ANSWERS FROM THE SHADOW OF DEATH

People have always told Jessica Stern their secrets. What they told her about terror can make all of us a little safer.

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 40 2/1/17 2:20 PM Winter–Spring 2017 BOSTONIA 41

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 41 2/6/17 10:58 AM By Sara Rimer to do was to show he could domi- George Clooney, she is brainy, PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACKIE RICCIARDI nate me,” says Stern, recalling fl uent in Russian, hyperfocused, that meeting in early 2015, a and pretty. Unlike Kidman’s hu- four-hour marathon so intense morless know-it-all bureaucrat, that even as interviewer and in- Stern is warm, self-deprecating, terlocutor parried over countless and quick to laugh, at herself as cups of coff ee and tea, neither got often as not. Her students say up to use the bathroom. she’s a rock star—and a regular Stern was pursuing her own person. She calls herself a nerd. agenda: to understand the hid- Like Karadžić, Stern is trained den motivations behind the story in the art of energy healing— Karadžić insisted upon, the story Reiki, in her case—although in which he is the martyred hero, she didn’t tell him that. Sitting forced to defend his vulnerable at the table with Karadžić behind Serb countrymen against the her, she tried to focus on the en- IN A powerful Bosnian Muslims con- 5 ergy fl owing through her palms. spiring to establish an Islamist “There are 8,000 dead boys and room inside a maximum security state within the heart of Europe. Ways to men in the room with me,” she prison in The Hague, Jessica She wanted to understand how says. It occurred to her, in pass- Stern, a small woman in a conser- he had been able to simultane- Counter ISIS ing, that Karadžić could probably vative black pantsuit, was seated ously justify and deny his role in Propaganda strangle her if he wanted to. The across a wooden table from Rado- overseeing a campaign of crimes guard seated just outside the door van Karadžić, the Bosnian Serb against humanity—serial rape, of their meeting room never even warlord convicted of war crimes torture, death camps, ethnic looked up from his magazine. and crimes against humanity. He cleansing, murder—in his drive 1 “He asks me, ‘What do you feel was found guilty of genocide for to force Bosnian Muslims and Amplify the sto- in your palms?’” says Stern. “I the massacre of 8,000 Muslim Croats out of villages considered ries of defectors say, ‘Nothing.’ I see the look on men and boys at Srebrenica in critical to Serb interests. and refugees his face, and I realize I got an F. from the ISIS- July 1995. At 70, Karadžić was Looking at him, Stern told controlled I’m so devastated, and then I re- still an imposing man, 6-foot-4, Karadžić she was game for territory. Stories alize, omigod, I wanted an A from barrel-chested, with his trade- energy healing. about the hor- this war criminal.” mark mane of white hair intact. He got up from the table and rifi c real lives This is how Stern works. To Stern is a research professor at stood behind her. He instructed of jihadi wives combat evil, she writes in her BU’s Frederick S. Pardee School her to hold her hands in her lap, need to be told, book Terror in the Name of by women who of Global Studies and one of the palms up. “‘Focus on the center God: Why Religious Militants manage to Kill world’s leading scholars of ter- of your palms,’” she recalls him run away. (Ecco, 2003), it is neces- rorism and other forms of violent saying. “‘Think about God, and if sary to understand it from the extremism. The United Nations you don’t believe in God, focus on inside out. To combat , International Criminal Tribunal someone you really love.’” she believes, it is necessary to for the former Yugoslavia, in Karadžić raised his massive 2 understand the motivations and The Hague—the court that had hands in the air, just inches above Take on ISIS’ grievances behind the religious sentenced Karadžić to 40 years Stern’s head, and moved them, convoluted and political narratives terrorists in prison—granted her permis- palms down, slowly apart and version of Islam off er. To do that, she has spent in a way that sion to interview the former Serb together, back and forth. appeals to more than 20 years meeting leader for a book she is writing potential re- with war criminals and terror- examining the history behind his cruits. Religious ists—Muslims, Hindus, Chris- role in the Balkan war. MEETING WITH TERRORISTS scholars often tians, Jews, neo-Nazis, white Karadžić is a psychiatrist, a In the 1997 fi lm The Peacemaker, present their ar- supremacists, anarchists—in poet, and a devout Orthodox Nicole Kidman plays a govern- guments against the fi eld and in prisons, in Bel- “ISIS Islam” in Christian. He is also a liar and a ment scientist based on Stern’s gium, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, a way that is charismatic master manipulator. role at the National Security boring to the Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and During his 13 years as a fugitive Council during the fi rst Clinton young people the United States. She is one of war criminal in Belgrade, he had administration, when she was drawn to ISIS only a handful of scholars in this transformed himself into a New director for Russian, Ukrainian, propaganda. country who are willing to talk Age guru. Now, in the interview and Eurasian aff airs and head At least some of to terrorists. room where he had been holding of a nuclear weapons smuggling these potential Monitoring her own responses recruits can forth on the glorious Serb past, response unit. Like her movie during her interviews—a tech- be reached via Karadžić abruptly announced counterpart, who chases down a social media. nique Stern honed at the Mas- that he wanted to show her how nuclear weapons–stealing Bos- sachusetts Institute for Psycho- he’d worked as an energy healer. nian terrorist with a US military analysis—her mind and body “I think what he really wanted intelligence offi cer played by become a medium, uncovering

