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S. Hrg. 114–438 

JIHAD 2.0: SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE NEXT 

EVOLUTION OF TERRORIST RECRUITMENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 7, 2015 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Staff Director 

MARK K. HARRIS, U.S. Coast Guard Detailee 

DAVID S. LUCKEY, Director of Homeland Security 

CORY P. WILSON, U.S. Secret Service Detailee 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN. Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

HARLAN C. GEER, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 1 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 3 

Senator Sasse .................................................................................................... 21 

Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 23 

Senator Booker ................................................................................................. 25 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 28 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 30 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 43 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 44 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015 

Peter Bergen, Director, International Security Program, New America, and 

Professor of Practice, Arizona State University ................................................ 4 

J.M. Berger, Non-resident Fellow, Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic 

World, The Brookings Institution ....................................................................... 6 

Mubin Shaikh, Author, ‘‘Undercover Jihadi’’ ........................................................ 9 

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies ..................................................................................................................... 12 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Bergen, Peter: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

Berger, J.M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 65 

Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 89 

Shaikh, Mubin: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 71 

APPENDIX 

Information submitted by Mr. Shaikh ................................................................... 85 

Chart referenced by Senator Johnson .................................................................... 100 

Information submitted by Senator Booker ............................................................ 101 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Mr. Gartenstein-Ross ........... 104 

(1) 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

JIHAD 2.0: SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE NEXT 

EVOLUTION OF TERRORIST RECRUITMENT 

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Johnson, Portman, Ayotte, Ernst, Sasse, Carper, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing is called to order. 

I am looking at the title of the hearing, ‘‘Jihad 2.0: Social Media 

in the Next Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment.’’ Unfortunately, I 

think that is a wrong title. It is really the current evolution of terrorist recruitment. We have got a panel of, I think, some excellent 

witnesses to lay out the reality, which is what we are always trying 

to do in this Committee. If you are going to solve a problem, you 

have to first recognize and acknowledge that reality. And so I think 

we have a good panel. 

I would ask consent to enter my written prepared statement into 

the record,1 and it is always granted because our Ranking Member 

is such a kind gentleman. 

What I would like to do is talk a little bit about an the Islamic 

State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) message that warns of 71 trained 

soldiers in 15 U.S. States, 23 signed up for missions. I am just 

going to read some excerpts here because—first of all, let me say 

we have no knowledge whether this is true or not. I think some of 

our witnesses will probably say it is bluster. Let us hope so. But 

this is a perfect example of what ISIS is trying to do and how they 

are trying to use social media. 

And, of course, this is claiming credit for the terrorist attacks in 

Texas. Excerpts read: 

‘‘The attack by the Islamic State (IS) in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a province in the heart of our 

enemy.’’ 

‘‘We knew that the target was protected. Our intention was to 

show how easy we give our lives for the sake of Allah.’’ 
2 

1The chart referenced by Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

‘‘Out of the 71 trained soldiers, 23 have signed up for missions 

like Sunday. We are increasing in number.’’ 

‘‘Of the 15 States, 5 we will name: Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, 

California, and Michigan.’’ 

‘‘The disbelievers who shot our brothers think that you killed 

someone untrained. Nay. They gave their bodies in plain view because we were watching.’’ 

They go on to say: ‘‘The next 6 months will be interesting.’’ Let 

us hope not. 

As I am being briefed for this hearing—and, by the way, the reason we always call these hearings is I have questions. I need to understand what these problems are. So I am always learning a lot, 

and I am going to learn a lot more through the testimony. But I 

like timelines, and so I had my staff prepare just for 2015 the 

timeline of potential terrorist plots that have been foiled, the arrests that have been made of individuals who have been inspired 

by ISIS and other Islamic terrorists. 

If you go through the list, we had Christopher Lee from Cincinnati, Ohio, who was planning to come to the U.S. Capitol to 

bomb and then, with two semiautomatic weapons, open fire on people fleeing the Capitol. That was on January 14. 

February 25, three Brooklyn men were arrested. 

March 17, a former U.S. Air Force veteran was arrested after a 

failed attempt to cross the border into Syria. 

March 25, an Army National Guard specialist was arrested after 

planning to travel to Syria. 

April 2, two women were arrested in Queens, New York. 

April 3, a Philadelphia woman was arrested before she could 

travel to Syria. 

April 8, this one hits a little bit closer to home because this is 

a gentleman from Madison, Joshua Ray Van Haften, was arrested 

in Chicago O’Hare Airport after his flight landed from Turkey. 

April 10, John T. Booker was arrested in Topeka after it was discovered he was preparing a car bomb for use against nearby Fort 

Riley Army post. 

April 16, another indictment. 

April 19, six men arrested on terrorism charges. 

May 3, the Texas terrorist attempt. 

We have a chart1 that I think is also somewhat surprising. So, 

again, the point of that timeline is these arrests, the revelations of 

these things are growing, and they are increasing in frequency. 

Another I thought relatively shocking as I was being briefed by 

my staff, I was asking, ‘‘Is this true?’’, that the number of terrorist 

attacks in 2012 around the world was 6,771, and in 2013, 9,700. 

And one of my staff members went, ‘‘Wow,’’ which was exactly my 

reaction. In 2012, 11,000 individuals killed in terrorist attacks. It 

grew by 61 percent to almost 18,000 in 2013. 

Now, in this chart we have also broken that out between terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan. I guess I 

would consider those war zones. But that still leaves almost 3,000 

terrorist attacks in 2012 outside of those war zones; almost 4,000 

in 2013, an increase of about 33.8 percent. 
3 

So the point of this hearing is to show that the danger is real. 

In many respects, the threat is growing, and we are going to have 

testimony here that there have actually been some setbacks for 

ISIS. They are maybe not as strong as they purport to be. But they 

are using social media to show that they are actually stronger than 

they are to inspire the kind of action—and they do not need a 

whole lot of territory. They do not need too many computers. They 

do not need too many people spewing that hate and providing that 

kind of inspiration. 

So this is a real threat. I really want to thank and welcome the 

witnesses for your thoughtful testimony and coming here. With 

that, I will turn it over to our Ranking Member for his opening 

comments. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To each of you, welcome. This is an excellent panel, and we look 

forward to hearing from you and having a chance to ask questions 

of you this morning. 

As this Committee has discussed at a number of hearings over 

the years, the threats that our country faces—and the Chairman 

has just given us sort of a quick look at what is going on this year, 

but the nature of the threat has evolved significantly since September 11, 2001, when I was a new Member of this Committee. 

After 9/11, the most acute terrorist threats came from Osama bin 

Laden’s al-Qaeda, which had orchestrated, as we know, large, complex attacks from remote caves in Afghanistan. Today, Bin Laden 

is dead. The core of al-Qaeda as we knew it has been largely dismantled. 

Unfortunately, al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Africa, and Syria 

have filled the void. At the same time, new terror groups like ISIS 

present an immediate and different kind of threat to the United 

States and others both here and abroad. 

While the threat of major aviation attacks still remains a top 

concern for American counterterrorism officials, the tactics employed by these groups who are targeting us have broadened and 

are not as focused on this particular type of attack method. 

Groups like ISIS, Al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have used social media and online propaganda to spread 

their call to extremists here in America and around the world to 

carry out their own attacks against us. 

