Twenty Years After 9/11: a Special Issue of CTC Sentinel
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OBJECTIVE ·· RELEVANT ·· RIGOROUS || JUNE/JULYSEPTEMBER 2018 2021 · VOLUME· VOLUME 11, 14, ISSUE ISSUE 6 7 Twenty Years After 9/11 A Special Issue of CTC Sentinel Reflections Analysis Michael Morell, Joseph Votel, Asfandyar Mir, Charles Lister, Dell Dailey, Ali Soufan, and Elisabeth Kendall, Tricia Bacon, Alex Younger Jason Warner, and Colin Clarke TWENTY YEARS AFTER 9/11: A SPECIAL ISSUE OF CTC SENTINEL Editor in Chief INTERVIEWS Paul Cruickshank 1 Reflections from Michael Morell, Former Acting Director of the CIA Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, and Kristina Hummel Managing Editor Kristina Hummel 6 Reflections from General (Ret) Joseph Votel, Former Commander of U.S. Central Command Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, and Kristina Hummel EDITORIAL BOARD 12 Reflections from Ambassador (Ret) Dell Dailey, Former Coordinator for Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, Ph.D. Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State Department Head Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, and Kristina Hummel Dept. of Social Sciences (West Point) 16 Reflections from Ali Soufan, Former FBI Special Agent Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, and Kristina Hummel Lieutenant Colonel Sean Morrow 22 Reflections from Alex Younger, Former Chief of the United Kingdom's Director, CTC Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Raffaello Pantucci Brian Dodwell Executive Director, CTC ANALYSIS 29 The Terror Threat from Afghanistan Post the Taliban Takeover Don Rassler Asfandyar Mir Director of Strategic Initiatives, CTC 44 The Fight for Supremacy in Northwest Syria and the Implications for This issue was produced with editorial Global Jihad Charles Lister support from CTC intern Owen Fahy. 63 The Jihadi Threat in the Arabian Peninsula Elisabeth Kendall CONTACT 76 The Threat in Africa—The New Epicenter of Global Jihadi Terror Combating Terrorism Center Tricia Bacon and Jason Warner U.S. Military Academy 91 What Is the Future of the Global Jihadi Movement? 607 Cullum Road, Lincoln Hall Colin P. Clarke West Point, NY 10996 Phone: (845) 938-8495 It has been 20 years since 9/11. In the wake of the attacks, the Combating Email: [email protected] Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) was established to provide cadets and policymakers with best-in-class research so that they could better Web: www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ understand and confront the threat. With the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan, with Africa emerging as the new epicenter of global jihadi terror, and with it likely becoming more difficult for the intelligence community to track threats in jihadi conflict zones from which the United States has SUBMISSIONS withdrawn militarily, objective and rigorous open-source research is more critical than ever. The CTC Sentinel welcomes submissions. To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, this special issue of CTC Sentinel, supported by the Recrudescence Project, features interviews with five former officials who have made immense Contact us at [email protected]. contributions to the counterterrorism enterprise: former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell, former CENTCOM Commander Joseph Votel, former State Department Coordinator for The views expressed in this report are Counterterrorism Dell Dailey, former FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan, and former Chief of the U.K. Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Sir Alex Younger. Their reflections on 9/11 and their lessons those of the authors and not of the U.S. learned across key parts of the counterterrorism spectrum—intelligence; military; diplomacy; Military Academy, the Department of the law enforcement—and across the Atlantic are essential reading. Video highlights of several of the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. interviews are available on the CTC website. The special issue also features five articles by leading scholars on the evolving global terror threat Government. landscape. Asfandyar Mir focuses on Afghanistan. Charles Lister examines Syria. Tricia Bacon and Jason Warner look at Africa. Elisabeth Kendall surveys Yemen and Saudi Arabia. And Colin Clarke Cover: The sun rises behind the skyline of evaluates the future of the global jihadi movement. On this anniversary, our deepest sympathies are with those who have lost loved ones to terrorism. lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty Responding to this threat, as General Votel puts it, has been a noble undertaking. We deeply in New York City on June 9, 2021. (Gary appreciate those who have served. Their