42 BOSTONIA Winter–Spring 2017

28-51 Bostonia_WS17_r1.indd 42 2/7/17 10:17 AM truths that may not be revealed in words. She develops insights into how violent extremists think—insights that US national security and law enforcement offi cials and those in other countries view as important for their work countering terror- ism. That Karadžić could elicit, even in her, a feeling of wanting an A—of wanting his approval— told her something about how he had been able to persuade masses of Serbs to believe what he was telling them: that Bosnian Mus- lims constituted a threat. INNATE LISTENING TALENT People have always told Stern their secrets. She has a bach- elor’s in chemistry from , a master’s in chemical engineering and technology policy from MIT, and a doctorate in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. But she credits her innate listen- ing talent, and her intense curi- Stern, with curious about the terrorists the girls. It wasn’t until he put on one of her osity, more than her academic Jack Russell themselves. She had been poring a paramilitary uniform that he degrees, in serving her research. terriers, tells over the court records of Kerry felt like a man. “Jessica began writing and her students Noble, a former leader of a para- “The idea of being violent in to think like working on terrorism at a time a terrorist. military fundamentalist Chris- order to feel macho—it seems so when there was little research, It’s a way to tian group that wanted to wage pat,” says Stern. “I didn’t expect and what was available was only understand war against blacks, Jews, and the it to be true.” why they do of interest to a small community,” what they US government and had been Talking with members of other says Daniel L. Byman, a senior do and how planning to poison municipal wa- violent extremist groups, she fellow at the Brookings Institu- to counter ter supplies with cyanide in 1985 honed an ability to suspend judg- violent tion’s Center for Middle East extremism. before law enforcement offi cials ment during interviews, to em- Policy and a professor in George- broke up the cult and arrested pathize fully—not to be confused town University’s Edmund A. the leaders. After several years in with sympathy, she stresses—so Walsh School of Foreign Service prison, Noble had renounced the that she could follow the mistak- security studies program. “She cult and been released and was en logic that leads perpetrators to quickly emerged as deeply knowl- living in a trailer park in Texas. commit horrifi c acts of violence. edgeable and as someone willing “I decided to call up Kerry Stern has learned that terrorists to take on extremely tough topics Noble and ask him what he may be motivated by reasons that that required hard research.” thought he was doing,” Stern have little to do with religious or Stern, who serves on the recalls. “Then I went to Texas to political ideology. They may be Task Force on see him. I had no training what- driven by fear, love, hate, friend- National Security and Law, was soever. That’s not what people ship, idealism, trauma, a search trained to do what most academ- in my world did. But I wanted to for identity—or a job—a craving ics who study terrorism do— understand the story from his for adventure and glamour, or by conduct quantitative studies perspective, to understand why greed for money, land, or power. based on data, much of it con- he did what he did. You don’t un- For others, violence is seen as a tained in government incident derstand why in a deep way from cleansing force that purifi es the reports on bombings and other the court records.” world of evil. She identifi ed per- attacks. In the mid-1990s, how- Over dinner at his home, Noble ceived humiliation—either of an ever, after a decade of working on told Stern that he had been a entire group or of an individual, how to keep chemical, biological, sickly child who had felt humil- as with Kerry Noble—as a strong and nuclear weapons out of the iated by being made to take ele- risk factor for terrorism. hands of terrorists, she became mentary school gym class with In the late 1990s, she began