Moreover, ISIS has seemingly perfected the ability to use social 

media to lure Western recruits to Syria for training. These new tactics mean that we can no longer rely solely on our ability to use 

military force to eliminate a terrorist threat. We must, in partnership with our allies abroad, start examining more closely the root 

causes of why Westerners join the ranks and act in the name of 

ISIS or al-Qaeda. We must continue to evolve our own counterterrorism tactics to address these root causes. 

Today we will begin to examine the narratives put forward by 

these terrorist groups over social media and also how those narratives are being used to influence vulnerable individuals here and 

in other Western countries. And we will look for common-sense solutions that our government, along with other governments with 
4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Bergen appears in the Appendix on page 45. 

whom we are allied, can employ to counter these groups’ narratives 

and to eliminate this tool from the terrorists’ toolbox. 

With that, I look forward to a good conversation, and thank you 

again for joining us. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

It is the tradition of this Committee to swear in witnesses, so if 

you would all stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that 

the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, 

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God? 

Mr. BERGEN. I do. 

Mr. BERGER. I do. 

Mr. SHAIKH. I do. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. Please be seated. 

Our first witness is Peter Bergen. Mr. Bergen is the Director of 

the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation, Cable News Network (CNN’s) national security analyst, and 

the author of ‘‘Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden—from 

9/11 to Abbottabad,’’ and ‘‘The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict 

between America and al-Qaeda.’’ 

Mr. Bergen. 

TESTIMONY OF PETER BERGEN,1 DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

SECURITY PROGRAM, NEW AMERICA, AND PROFESSOR OF 

PRACTICE, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. BERGEN. Thank you, Senator Johnson, Senator Carper, and 

other Members of the Committee and the excellent staff that put 

this hearing together. My task today is to kind of try and outline 

the threat from Americans inspired by the Syrian conflict, which 

is the newest wave and cohort of domestic jihadism in the United 

States. And we at the New America Foundation, where I work, 

have identified 62 individuals from news reports or public records 

who have tried to join ISIS, have joined ISIS, or Nusra, the alQaeda affiliated, or supported others doing so, and here are the 

sort of big takeaways: 

They come from across the United States. We found cases in 19 

States. As you know, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) 

Director James Comey has said there are ongoing investigations in 

50 States. Some of these are obviously not public yet. 

They do not fit any ethnic profile. They are whites or African 

Americans; they are Arab Americans; they are Pakistani Americans; they are Bosnian Americans. And this, of course, produces 

problems for law enforcement in the sense that, unlike in the case 

of Al-Shabaab, which attracted overwhelmingly Somali Americans, 

mostly from Minnesota—where Senator Johnson went to university, I believe—that was a very focused group who were going. This 

is across the United States. 

We also found an unprecedented number of American females. 

Obviously these are a group of highly misogynistic individuals 

whose goal in life is to preclude women from having any role outside the home, and yet we found about a fifth of the 62 are females. 
5 

A number of them are teenagers, and this is really a very new phenomenon. 

We also found that this is a relatively young group. The average 

age is 25, but there are teenagers, including teenage girls as young 

as 15. 

The only profile that this group really share is that 53 of the 62 

individuals were very active on social media, downloading and 

sharing jihadist propaganda, and in some cases, as Elton Simpson 

was doing, directly communicating with members of ISIS in Syria. 

This is a new development in the way jihadist terrorists are recruiting in the United States. The kind of conventional view or perhaps the cartoonish view is an al-Qaeda recruiter comes here and 

recruits somebody and creates a cell. In fact, that is very rare. That 

did happen in Lackawanna. You may remember the Lackawanna 

Six case where there was an al-Qaeda recruiter who recruited six 

Yemeni Americans from Buffalo, New York, to go to a training 

camp in Afghanistan. 

We also saw that in Minnesota in 2007 when veterans of the Somali war went to Minneapolis to recruit Americans physically and 

bring them to Somalia. But we are no longer seeing that model at 

all. In fact, of the 62 individuals, we found that none of them were 

physically recruited by a militant operative, radical cleric, returning foreign fighter, or while radicalized while in prison. Instead, 

they self-recruited online or were sometimes in touch via Twitter 

with members of ISIS in Syria. 

Why would Americans abandon what is, after all, usually a very 

comfortable life? A lot of these come from comfortable backgrounds 

and are intelligent individuals. Why would they be attracted to 

ISIS? And I think there are sort of perhaps three reasons: 

First of all, of course, the terrible nature of Assad’s brutal war 

against his own people is an attraction. 

Second, the claim that ISIS has created the caliphate, which I 

think is a powerful attraction for idealistic fundamentalist Muslims. 

Third, ISIS is presenting itself as the vanguard of the sort of 

Muslim army that is signaling the end of times and that is basically the vanguard of a group that will usher in the perfect true 

Islam when the Mahdi, the savior of Islam, returns. 

Now, I this morning I just saw that a very large number of 

Americans, something like 4 in 10, believe that we are in the end 

times, so this is not such an uncommon view that we are in the 

end times. So ISIS is presenting itself as ushering in the end times, 

which is another powerful kind of attraction. 

It also presents itself as a real State with social services, and 

that claim is not completely false, although it is certainly probably 

less true than they present it. And for some of the Western recruits, this is a heroic and glamorous thing. We have seen people 

tweet on ISIS—we have seen ISIS fighters say that it is like playing ‘‘Call of Duty but in 3–D,’’ and so there is a heroic, exciting aspect to this that is attracting people. 

And, finally, what is the true level of threat? I would say the 

true level of threat in the West is not as much—something like 80 

percent of Americans believe that ISIS is a serious or fairly serious 

threat to the United States. Well, it is clearly a big threat to Amer-
6 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Berger appears in the Appendix on page 65. 

ican interests in the Middle East, potentially, but so far only one 

Syrian foreign fighter has carried out a successful attack in the 

West, which was the Frenchman who attacked the Jewish Museum 

in Brussels on May 24, 2014, killing four people. 

That, of course, does not mean that the threat does not exist. It 

is worrisome, but not existential. And related to that point, of the 

19 individuals we found who went to Syria, 8 of them were killed 

over there. So Syria is proving as much of a graveyard as a 

launchpad for attacks. 

It is a very dangerous war, as you know. In fact, about half of 

the men who have gone over there have been killed and a larger 

sample of about 600 foreign fighters that we have examined, and 

about 5 percent of the females, so even for the women it is very 

dangerous. 

So if the returning foreign fighters are not the issue, what is the 

issue? And the issue is really what we saw on Sunday, which is 

people inspired by ISIS taking up weapons, obviously it is easy to 

acquire weapons in this country and doing something with them. 

And, luckily, Sunday’s attack did not mature in the way that the 

attackers wanted it to. But I think that is a harbinger of what we 

will see in the future. So the real issue is not Syrian foreign fighters coming back to the United States. Law enforcement has done 

a very good job of tracking these folks. If they come back, there is 

only one case where law enforcement did not recognize that a particular person had gone to Syria, which is the Floridian, Moner 

Abu Salha. But the returnee problem is really, I think, much less 

of an issue than the homegrown ISIS-inspired that we saw on Sunday, and there is very little as a practical matter that we can prevent lone wolves who are truly lone wolves from doing these kinds 

of attacks. 

