at all. The officials who authorized the CIA’s interrogation program have consistently maintained that it produced useful intelligence, led to the capture of terrorist suspects, disrupted terrorist attacks, and saved American lives. Vice President Dick Cheney, in a 2009 speech, stated that the enhanced interrogation of captives “prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.” President George W. Bush similarly stated in his memoirs that “[t]he CIA interrogation program saved lives,” and “helped break up plots to attack military and diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States.” John Brennan, President Obama’s recent nominee for CIA director, said, of the CIA’s program in a televised interview in 2007, “[t]here [has] been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures. -
America's Illicit Affair with Torture
AMERICA’S ILLICIT AFFAIR WITH TORTURE David Luban1 Keynote address to the National Consortium of Torture Treatment ProGrams Washington, D.C., February 13, 2013 I am deeply honored to address this Group. The work you do is incredibly important, sometimes disheartening, and often heartbreaking. Your clients and patients have been alone and terrified on the dark side of the moon. You help them return to the company of humankind on Earth. To the outside world, your work is largely unknown and unsung. Before saying anything else, I want to salute you for what you do and offer you my profound thanks. I venture to guess that all the people you treat, or almost all, come from outside the United States. Many of them fled to America seekinG asylum. In the familiar words of the law, they had a “well-founded fear of persecution”—well- founded because their own Governments had tortured them. They sought refuge in the United States because here at last they would be safe from torture. Largely, they were right—although this morninG I will suGGest that if we peer inside American prisons, and understand that mental torture is as real as physical torture, they are not as riGht as they hoped. But it is certainly true that the most obvious forms of political torture and repression are foreign to the United States. After all, our constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishments, and our Supreme Court has declared that coercive law enforcement practices that “shock the conscience” are unconstitutional. Our State Department monitors other countries for torture. -
“THE REPORT” Viewer Information and Discussion Guide
“THE REPORT” Viewer Information and Discussion Guide PAGE 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS BACKGROUND --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 2 CHARACTER DETAILS Daniel J. Jones --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 3 Dianne Feinstein ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ page 4 Denis McDonough ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 5 John Owen Brennan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 6 James Elmer Mitchell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 7 Martin Heinrich --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 7 George Tenet ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 8 Sheldon Whitehouse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- page 9 John A. Rizzo --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
Ali Soufan (Former FBI Special Agent) 7.5.12
Ali Soufan (Former FBI Special Agent) 7.5.12 Q: I had asked you about the assertion that, not that you disagreed with that point of view as expressed by Rodriguez and those others, but at how the facts were at odds with the truth, I believe. How so? A: There’s nothing new, if you read what the proponents of enhanced interrogation techniques are saying, there’s nothing new. It’s the same story, being repeated again and again. Q: Nothing ‘new,’ I’m sorry, you said… A: There’s nothing new, nothing new whatsoever. Not with Mr. Rodriguez, not before him with some other people who also wrote books and had allegedly access to one side of the story. People who are talking about these kind of things, really, were never there, never saw what’s happening, never saw what’s going on. And I like to talk only about the Abu Zubaydah situation because… for two reasons: number one is Abu Zubaydah’s case has been used as the case study of success. Number two, it was a case that I was involved in, before I got PNG’ed (made persona non grata, ie expelled) from the program. So that’s why I don’t talk about what happened with KSM or what happened… you know, I let the facts talk about themselves with all the declassified documents from the CIA, from the FBI, from DoJ, from the military. The facts are there. But I talk about Abu Zubaydah because I was there. And there were claims that the identity of KSM came because of waterboarding. -
Countering Violent Extremism the Counter Narrative Study
! COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM THE COUNTER NARRATIVE STUDY “Countering the Narratives of Violent Extremism FOREWORD The Achilles’ heel of our strategy against terrorism and violent extremism has been the failure to counter the narratives that groups use to recruit. As long as groups attract a steady stream of new members, the terrorism and violence will continue. This is why the strategy known as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is so important, and must be used as a counterterrorism tool alongside military, intelligence, and law enforcement operations. Through our partnership with the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies (QIASS), we offer critical guidance to those wishing to counter the narratives of violence and extremism. “Countering Violent Extremism: The Counter-Narrative Study” is the result of a year- long research project conducted by our team of former top law enforcement, intelligence, and counterterrorism officials. We traveled around the world, from Malaysia to Kenya to Norway to Northern Ireland to the United States, studying extremist and terrorist groups and interviewing their members, as well as those in government and other important stakeholders responsible for tackling the problem. As you will see from our “Findings,” we’ve put together some essential lessons. One of the most important takeaways is understanding the pattern(s) behind group recruitment. Terrorist and extremist groups first prey on local grievances—exploiting feelings of anger, humiliation, resentment, or lack of purpose. They then incorporate, into their violent pronouncements, conspiratorial messages that blame those they are targeting. Self-proclaimed religious groups use distorted religious edicts in their narratives. Recruiters achieve success by providing both answers and a sense of purpose to vulnerable individuals. -
2018.12.03 Bonner Soufan Complaint Final for Filing 4
Case 1:18-cv-11256 Document 1 Filed 12/03/18 Page 1 of 19 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X : : RAYMOND BONNER and ALEX GIBNEY, Case No. 18-cv-11256 : Plaintiffs, : : -against- : : COMPLAINT CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, : : Defendant. : : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X INTRODUCTION 1. This complaint for declaratory relief arises out of actions taken by defendant Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) that have effectively gagged the speech of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) Special Agent Ali Soufan in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The gag imposed upon Mr. Soufan is part of a well-documented effort by the CIA to mislead the American public about the supposedly valuable effects of torture, an effort that has included deceptive and untruthful statements made by the CIA to Executive and Legislative Branch leaders. On information and belief, the CIA has silenced Mr. Soufan because his speech would further refute the CIA’s false public narrative about the efficacy of torture. 2. In 2011, Mr. Soufan published a personal account of his service as a top FBI interrogator in search of information about al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Soufan’s original manuscript discussed, among other things, his role in the FBI’s interrogation of a high-value detainee named Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn, more commonly known as Abu Zubaydah. Soufan was the FBI’s lead interrogator of Zubaydah while he was being held at Case 1:18-cv-11256 Document 1 Filed 12/03/18 Page 2 of 19 a secret CIA black site. -
How Congress Can Counter Violent White Supremacy Today
GETTY IMAGES/NATHAN HOWARD GETTY IMAGES/NATHAN How Congress Can Counter Violent White Supremacy Today By Simon Clark, Karuna Nandkumar, and James Lamond October 2020 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG Contents 1 Introduction and summary 5 Recommended legislative actions 10 Recommended congressional hearings 13 Conclusion 18 About the authors 19 Endnotes Introduction and summary Authors’ note: The Center for American Progress is taking part in a long-term project to generate a biparti- san policy blueprint to address violent white supremacy which we plan to release in the spring of 2021. In the process of formulating recommendations for the future, we examined the work that has been undertaken in the 116th Congress. This report provides a starting point for short-term legislative efforts that can be completed this year and a legislative agenda for the 117th Congress to capitalize on the work that the 116th has already done. From the Ku Klux Klan’s campaign of terror against African Americans follow- ing the Civil War to the anti-government bombing in Oklahoma City, terrorism and political violence have been a part of American history for generations. Since 2001, America has focused intently on countering a different form of terrorism— specifically, a form of terrorism practiced most prominently by al-Qaida and later the Islamic State (IS) group. After the September 11 attacks, there was a consensus that this form of terrorism presented the clearest threat to the U.S. homeland— and the U.S. government was willing to take unprecedented measures to counter the threat. Some actions, such as the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, were proportionate and successful; others deeply undermined U.S. -
Looming Tower (3/13/2018)
Looming Tower (3/13/2018) 00:00:21 Alice Greenwald: Good evening. My name is Alice Greenwald. I'm president and C.E.O. of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to tonight's program, along with those who are tuning in live via our live web broadcast at 911memorial.org/live. As always, I'm delighted to see our museum members in the audience, and I believe one of our board members, Paula Grant Berry, is also here with us this evening, so welcome. 00:00:53 I am personally very excited about tonight's program. Years ago, when we were in the earliest stages of envisioning the museum, Lawrence Wright's book "The Looming Tower" was a narrative we turned to again and again. We were barely five years beyond the 9/11 attacks, and this book provided a cogent historical context we could not find anywhere else. 00:01:21 Wright's perceptive narrative and his insight surrounding al-Qaeda and the efforts to track the group both before and after 9/11 deeply informed our understanding of these topics. It is hardly an overstatement to say that "The Looming Tower" sits on many bookshelves in the museum offices. We recognize the significance of this story within the overall narrative of 9/11 and are tremendously thankful to producers Dan Futterman and Alex Gibney for sharing it in such a vivid and engaging format on Hulu. 00:01:55 We are also truly privileged to host tonight's conversation, and I'd like to take a moment to introduce our panelists. -