sacrifices have saved countless lives. Paul Cruickshank, Editor in Chief Hershorn/Getty Images) SEPTEMBER 2021 CTC SENTINEL 1 Twenty Years After 9/11: Reflections from Michael Morell, Former Acting Director of the CIA By Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, and Kristina Hummel this was bin Ladin. Michael Morell served 33 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, The rest of that day for me was a mixture of the intensity of doing the last three-and-a-half as Deputy Director, a position from which my job with the surreal. An example of the intensity of doing my he ran the day-to-day operations of the Agency. Morell also served job is [that as] we were flying from Barksdale Air Force Base in as the Director for Intelligence, the Agency’s chief analyst; as the Louisiana—where Air Force One had landed to take on food and Executive Director, the CIA’s top administrator; and as Acting water, and to kick a lot of people off the plane because we didn’t Director twice. He is a senior fellow at the Combating Terrorism know how long we’d be flying around—to Offutt Air Force Base in Center at West Point. Omaha, Nebraska, the president asked to see me, alone. So, it was the president, it was his Chief of Staff Andy Card, and it was me in Editor’s Note: The following is the transcript of an oral interview his small office on Air Force One. [The] president looked me in the conducted ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It has been lightly eye, and he said, “Michael, who did this?” edited by CTC Sentinel. And I told him that I had not seen any intelligence that would take us to a perpetrator, but I’d be happy to give him my best CTC: On September 11, 2001, you were President Bush’s CIA assessment, and he said, “I understand the caveat. Now, move on.” briefer and would later serve as the deputy and acting director It’s very much of a George Bush thing to say. of the CIA. Can you talk us through how that day, 9/11, was for So I told him that there were two state sponsors of terrorism, you? The sense of purpose it created in you and your colleagues, Iran and Iraq, that had the capability to do this, but that in my view, and the ways you were able to contribute to the counterterrorism neither one of them had anything to gain and both of them had mission in the months and years that followed? And when you everything to lose from doing something like this. And so I said I reflect on the last 20 years and the range of actions that have did not believe it was one of those countries. I said, “I believe when transpired across that time, what are some of the key issues, we get to the end of the trail, Mr. President, we’re going to find al- themes, or moments that stand out to you personally? What are Qa`ida, and we’re going to find bin Ladin.” And I told him that I your most memorable highs and lows? was so confident of that that I would bet my children’s future on it. He then looked me in the eye again, and he said, “When will we Morell: I was with President Bush on 9/11. I was his daily know?” which is kind of a question you get from a president for intelligence briefer for one year, from January 4th, 2001, to January which there is no answer obviously. So I fell back on what analysts 4th, 2002. Briefed him six days a week, every morning, no matter are trained to do, which is to provide context. So I thought back where he was in the world—Oval Office, Camp David, his ranch about a handful of terrorist attacks on the United States previously in Texas, traveling domestically or internationally. So that put me and how long it took us to find out. So I told him the East African on Air Force One on September 10th when it went wheels up for embassy bombings, it took us two to three days to figure out that what was a political trip to Florida. I briefed him that morning it was al-Qa`ida. The bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of [of September 11, 2001] from 8:00 to 8:30. Contrary to some Yemen, I told them it took us several months to link that back to speculation that you’ll see from time to time on the internet, there al-Qa`ida in Afghanistan. And then I told him the Khobar Towers was nothing in that briefing at all with regard to al-Qa`ida or an attack in Saudi Arabia, it took us a full year to link that to Saudi attack or to terrorism in any way. Most of the briefing that day was Hezbollah and back to Tehran and the Iranians. So when you put about the Second Intifada between the Palestinians and the Israelis. all that context together, I told him, “Mr. President, we may know It was during that briefing, of course—and we didn’t know it soon, and then again, it may take some time.” at the time—that the first transponder on one of the four flights Later that evening, when we were flying back to Andrews was turned off.