The good news is there is a natural ceiling to what a lone wolf 

can do. For instance, in Boston, the two Tsarnaev brothers were 

lone wolves. They killed four people. Those were individually tragedies, and it was a terrible day for the United States and Boston. 

But it was not a national catastrophe like 9/11 was. So we have 

to frame the threat effectively, which is it is worrisome but not existential and nothing on the scale of 9/11. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Bergen. 

Our next witness is J.M. Berger. Mr. Berger is a non-resident fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the 

Brookings Institution and the author of ‘‘Jihad Joe: Americans Who 

Go to War in the Name of Islam’’ and ‘‘ISIS: The State of Terror.’’ 

Mr. Berger. 

TESTIMONY OF J.M. BERGER,1 NON-RESIDENT FELLOW, 

PROJECT ON U.S. RELATIONS WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD, 

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. BERGER. Thank you for having me. I think that I would like 

to start by talking about the lone wolf threat, because that is obviously on everyone’s minds after the events of this weekend. 

ISIS in many ways appears to be the first jihadist group to really 

kind of crack the lone wolf formula. The idea of leaderless resist-
7 

ance and individual attacks goes back to the 1980s, originated in 

the American white supremacist movement, and people have been 

trying to make it work ever since. And the problem with lone 

wolves is that it is too easy to stay at home, generally. People are 

not going to get adequately motivated to carry out an attack without having social reinforcement, and that defeats the purpose of 

being a lone wolf, is to escape detention by not talking to anyone. 

ISIS has mixed up this formula, and there are a couple of reasons for this. The first thing that they have done that is different 

from what al-Qaeda did is they have become the populist movement. So they have a very low threshold for entry, and they are 

pretty undiscriminating about who they include in their group relative to al-Qaeda. It was very difficult to join al-Qaeda. al-Qaeda 

was a vanguard and an elitist movement. So that affords them access to more people. 

Second, their propaganda is extremely violent, and it is also very 

focused on presenting the group as dynamic and action-oriented 

relative—again, when you look at a comparison to al-Qaeda, alQaeda’s propaganda, in recent years especially, tends more toward 

discourse: ‘‘We are trying to convince people that we have the right 

idea, that reasonable people would agree with us that this is the 

correct thing to do.’’ And ISIS does not care about that so much, 

and they are willing to just get people agitated and cut them loose. 

The third element of change is that ISIS has changed sort of the 

fundamental underlying assumption that we see in the jihadist argument. al-Qaeda proceeded from an assumption of weakness. Its 

argument was based on the proposition that Muslims are weak and 

that they were unable to stand up to apostate regimes in the region, and the reason that they could not stand up to them was because the West was behind them. So the idea behind al-Qaeda and 

the idea behind using terrorism as a tactic was that, ‘‘This is the 

tool of the weak. We have to degrade popular support in the United 

States for apostate regimes in the Middle East, and then the 

United States will withdraw its support, and then we will be able 

to fight these guys directly.’’ 

ISIS has skipped ahead to fighting directly. Their propaganda 

emphasizes this. They are taking the fight to the local regimes, and 

they are attacking the United States in a secondary way. Their 

message is that, ‘‘We are winners, and you should join us because 

we are strong.’’ 

All of this is part of a very complex set of problems. We are in 

a period of very broad social change. People have been talking 

about social media for a number of years and often in very effusive 

terms about how it is changing the world, and this is the first manifestation of how that really is going to work. What we are seeing 

is that social media allows people to self-select the beliefs and information that they receive, so if you have an interest in jihadism, 

you can find other people who are interested in that very easily, 

very quickly, and you can establish relationships with them. This 

is very different from, say, the 1950s. If you were a radical jihadist 

in the 1950s living in Peoria, you might go your whole life without 

meeting anybody who shared your views. Today it takes you 10 

minutes to start talking to people who share your views. And that 

is a key part of what ISIS does in its recommendation process, it 
8 

provides a social context. It is reinforcement, and it is personal validation of your beliefs. If you are going to act out as a lone wolf, 

they are offering you a degree of fame that you would not be able 

to achieve as a mass shooter, for instance. And it is very reciprocal. 

There is a sense of remote intimacy on social media that can be 

hard to appreciate if you do not use it a lot. When you talk to 

somebody on a social media platform and you talk to them every 

day, you feel like you know them. You feel like they are somebody 

who is in your life. And so somebody tweeting from Syria who is 

a member of ISIS can develop a very emotionally powerful relationship with somebody who is sitting in the United States. And that 

is part of the reason that we have seen people are more willing to 

mobilize in the name of ISIS than they were in the name of alQaeda. 

ISIS’ radicalization and recruitment practices take place over a 

spectrum. There is no one thing that they do to try and recruit 

Westerners or try and recruit locally. They attack this from every 

channel in every direction using a variety of styles and using a 

very large number of people, because ISIS is a large organization 

and can afford to have 2,000 people who tweet 150 times every day. 

It can afford to have a ratio of, two or three recruiters to every one 

potential recruit who might carry out a lone wolf attack. If there 

is an area in which we are trailing ISIS in this struggle, I think 

it is probably a question of resources. And, of course, the problem 

that we face with that is that nobody can really agree how to use 

those resources. Our efforts at countering violent extremism in a 

preventive way have a lot of problems that are inherent to them, 

and we also have a problem from a law enforcement perspective. 

If you are monitoring 60 or 100 people, it takes 500 people to do 

that, to monitor these people even on a partial basis, let alone 24 

hours a day. So if these guys jump in a car and drive to Texas, 

there is not a lot you can do to interdict that. 

I will save most of the rest of my thoughts for the Q&A. I did 

want to just talk about the prospect of an ISIS organizational terrorist attack. ISIS has money and manpower to spare. We have not 

seen that they have an intent to carry out a 9/11-style attack, and 

there is reason to think they might not be as skilled or competent 

in such an attempt as al-Qaeda was because of the training cycles 

that they use. I think we should not assume that that is something 

that could not happen, though, that they could not make an attempt. And I think we are much better prepared to prevent something like that today. 

I do not think ISIS is an existential threat, but I do think that 

we have to have realistic expectations about what they might do 

so that, when something happens, we do not overreact in fear. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Berger. 

Our next witness is Mubin Shaikh. Mr. Shaikh is a former Muslim extremist and an expert on radicalization, terrorism, and countering violent extremism. He has consulted on the topic of ISIS 

with the U.S. State Department, U.S. National Counterterrorism 

Center (NCTC), U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), Central Command, NATO, Interpol, and other agencies. 
9 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Shaikh appears in the Appendix on page 71. 

First of all, Mr. Shaikh, I certainly appreciate and thank you for 

having a change of heart after 9/11 and for all the help and support 

you have given this government in terms of trying to counteract 

this and also trying to help other young people who might be inspired to not be inspired. But I am looking forward to your testimony. Mr. Shaikh. 

TESTIMONY OF MUBIN SHAIKH,1 AUTHOR, ‘‘UNDERCOVER 

JIHADI’’ 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you, sir. Shalom Alaichem, As-salamu 

alaykum, the greeting of Jesus Christ, peace be unto you. 