Al Qaeda and U.S. Policy: Middle East and Africa
Al Qaeda and U.S. Policy: Middle East and Africa Clayton Thomas Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs February 5, 2018 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R43756 Al Qaeda and U.S. Policy: Middle East and Africa Summary After a more than a decade and a half of combating Al Qaeda (AQ) in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States faces a diverse array of threats from Al Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East and Africa. While senior Al Qaeda figures reportedly remain based in Pakistan, the network includes a number of affiliates across the Middle East and Africa including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and Al Shabaab. Al Qaeda also retains a small but possibly growing presence in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have stated that Al Qaeda still maintains a foothold in Syria through its ties to Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (formerly known as the Nusra Front), though the exact nature of that relationship may be evolving. This report examines the threat posed by Al Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East and Africa as described by U.S. officials and outside observers, as well as the U.S. approach to date in responding to these threats. The rise of the Islamic State and its rapid territorial expansion across Syria and Iraq has at times eclipsed the attention directed towards Al Qaeda, at least in the public debate. However, U.S. officials have warned that Al Qaeda remains focused on attacking the United States, and that some of its affiliates in the Middle East have the capability to do so. -
The Black Banners: Inside the Hunt for Al-Qaeda by Ali H Soufan and Daniel Freedman Review By: Richard Phelps Source: Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol
Terrorism Research Institute Review Reviewed Work(s): The Black Banners: Inside the Hunt for Al-Qaeda by Ali H Soufan and Daniel Freedman Review by: Richard Phelps Source: Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 6, No. 1, Thematic Issue on Terrorism and the Internet (March 2012), pp. 104-105 Published by: Terrorism Research Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/26298559 Accessed: 06-07-2018 13:16 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms This article is licensed under a Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/. Terrorism Research Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Perspectives on Terrorism This content downloaded from 132.229.180.41 on Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:16:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 6, Issue 1 Book Reviews Ali H Soufan and Daniel Freedman. The Black Banners: Inside the Hunt for Al-Qaeda. London: Allen Lane / W.W. Norton; 2011 572 pp. ISBN 1846145023. £25; US$ 38.99 Reviewed by Richard Phelps As a native Arabic speaker familiar with the societies of the Middle East, Ali Soufan was relatively unusual among FBI agents in the pre-9/11 era. -
2020 Annual Report
THE SOUFAN CENTER ANNUAL REPORT 2020 www.thesoufancenter.org TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 Letter from the Founder 03 02 Letter from the Executive Director 05 03 About the Center 07 04 TSC’s Reach in 2020 09 The Soufan Center is an independent non-profit 05 Policy Engagement: Local Impact 11 center offering research, analysis, and strategic 06 Policy Engagement: Global Reach 13 dialogue on global security challenges and 07 Academic Institutions and Conferences 15 08 Research and IntelBriefs 17 foreign policy issues. 09 Global Security Forum 21 10 Projects 23 11 In the News 27 12 The Soufan Center Board of Directors 31 The Soufan Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER I cannot be prouder of what The Soufan Center (TSC) has It is safe to say that 2020 kept TSC busy. Of note, I was honored to be invited to accomplished during an especially trying year. Through our brief the U.S. Congress twice, for which we provided expert opinion and policy work, TSC has managed to contribute to the development recommendations on how terrorist organizations and violent extremist actors seek of sustainable, ethical domestic and international policy to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenges of U.S. counterterrorism solutions that make the world safer. My goal is for TSC to cooperation with Saudi Arabia under the de-facto leadership of Mohammed bin serve as a resource for practitioners, academics, media, Salman. and other stakeholders on a broad range of complex issues facing governments and civil society—from While the pandemic significantly impaired travel across the globe, I am pleased to international and domestic terrorism to matters related report that The Soufan Center officially launched three locally focused projects in to law enforcement and cyber security, as well as human, the Middle East and beyond.