Winter–Spring 2017 BOSTONIA 43

28-51 Bostonia_WS17_r1.indd 43 2/7/17 10:17 AM meeting with terrorists at train- Her answer was no. Why she ing camps and religious schools didn’t feel afraid in such obvi- in Pakistan for her research for ously dangerous situations was Terror in the Name of God. In a question she had not yet asked summer 2000, in Islamabad, she herself. The answer was in her sat on a dirty fl oor in an unfur- own traumatic past. nished room, drinking buff alo- When Stern was three years milk tea with Fazlur-Rehman old, her mother died of cancer. Khalil, whose organization was When she was 15, and her sister linked to al-Qaeda and who was 14, a stranger entered their considered Concord, Mass., home. Their a friend. (Khalil was the last stepmother was out. Their father, person bin Laden called on his who was a physicist, was away on cell phone before he was killed, business. The stranger cut the the CIA would later discover.) He phone lines and raped both girls told Stern, who is Jewish, that he at gunpoint. The Concord police admired Hitler. He insisted that seemed skeptical of their ac- he wasn’t a terrorist. Stern knew count, and for years the case that Khalil, like other terrorists, went unsolved. wanted to use her to broadcast Stern thought she had moved his scripted public relations mes- on, but in her mid-40s, she found sage. Hoping to disarm him with In her mid-40s, the subject from a variety of herself feeling emotionally an innocuous question, she asked Stern found perspectives, including econom- numb. A therapist suggested she herself feeling if she could meet his second wife. emotionally ics, sociology, and criminology. had PTSD, a diagnosis Stern ini- To her surprise, he agreed. numb. At fi rst, “Jessica remained a go-to person tially rejected. Around the same His house turned out to be a she rejected for experts and laypeople alike,” time, she became curious about a therapist’s luxurious mansion. His beautiful suggestion he says. “Her work is broad and the man who’d raped her, and she young wife told Stern, in perfect that she had versatile, and in contrast to many requested her case record from English, that her family had been PTSD. Then she voices, engaging and nuanced.” the Concord police. Reading the became curious. living in Saudi Arabia when she fi le in order to redact it, a police was introduced to Khalil. He lieutenant named Paul Macone acknowledged that he went on OWNING THE DARKNESS realized the rapist might still be fundraising trips to Saudi Arabia. Stern, whose most recent book is at large. In 2006, he reopened Stern realized he was making ISIS: The State of Terror (Ecco, the case—and with Stern’s help, money off of jihad. 2015), applies what she learns solved it. It turned out that the “I started out thinking that ter- during her interviews to scholarly man who raped Stern had been rorism was 100 percent about the analyses across several disci- convicted of three other rapes, ideology and true believers, and I plines: international relations, served 18 years in prison, and learned that there’s a spectrum,” history, religion, political sci- killed himself after his release. says Stern, a member of the ence, psychology, national secu- Based on the evidence, Macone Aspen Homeland Security Group, rity. In addition to her books, she concluded that Stern’s rapist had a bipartisan group of experts on publishes articles in academic committed 44 rapes in Massachu- counterterrorism that advises journals and mainstream media setts between 1971 and 1973. the Secretary of Homeland Se- such as and Stern’s third book, Denial curity. “There are some true . (Ecco, 2010), a memoir of her in- believers, like Kerry Noble, but “What Jessica really works on vestigation into her rape, and her then there are people for whom is why do some people take on own trauma, answered the ques- it’s about pure profi t or power. this horrifi c level of violence in tion of why she had been able to This jihadi leader was just taking the name of a belief?” says Adil meet with terrorists in Pakistan advantage of ignorant youth.” Najam, Pardee School dean and a without feeling afraid—and why She made her last trip to College of Arts & Sciences profes- she had been drawn to interview- Pakistan, to talk to terrorists sor of international relations and ing violent men in the fi rst place. linked to bin Laden’s group, in of earth and environment. “What “I wanted to contribute to society August 2001. A lecturer at the are their motivations, their rea- rather than remain stuck in the Kennedy School at the time, she sons, the arguments they make past, cringing in terror,” she joined a small group of experts to themselves?” writes. “And yet, ironically, terror expressing growing concerns After Terror in the Name of became my central preoccupa- about al-Qaeda and bin Laden. God came out, Stern kept fi elding tion. I felt compelled to under- After 9/11, the fi eld of terrorism the same question: wasn’t she stand the deeper motivations of studies expanded rapidly, Byman afraid when she visited terrorist those who hurt others. Instead of says, with people approaching training camps in Pakistan? feeling terror, I studied it.”