To the esteemed Members of the Senate Committee, on September 11, 2001, I was driving to work when I first heard a plane 

had struck one of the two towers of the World Trade Center buildings. Immediately, I exclaimed aloud, ‘‘AllahuAkbar’’—‘‘God is 

Great.’’ My celebratory moment was quickly muted when I asked 

myself: What if the very office building I was working in was similarly struck by a plane? I would have perished along with everyone 

else just as those innocent people perished on that day. For me and 

many others, September 11, 2001, was, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the end of my commitment to the extremist 

mindset. Allow me to explain how this began for me. 

I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, to Indian immigrants. 

As a child, I grew up attending a very conservative brand of 

‘‘Madressah’’—a Quran school—an imported version of what you 

would find in India and Pakistan: rows of boys, separated from the 

girls, sitting at wooden benches, rocking back and forth, reciting 

the Quran in Arabic but not understanding a word of what was 

being read. 

Contrast that with my daily life of attending public school, which 

was the complete opposite of the rigid, fundamentalist manner of 

education of the Madressah. Here, I could actually talk to girls and 

have a normal, functional relationship with them. When I left the 

Quran school at age 12 and moved into middle school and high 

school, I was not discriminated against, bullied, picked on, or anything of the like. I was actually one of the cool kids. 

But when I was 17, I had a house party while my parents were 

away, which my hyper-conservative uncle walked in on. Normal as 

it may be to the Western experience, my uncle and other family 

members were incensed that I would have brought non-Muslim 

friends to my home, and they spent the next few days berating me 

over what I had done. Due to the sustained guilt trip I received, 

the only way I thought I could make amends with my family was 

to ‘‘get religious.’’ Hence, the born-again type seeking to right the 

wrongs of their past. 

I would then travel to India and Pakistan and, in the latter, 

ended up in a place called Quetta, which, unbeknownst to me at 

the time, was the center of the Taliban Shura and of the group 

known as al-Qaeda. As I walked around the area, I chanced upon 

10 heavily armed men dressed in black turbans, flowing robes, and 

sandals. One of them said to me that, ‘‘If you truly wish to bring 

about political change, it can only be done by using this,’’ and he 
10 

held aloft his AK47. I was completely enamored by them as jihadi 

heroes—a consistent theme in Jihadist literature and media today. 

In the years following, I absorbed myself in proclaiming the jihad 

was the only way to change things. And when Osama bin Laden 

gave his fatwa in 1998, I was on board. 

Then 9/11 happened and I thought: Wait a second. I get attacking combatants, but this? Office buildings in which regular people 

worked—Muslims included? I realized I needed to study the religion of Islam properly to make sense of what I had just witnessed. 

I sold my belongings and moved to Syria in early 2002 when there 

was still some semblance of normality in the country. I attended 

the class of a Syrian Islamic scholar who challenged me on my 

views regarding jihad and subsequently, spent a year and a half 

with him studying the verses of the Quran and the traditions of the 

Prophet—Peace Be Upon Him—that the jihadists used to justify 

their hate and destruction. I came to relinquish my views completely and returned to Canada in 2004 with a new-found appreciation for rights for Muslims in the West. 

That year, some individuals had been arrested in the United 

Kingdom with the London fertilizer bomb plot. One of those individuals was none other than my classmate from the Madressah 

that I attended as a child. I thought this to be a mistake and contacted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to give a character reference for the family, but it was too late for him. As for 

me, I was recruited by the service as an undercover operative because I felt this was my religious duty. 

I can say that I conducted several infiltration operations both online and on the ground involving religious extremists. One of those 

cases moved on to become a criminal investigation, and I traversed 

from Intelligence Service to the Mounted Police, Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, in what came to be known as 

the Toronto 18 terrorism prosecution. I gave fact witness testimony 

in five hearings over 4 years at the Superior Court where 11 individuals were eventually convicted. 

I have since worked with various mechanisms of the U.S. Government, as you noted the National Counter Terrorism Center, 

Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and 

the U.S. Department of State, Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications—three main outfits that are engaged in 

the study and practice of countering violent extremism programming. 

In addition, I have spent the past few years on Twitter having 

watched the very start of the foreign fighter phenomenon and directly observed recruitment and propaganda by ISIS types online, 

and I reference Appendix A here that the members should have. I 

have directly engaged with many of them, male and female—Appendix B—as well as some of their victims that they have tried to 

recruit. My approach is to show how wrong they are and to criticize 

and delegitimize them from the very Islamic sources that they misquote and mutilate. Thusly, the correct term to describe these Terrorists in Islamic Costume (TICs) is ‘‘Khawarij.’’ It is a technical Islamic term. 

I have personally intervened in cases of an America girl that 

these predators were trying to lure away and put a stop to it by 
11 

engaging her online as someone who can show her the real interpretation of Islam. Due to this, I believe I have a good understanding of what is happening in terms of recruitment and what 

needs to be done in terms of countermessaging, both from the civic 

service and non-governmental organization (NGO) side as well as 

the military side of psychological operations, which I conveyed at 

a recent SOCOM conference held in New York in which the Commanding General himself was present. 

Finally, there remains a massive gap in all of the areas that I 

have mentioned and that a sustainable, meaningful, and effective 

countermessaging approach needs to be created. I submit to you 

that it is not as hard as some may suggest, that we already have 

the talent but just need the direction and guidance in order to get 

it going. 

Just three quick points on—there was some question on terrorist 

recruitment in prisons. 

No. 1, terrorist recruitment in prisons is happening all over the 

world, not just in the United States. But as for the United States, 

the numbers are actually very low. 

No. 2, in the Western context, much of this recruiting remains 

unseen to the untrained eye—and also due to its covert nature— 

and usually does not manifest openly in the prison institution but 

afterwards, when the individual has left the facility. 

And, No. 3, greater vetting of the types of imams that offer counseling is needed to ensure that pro-social messaging is delivered in 

the context of prison rehabilitation programs. By framing this 

under ‘‘pro-social’’ messaging, the State avoids having to declare 

which version of Islam they ‘‘approve’’ of since we all approve of 

anything that promotes healthy, productive, and rehabilitative 

components of counseling. 

I thank the Committee and my colleagues here with me and hope 

this is the start of a solid discussion in dealing with the challenges 

and opportunities now before us. Thank you and God bless. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Shaikh. 

Our next witness is Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. Am I pronouncing 

that even close? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. That is correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Oh, wow. That is very unusual, by the way. 

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of democracies, an adjunct assistant professor in Georgetown 

University’s Security Studies Program, a lecturer at Catholic University of America, and author of the report, ‘‘Homegrown Terrorists in the United States and the United Kingdom.’’ 

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. 
12 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Gartenstein-Ross appears in the Appendix on page 89. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVEED GARTENSTEIN–ROSS,1 SENIOR 

FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. Senator Johnson, Senator Carper, distinguished Members, it is an honor to appear before you today. 

What I am going to focus on in this testimony is the question of: 

What has the United States done? What can the United States role 

be in countering this violent messaging? 

With respect to ISIS, which I think right now is rightly at the 

center of our concerns, we have seen the most dramatic brand rise 

of any jihadist organization, in large part because of the reasons 

that J.M. Berger lays out, that they are excellent at messaging. 

Technically they go far beyond what al-Qaeda and others have 

done, and they take advantage of Web 2.0, the interactivity of the 

Internet, which suddenly makes someone who is alone a part of a 

group. They also are vulnerable, though it is not inevitable, to the 

most dramatic brand reversal of any jihadist organization we have 

seen. 

You might have noticed that at times IS’ messaging and the 

United States’ countermessaging have been exactly the same. Often 

the United States will show the Islamic State’s brutality, people 

that they are killing, people that they have tortured; and the Islamic State proudly proclaims the same thing. The reason why is 

what they have fundamentally is a winner’s messaging. 

To them, it is not bad to show that they are brutal because the 

brutality shows that they are stronger than other groups, that they 

can impose their will. They are actually very recently—as the Islamic State has increasing pressure on it, particularly being concerned about the pressure being put on Mosul, a statement by a 

supporter named Abu Sulayman al-Jahbadhi, which was very insightful, asked people in Islamic State-held cities not to show the 

brutality of the Islamic State’s enemies, not to show, for example, 

bombing that killed civilians, not to show the impact of a siege 

upon the cities. His argument was that the Islamic State in its 

messaging will show the brutality of its foes, but that brutality is 

always connected to punishment. In other words, they want to 

show that they can deal with their problems. That is what a winner’s messaging is. They emphasize their strength. They do not 

want to emphasize weakness. 

Now, the reason why we know that they are vulnerable to a 

brand reversal is because we have seen that before with the exact 

same organization. Back in 2005 to 2006, you had a very similar 

dynamic, not identical but very similar, with al-Qaeda in Iraq 

(AQI), which is, of course, ISIS’ predecessor. al-Qaeda in Iraq was 

known for its brutality. It shocked people with videos where it beheaded its victims. And it was thought of as a very romantic organization. People wondered during this period if the emir of alQaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had surpassed Osama bin 

Laden as the leading figure of the jihadist world. 

But what happened then? We remember, of course, from Iraq in 

the 2007–09 period that they had overplayed their hand, particularly in Anbar Province, where right now ISIS is in the process of 

inflicting similar although greater brutality upon the population. 
13 

You saw a grassroots uprising known as ‘‘The Awakening’’ or the 

‘‘Sahwa movement,’’ combined with two other factors: a surge of 

U.S. troops in Iraq and also U.S. counterinsurgency tactics. This 

ended up defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq at the time. Their brand went 

from being sky high to suddenly the entire al-Qaeda organization 

wondering what they could do to undo the brand damage that had 

been done by their losses in Iraq. This was a brand reversal because what had once been a symbol of strength, their brutality, 

was reversed into a symbol of having overplayed their hand and 

turned the population against them. 

Now, with respect to ISIS, it is experiencing a trajectory of 

losses. It has been in somewhat of a decline phase since October 

of last year. It has lost territory rather than gaining it, and as a 

result, ISIS has started to emphasize other ways in which they are 

strong. One particular way has been their expansion into Africa, 

which very clearly is at the center of their current strategy. 

At times, they have exaggerated their gains, and they have gotten the media to report on this. I think the best example is their 

claim to control the city of Derna in northern Libya. This is not 

true, and it has never been true, but they have gotten the media 

to report it through multiple outlets, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and CNN. The reason why is they were 

able to show a photo of an Islamic State flag on a government 

building in Derna, and they were able to also show a video of a parade through Derna with Islamic State supporters. 

Now, this is a city that is controlled by multiple factions, so the 

fact that they could have a show of force or a flag on a government 

building is not determinative. It does not mean that they control 

the city. But this was reported, and you have this cycle in which 

the Islamic State pushes out its message; its message goes to the 

media, and it goes to it supporters. And, unfortunately, sometimes 

the media pushes the same message to the supporters. So rather 

than cognitive dissonance and them having to convince themselves 

that the Islamic State’s message is true and the objective media is 

wrong, instead both are reporting on these exaggerations. And ISIS 

is able to do this in areas where social media’s penetration is low, 

so it seems that the facts they are putting forward are the only relevant facts. 

Now, what can the United States do? How can the United States 

reverse this messaging of strength? 

One thing that we have to fundamentally be able to do is to compete at the speed of social media. You are all in government. You 

understand that our bureaucratic processes would often be hard 

pressed to compete at the speed of the Gutenberg Bible, let alone 

at the speed of social media. We need to de-bureaucratize the process of competing with them. 

I think in this particular case, dealing with the Islamic State is 

very different than dealing with jihadist messaging as a whole because, as I have outlined, it has a particular vulnerability that 

other jihadist groups do not necessarily have. 

But in this case, what would be very effective is a small cell that 

is able to operate, that fuses intelligence analysts, those who are 

able to see what is the Islamic State’s messaging, what are they 

hoping to gain, and where does it not map with reality, with stra-
14 

1The information submitted by Mr. Shaikh appears in the Appendix on page 85. 

tegic communications professionals. The U.S. Government is not always the best voice. Often the best voice may be to push information out to media—fact sheets, selectively declassifying information, 

and giving them information where they can serve as the objective 

voice if you get them reliable information. 

Right now, I know from interactions with media that this is often 

not being done. When I point to an exaggeration of the Islamic 

State’s, often journalists, whether print or broadcast, are hearing 

it from me for the first time, as opposed to hearing it from the U.S. 

Government. Given that media and the battle of perception is so 

central to what the Islamic State is trying to do, the U.S. Government has to be more quick to react and to understand the strength 

of its messaging, and to be able to respond at the same kind of 

speed, focusing in on the key message of the Islamic State at the 

same speed at which they can push out their own message. 

Overall, defeating the Islamic State’s messaging does not defeat 

jihadism, but this is an important point for a variety of reasons. 

And, furthermore, I can say, to end on an optimistic note, that I 

do see some promising signs within government that we are starting to shift toward a paradigm of trying to defuse the perception 

of the Islamic State’s strength, but it is worth following up to make 

sure that we are taking the appropriate steps, and there the Senate I think can play a major role. 

Thank you all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. We may 

not have that rapid communication response capability in the Federal Government, but I can tell you, I think most elected officials 

who have gone through a campaign, particularly Presidential campaigns, have that within the political world, that rapid response. 

Maybe that would be a good little piece of legislation we could propose a rapid response communication team that we can pull from 

campaigns. Trust me, we have those capable individuals within our 

knowledge base. 

I would like to talk about the online process. I would like to ask 

a question. ISIS is using social media to connect and to talk—and, 

by the way, I would like to enter into the record, without objection, 

the Web pages provided by Mr. Shaikh.1 If you have not read them, 

read them. It is pretty powerful in terms of the examples of how 

ISIS is using social media. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But what is the next step after that? Mr. 

Berger, who is an expert on this; so they recruit, they talk, they 

talk online, and then what happens? 

Mr. BERGER. So there is a series of stages that you go through 

with this. Typically somebody is exposed to their propaganda that 

is being broadcast out, and they take an interest in this. And this 

is not just ISIS. This is how social media works generally. You find 

a subject, you take an interest in it, and when you start following 

it online, you see that there are other people talking about the 

same subject, and you start conversing with them. 

So what we will typically see is that there will be a period where 

somebody is consuming this stuff in the public, and if somebody is 

seriously interested and willing to take a step further or consider 
15 

a step further, they will take it to a private format. So that can 

be a direct message on Twitter, which cannot be read in the open 

source, or on Facebook. More often, they will go through an 

encrypted app, such as WhatsApp or Kik, which it is basically text 

messaging with an element of encryption. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, again, our authorities can follow the 

open-source social media, but the minute those individuals who are 

really serious about it go offline, we go dark. We lose our capability 

to follow, and we really have no idea. Isn’t that basically correct? 