44 BOSTONIA Winter–Spring 2017

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 44 2/1/17 2:20 PM In writing Denial, she studied, prison and began corresponding globalization, and opposition is and reexperienced, her own long- with Stern after he was released. growing all over the world. This suppressed terror. After under- “I think we should do what nativism versus globalization is going treatment for PTSD, she Jessica does—talk to terrorists,” one of the reasons for Brexit, for learned to recognize the sensa- Morton says. “Primary source 3 the rise of protectionist and far- tion of fear. She stopped meeting data collection is the only way to Highlight ISIS’ right parties.” with terrorists in the fi eld—she understand.” hypocrisy She approached their fi nal was no longer willing to take such The students pepper him with that claims to interviews with “this grandiose promote the risks—but she continues to talk questions about his deradicaliza- supposed fantasy that I was going to be with them in prisons. “A lot of tion. He talks about his debates in puritanical the one to get this war criminal people can’t talk to perpetrators,” prison with “the BA girls”—staff virtue of chas- to apologize,” she says. “I asked she says. “I’m good at it. But I from the behavioral assessment tity by whipping him, ‘What if you could say can’t talk to victims. I can’t be in unit. “They had all their precon- women who do something to the entire world that space.” ceived notions about how it’s all not wear appro- about the dangers of ethno- priate ISIS attire Stern lives in Cambridge with about behavior,” he says. “They’d nationalism, or what you might and by execut- her 15-year-old son, her husband, say, ‘Ideology doesn’t mean any- ing gay men by do diff erently if you had to do it former US congressman Chet thing.’ I’d say, ‘It’s an important throwing them all over again?’ Atkins, and their two Jack Rus- thing. We live in a world of social off the tops of “He says, ‘I would not do any- sell terriers. “There’s the dog- media and ideas.’” buildings. ISIS thing diff erently. The Bosnian pajama-wearing mom and there’s Stern interrupts. “But you’re fi ghters commit Muslims wanted to establish an this terrorist expert who prob- an intellectual, Jesse. Not every- horrifying acts Islamist state—a jihadi state— of sexual abuse, ably shouldn’t be alive given the body drawn to jihadi groups is an in the middle of Europe. I was from sexual work she’s done,” says Atkins, intellectual like you.” slavery to the forced to defend my people.’” who, as she acknowledges in De- Morton fl ashes a grin. He says reported rape of Bosnian Serbs’ fears of an nial, helped her revisit her rape he told the BA girls that they men and wom- Islamist state were “not totally and work through her trauma. didn’t understand anything about en, both adults made up,” she says. “She’s able to be, to work, to what had drawn him to radical and children. She’s not suggesting Trump live, in two diff erent antitheti- Islamism. “They said, ‘Well, who could be the next Karadžić. But cal modalities. As a result of the do you want to talk to?’ I told she does believe the lessons violence and evil she’s seen, she’s them, ‘Bring me Jessica Stern. 4 learned in many hours at that particularly appreciative of beau- She gets it.’” Publicize wooden table in The Hague have ty and decency and kindness.” In early November, Stern is ISIS’ atroci- become timely. back in The Hague for three fi nal ties against “In some ways, this is an early Sunnis. Fully interviews with Karadžić, who is version of what’s happening now THE MIND OF A TERRORIST exploit aerial now being held at a UN deten- and electronic all over the world, including Think like a terrorist, Stern tells tion facility inside the maximum surveillance and in the United States,” she says. the 14 students in her Guerilla security prison. He is appealing remote imaging “We see whites fearing that Warfare and Terrorism seminar his sentence, claiming he was to document war their privileged position as the at the Pardee School. Put yourself not responsible for the killings crimes against majority is endangered in the Sunni Muslims in in their shoes. It’s the only way at Srebrenica and had never read same way Bosnian Serbs feared ISIS-controlled to understand why they do what the war directives issued in his regions. demographic shifts would result they do. It’s also important to fi g- name. Stern has met with him in their loss of majority status. uring out how to counter violent more than a dozen times since We see leaders emerging who are extremism, she says. October 2014, usually for four able to capitalize on those fears to At the end of September, hours a session over three con- 5 consolidate their own power. In Stern sits at the head of the class secutive days. Aggressively the case of Karadžić, his cam- with the day’s guest speaker, “Four hours is a really long suspend ISIS paign to restore the greatness Jesse C. Morton, who recruited time,” she says, describing her social media of Serbia—to make Serbia great accounts. Based Americans to al-Qaeda through visits to her students at their last on an analysis of again—led to mass violence. So I the Revolution Muslim website class before Thanksgiving. “I said trends of thou- think it’s a very important story he ran out of his apartment in to my husband, ‘When is the last sands of Twitter for us to contemplate today.” Brooklyn, N.Y., and was con- time we hung out and talked for accounts, sus- At the end of class, Stern takes victed of conspiracy and other four hours?’” pending extrem- a moment to ask whether anyone charges in 2012. Morton is now Meeting with Karadžić the day ist social media in the class has no place to go accounts limits involved in a US Department of after the 2016 US presidential on Thanksgiving. One young the audience for Justice experiment to counter election, “he tells me how happy ISIS’ gruesome woman, who is from India, shyly the pull of groups like ISIS and he is that Trump won,” Stern propaganda. raises her hand. “Come to my al-Qaeda and a research fellow at says. “He’s totally opposed to home,” says Stern, who would be George Washington University’s globalization, like most terror- cooking with friends and family. Program on Extremism. He had ist groups we study. But there “You’ll spend Thanksgiving read Terror in the Name of God in are many reasons to oppose with us.”

Winter–Spring 2017 BOSTONIA 45

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 45 2/1/17 2:20 PM