Mr. BERGER. Well, you can approach it with subpoena and other 

authorities, so, I mean, it is possible to get there. 

Chairman JOHNSON. If we can decrypt. 

Mr. BERGER. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I mean, that is part of the problem. 

Mr. BERGER. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, obviously, Silicon Valley is resistant to 

allowing us to decrypt, and even if they were to allow it, there 

would be other sites offshore that will also encrypt. So we are losing our capability of being able to follow this, correct? 

Mr. BERGER. Yes. I would also just add, though, that the ability 

of government to follow it on open social media is often murky. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Very limited. 

Mr. BERGER. People in different agencies have different understandings of what they are legally allowed to do when it comes to 

monitoring communications of Americans, even on open social 

media platforms, and that is somewhere where a governmentwide 

initiative to clarify authorities would be very helpful. 

Chairman JOHNSON. It was not in your testimony, but in my 

prep, apparently you have a publication where your best guess was 

there were 46,000—I think these were your words—‘‘overt ISIS 

supporter accounts’’ on Twitter, maybe a high number of 90,000. 

Can you describe what you are talking about by an ‘‘overt ISIS supporter account’’? 

Mr. BERGER. Sure. That figure was from late last year, so it is 

much smaller now, significantly smaller. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Now, why is that? 

Mr. BERGER. Because Twitter has started aggressively suspending accounts. So an overt ISIS supporter, for the criteria we 

used for the paper, was we had a series of steps. So, first, if you 

are just tweeting ISIS propaganda and ‘‘I love ISIS’’ all day long, 

then you are an ISIS supporter. If you are not doing that in an obvious way, then we looked at who you followed and then who followed you and sort of analyzed the network to try and see if there 

was a clear case. So it was a very conservative approach to coding 

somebody as a supporter. Fundamentally, it is somebody who is not 

actively trying to conceal their interest in ISIS. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, Mr. Shaikh, as somebody who is trying 

to prevent young girls, for example, or other people that are making those connections, where are they going now then? Is there an 

alternative? 

Mr. SHAIKH. Well, they will remain in the orbit of their particular networks. What I try to do is engage them openly and directly online. I have seen others try to do that as well. In fact, you 

are seeing people even on the al-Qaeda side, strangely, arguing 
16 

against ISIS types, making theological arguments, which is kind of 

strange, considering they are al-Qaeda. 

But they will continue to orbit their networks. Those that do go 

off into the WhatsApp and Kik, I do not follow them offline into 

that, but that is what they do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. There are officials of the U.S. Government 

going into Muslim communities, talking, and one of the reports we 

got back—and I was very surprised to hear this because of the revelations of Edward Snowden, there seems to be a perception in 

America that the Federal Government knows all and we have perfect knowledge and we know exactly who is online and we know 

exactly who is on these sites and is becoming radicalized. And the 

members of those communities were actually very surprised that 

we had no idea. 

Can you kind of speak to that, Mr. Shaikh, in terms of, the necessity of members of different communities to be policing themselves and reporting that? From the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it is, ‘‘If you see something, say something.’’ 

Mr. SHAIKH. I think Hollywood has kind of done this as well, 

that is, given the idea that the intelligence services are omnipresent and all-knowing. Maybe in some cases, that is a good thing 

that people think that we can see everything. Of course, on the 

other hand, this is something that the government agencies are 

trying to achieve, get into the communities and give them something by which they can actually convince their own communities 

outside of law enforcement, and, look, these are things that you 

need to watch for. These are your kids being lured over by these 

individuals. These are your parents that are going to end up in 

front of, TV cameras as they attend court or whatever it is. These 

are your mosques that are going to see press and retaliatory attacks and things like that. 

So it is an ongoing challenge with the communities. There is a 

level of mistrust, and there are professional naysayers, community 

organizations that are trying to obstruct and are very obstructionist in the way they approach this. But this is an issue that is 

continuing, continues to play out. 

Chairman JOHNSON. My final question really springs from a very 

interesting article written by Graeme Wood in the Atlantic and 

really I think amplified by your testimony, the significance of the 

territory held and the caliphate established and how that is driving 

the process, driving the narrative. Perhaps you would like to speak 

to that, Mr. Bergen. 

Mr. BERGEN. I think the short answer is that is completely true. 

Without the territory, the claim to be the caliphate, if you do not 

control a population—they control about 8 to 9 million people. That 

is the population of Switzerland. If you do not control territory— 

it is the size of the United Kingdom roughly—your claim to be the 

caliphate disappears, which has, an important strategic implication, which is we need to keep chipping away or demolishing this 

caliphate. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, what does that inspire in the 

minds and hearts of followers? What is the call? What is required 

once the caliphate is established? 
17 

Mr. BERGEN. Well, I think the call—and this is where it gets 

complicated, and it goes a little bit to what Mubin was talking 

about. For some highly observant, ultra-fundamentalist Muslims, 

they may feel, ‘‘Hey, I want to go and just be supportive. That does 

not necessarily mean I want to go and become a fighter for ISIS.’’ 

And so I think as a matter for the law enforcement community 

and the Congress to think about, if somebody is not actually indicted for a potential act of terrorism but merely for trying to go 

to Syria, we should be thinking about off ramps that are not 15 

years in prison, because right now the problem that Muslim families have is if they see a son or daughter radicalizing and then they 

say, ‘‘Well, should we call the FBI?’’ well, then, that son or daughter may get 15 years in prison. 

So I think we should think about—oh, and in Minneapolis, as 

you know, sir, there is a case where something other than a very 

long term prison term for a 19-year-old young man is now in process, and I think it is a model we should be thinking about going 

forward. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Before I turn it over to the Ranking Member, anybody else want to respond to that? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I think that this also speaks to what 

Mubin had mentioned, which is the debate between al-Qaeda and 

ISIS supporters online. The reason why al-Qaeda had never declared a caliphate is because they did not think that they could create something that would have staying power. So if the caliphate 

gets chipped away geographically, you will see many more people 

within jihadist circles attacking the decision to declare the caliphate in the first place, which is one reason why, as I said, they are 

susceptible to a brand reversal, because jihadists themselves would 

turn on them if they start to lose the territorial advantage. 

As to your question about what is required, for someone who believes that the caliphate has been legitimately declared, if they do 

not accept the caliphate’s authority, then they die in a state of sin. 

This also gets to one of the intra-jihadist debates as to whether it 

is a legitimate caliphate. But for people who support it, as was outlined, it can be anything from going over there and living in the 

caliphate—and that certainly is a pull—to, for those who are not 

able to do so or those who are more well situated to carry out attacks, doing so on the homefront. That is also one reason they have 

been so successful compared to other organizations in having a 

prompt to action. They have a lot of things going for them right 

now that make them acting essentially from a position of strength, 

and within their very small target audience, from a position of religious legitimacy. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So one of the goals of U.S. policy should be 

to deny them that territory, deny them that caliphate. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I think so, yes, and also to make sure 

that those losses are being broadcast, because it has a magnifying 

effect, and being broadcast from multiple actors, including civil society activists. Essentially as we improve our communications capabilities, one thing it does is allows those who are opposed to ISIS 

to have a better vehicle to attack ISIS with. 
18 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you. I apologize to the Committee 

Members for going over time. I thought that was important. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Again, thank you. Thank you all for your testimony and for your responses to our questions. 

Mr. Berger, I think you used the word ‘‘murky’’ in your comments to describe, I think, the authority with which our officials 

have to do certain actions. Go back and just mention this again. 

Let us revisit this for a moment. 

Mr. BERGER. Well, fundamentally, I do not think there is a consensus in government that you can do large-scale monitoring of social media, open social media, of American citizens without a probable cause to investigate. So the role that we see in social media, 

in a lot of cases we have seen some plots and people intending to 

travel who were detected on social media. More often what we see 

is social media provides an evidence trail to go after an arrest after 

you have identified a suspect. 

Fundamentally, for instance, there are questions about how we 

collect and archive this data and who we collect and archive on it. 

Do we need to have a reason to go after it, or can we sweep up 

thousands and thousands of accounts? 

In the case of Garland, for instance, if we had been sweeping up 

those accounts, we would have a much clearer idea of the track of 

radicalization for the suspect on open source. You can go after the 

stuff with subpoenas. You can try and retrieve the data in various 

ways. But when Twitter suspends an account and when other platforms suspend an account, that information is no longer available. 

So this user had previous accounts, seven previous accounts, and 

we do not have that available to us in the open source to talk about 

that. And I do not know if law enforcement has that available, if 

they have been archiving it, if they have access to it via subpoena. 

I am not entirely sure Twitter saves the data. I am pretty sure 

they do, but I am not entirely sure. 

So these are the kind of questions—I think the appetite in the 

country probably is not very friendly to the idea that the FBI 

should be vacuuming up thousands and thousands and thousands 

of social media accountable. So these are the kinds of things I 

think that are in play. 

And then when you go from agency to agency, there are different 

kinds of boundary issues that we have run into over the course of 

some years. I mean, several years ago, there were issues in terms 

of like military investigating Americans who were in al-Qaeda in 

Pakistan and Afghanistan, military intelligence sometimes had to 

take names out of documents because the privileges that we afford 

American citizens in different contexts are sometimes not totally 

clear how you reconcile that with a pragmatic approach. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

A related question, and this would really be, I think, for Mr. 

Gartenstein-Ross and, again, for Mr. Berger. Is it more advantageous, do you think, for us and our government to work with 

companies to shut down social media accounts that promote ISIS 

or like-minded messaging or to keep those accounts open for intelligence purposes? Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. 
19 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. Well, J.M. has actually done some very 

good work on the—— 

Senator CARPER. J.M. Berger. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. Yes, J.M. here. J.M. Berger has done 

some very good work on showing the disruptive impact that it has. 

There is a very big debate amongst analysts as to whether you 

shut these accounts down because, on the one hand, you have their 

ability to radicalize people to action. On the other hand, you have 

the ability to gather information on them. 

I think increasingly that debate is actually becoming settled because we can see with ISIS the massive impact that these accounts 

have had. The amount of people who have been drawn to the SyriaIraq theater is greater already than it was during the Afghan-Soviet war in terms of the number of foreign fighters who have come. 

Social media plays a very big part in that. 

So I think, in general, it is advantageous to shut these accounts 

down, and this is something that should absolutely be a company’s 

decision. The U.S. Government has no authority to do that—with 

one exception, which is that if jihadists get frustrated with having 

their accounts suspended on Twitter, Facebook, et cetera, they may 

create their own website, their own version of Twitter or Facebook, 

at which point our superiority in terms of technological capabilities 

plays a role. That is the kind of site that we could shut down 

wholesale, I think, without any sort of free speech or constitutional 

problems. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Berger, again, very briefly on this question. Then I have one 

more. 

Mr. BERGER. I do think there is utility in shutting them down. 

The intelligence argument is important, but ultimately the goal of 

intelligence is to stop terrorists from doing whatever they want to 

us, and so, you take that into the context of an attack, obviously 

you get a lot of intelligence if the terrorist successfully carries out 

an attack. In the same way in a lower scale I think that, we should 

not give them carte blanche to do whatever they want because it 

allows us to make nice charts and spread sheets. 

Senator CARPER. OK, thanks. And this would be a question for 

all of our panelists. I like to focus, as my colleague said, on root 

causes, not just on addressing symptoms but addressing the underlying root causes. What are the root causes or underlying causes 

that compel Americans to engage in violence in the name of jihad? 

And what common factors, if any, do these individuals share? Mr. 

Bergen. 

Mr. BERGEN. That is a tough one. I have looked at hundreds of 

cases of Americans who have been drawn to jihadi activity and, 

there is no ethnic profile, there is no—some of these people are— 

on average, they tend to be slightly better educated than most 

Americans. They tend to not—but then, on the other hand, you 

have people from criminal backgrounds. It is very hard to make a 

one-size-fits-all description. In another era, in the 1970s, perhaps 

these people might have been drawn to the Weather Underground 

or the Black Panthers or some other revolutionary utopian movement, the promise to remake society through violence, and we have 

seen that throughout history. 
20 

But there is no really good answer to that question. It is a form 

of the question of what draws people to crime. The answer is too 

complicated to say in a very quick and sound-bite kind of way. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Berger. 

Mr. BERGER. I would agree with that. I think that what we see 

here, there are clusters of causality. So you can see, for instance, 

in the Al-Shabaab’s recruiting in Minnesota, you can sort of quantify why that happened, why there were so many from Minnesota. 

You can look at towns, for instance, Derna, where an organization 

has a long history that, gives you some insight into why that group 

of people goes. But when you look to sort of generalize, it is very 

difficult. Who you know is probably the most important thing, and 

that is where the social media comes in. If you can know somebody 

in ISIS very easily online, then that presents a greater risk. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mubin Shaikh and then Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, and then I will 

yield my time. Thanks. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Of course, I share the same caveats of the complexity, but I will give a sound-bite version. Without grievances, 

ideology does not resonate. And without ideology, grievances are 

not acted on. I think the intersect between ideology and grievances 

do play a significant role in this. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I think Mubin articulated it very well, 

and let me focus on one thing related to this question, which is, 

What can the United States do? 

Senator CARPER. That is always a good question. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. We are in the world right now where 

ideas catch on much faster, whether they are good ideas or bad 

ideas. It is easier to achieve a critical mass, and that can play off 

of, as Mubin says, grievances and ideology that intersect together. 

The question is: What are we doing to ameliorate grievances? To 

some extent, that is hard. We live in a world that does not have 

perfect justice at all, and we live in a world of finite resources, and 

we live in a world of competition. But if you look at what companies are doing—that is, corporations in the United States—those 

who are prospering are increasingly transparent in terms of their 

decisionmaking, in terms of what they are doing. The companies 

that are much more legacy industry-type companies and floundering are less transparent, much more top heavy. In many ways, 

the U.S. Government looks like a legacy industry. 

I think one thing we need to be able to do—there are many representatives who are good at this—is be much more transparent in 

terms of the U.S.’ decisionmaking. There are a lot of hard choices 

to make. 

J.M. Berger outlined before the hard decision in terms of monitoring Americans’ use of social media. On the one hand, we understand that people who are on Twitter and radicalizing can pose a 

danger; but, on the other hand, when we think of the FBI sweeping 

up thousands and thousands of accounts and archiving them forever, that in many ways feels like ‘‘1984’’ by George Orwell. 

So thinking these through publicly, explaining decisions, explaining what we are doing I think can also help to defuse part of that 

grievance, because moving forward, we are in a world where griev-
21 

ances, whether real or imagined, can catch on very quickly, and the 

United States should think of what it can do in this evolving structure of communication to minimize the United States being a target. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

By the way, I was handed a note, our vote that was scheduled 

at 10:30 has been moved to 2, so we will not have any interruptions. Senator Sasse. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SASSE 

Senator SASSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

of you for being here. 

After reading your testimony, my main line of questioning was 

going to be about how you create strategic brand damage to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to future jihadi 

groups. But before we go there, I would like to have a detour and 

follow, Dr. Gartenstein-Ross, your comments about the interplay 

between traditional and social media, and obviously the media cycles of people wanting to make news today on social media to be 

picked up by producers on traditional media. Could you unpack a 

little bit more your Derna comments, please? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. Yes, absolutely. Derna was a case in 

which you did not have much social media penetration, so right 

away, when you look at what is being broadcast out of Derna, ISIS 

essentially started out with information dominance. That is because reporters really could not get into Derna to fact check. We 

actually have had two different sets of reporters who ventured into 

Derna late last year. Both of these sets of reporters, Tunisians and 

Libyans, have gotten executed within the past couple of weeks. Not 

a good place to do fact checking. 

And so when they have this information about what is happening 

and they are pushing it out, and others are not pushing out on social media, the way the news cycle works now, here is information, 

and there is no competing information, and maybe you will check 

with a few sources. But media moves much quicker than it did. It 

has much less fact checking, and so it is easier to get an invented 

fact out there and then to have it widely repeated, which I think 

is exactly what happened in Derna. 

Senator SASSE. Dr. Bergen, this is not to put you on the spot because I do not know how CNN covered the issue, but could you 

walk us through how decisions in a circumstance like that are 

made? 

Mr. BERGEN. Yes, I am not familiar enough with CNN’s reporting 

on that. As a general matter, CNN has a very careful fact-checking 

process. 

Senator SASSE. But you do not know if you all reported that ISIS 

had taken Derna? 

Mr. BERGEN. I am not here to comment on CNN’s reporting on 

that. 

Senator SASSE. OK. Dr. Gartenstein-Ross, one of the things that 

is unique about ISIL versus al-Qaeda in Iraq previously is obviously a more decentralized network structure as opposed to a more 

top-down structure. Obviously, that creates unique opportunities 
22 

for them to capture entrepreneurial activity on social media. At the 

same time, it seems harder for them to control their brand. So they 

have a deficit in terms of trying to have a territorial claim with the 

caliphate, but to the degree that they have a more decentralized 

structure and can exploit social media over time, do you think that 

means that their brand becomes defuse? Or if they can suffer losses 

because they will eventually suffer territorial losses, what does 

that do to their larger social media strategy? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. So I would conceptualize them as having 

both a centralized and also decentralized structure. On the one 

hand, they have a bureaucratic system. They have systems of governance. They have official accounts. Then you have the vast number of people who are fighters who are tweeting from the battlefield, and they have put directives in place—it is actually very 

clear—to try to rein some of these guys in. But at the end of the 

day, when you have a large number of people who are on Twitter, 

it is difficult to fully control your message. That is something that 

the U.S. military also grapples with as well, and just like ISIS, we 

have directives, although we have an easier job of reining our guys 

in, obviously. 

With respect to ISIS’ brand, I think that it has a trajectory of 

its brand overall that is being affected by people at multiple layers, 

those who are at the center of its communications apparatus and 

those who are on the fringes. And so the answer is yes, it absolutely has more difficulty controlling its brand, and especially because—I referenced before the statement by al-Jahbadhi, the supporter of ISIS who is trying to say, OK, do not broadcast the enemy’s atrocities, do not broadcast how hard life is in cities that are 

under siege; only broadcast strength. If you look at my argument 

that theirs is a winner’s message, that is a very hard message to 

enforce when that is not actually what is going on, because you do 

not just have ISIS fighters; you also have people who are living in 

these cities, and you can see that some resistance movements have 

sprung up. They are going to have a hard time keeping their message the same. Just like we have trouble controlling them on social 

media, they are increasingly—as they are entrenched as a governing force and a failing governing force, they are having the 

same trouble. Suddenly, they are the counterinsurgents, and they 

are experiencing something like insurgent activity. Now, I do not 

want to overstate the dissension within the ranks, but you clearly 

have it. And they have had this for a while. It is just that it is increasing now. 

Senator SASSE. Mr. Shaikh, I would be interested in your 

thoughts on that question. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you, sir. Yes, of course, I agree very much, 

with what Daveed was saying. I think we need to continue to amplify the mistakes they make, the weakness in the ranks, the dissension in the ranks, especially when it comes to educating potential recruits, individuals, teenagers who may want to travel. In the 

beginning, when a lot of this began, there was a concept called 

‘‘five-star jihad’’ where they were putting out—they had taken over 

some guy’s villa, and they were swimming in a nice pool in the 

back, and they were saying, ‘‘Hey, come on down.’’ And for a while 

I actually took a lot of screen grabs of food pictures that they had 
23 

posted. We had Swedish Gummi Bears from Swedish jihadis. We 

had guys posting kebabs, ‘‘Yes, we got that,’’ or a mango milk 

shake and saying, ‘‘How could I not take a picture of that?’’ Or, the 

epitome of an identity crisis where you have a Pakistani ethnicity 

U.K. resident living in Syria, referring to pizza as ‘‘home-cooked 

food.’’ 

So I think to educate people just by using their own mistakes, 

their own failings, this is another way in which we can achieve our 

objective. 

Senator SASSE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Sasse. 

Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

panelists for your testimony today. 

I wanted to explore a little bit more in depth about some of the 

countermessaging that we need to do, particularly with the broader 

Muslim community here in the United States. I think it is important to remember when we are talking about folks who are engaged 

in these activities with extremism, it is just a tiny sliver of the 

Muslim community here in the United States. I have a very large 

Middle Eastern population in Michigan, one of the largest Middle 

Eastern populations outside the Middle East, as you know, in my 

community. And it certainly is an opportunity for us to harness 

that community, which is strongly opposed to ISIS and other extremist groups. In fact, there are regular protests against the activities of ISIS as a perversion of Islam and not reflective of the 

broader Muslim community. Folks want to be engaged in that 

countermessaging, which I think ultimately is the way you try to 

de-legitimize the ideology associated with it. 

I know the White House has made this type of outreach a priority with their ‘‘Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent 

Extremism’’ efforts. It was also part of the summit on Countering 

Violent Extremism this year at the White House Summit. But a 

2013 RAND Corporation report highlights challenges to countering 

violent extremism online, including alienation and lack of trust in 

the United States approach to counterterrorism among American 

Muslims as well as the oversecuritized approach to government engagement with the Muslim community. 

I have heard from some of my constituents who are concerned 

about pushing back sometimes against this violent extremism and 

these lies online because they think it might draw some undue attention to them personally as they engage, even though these are 

anti-messaging that they are doing. Some of them have also experienced racial profiling, other activities at airports because of their 

Muslim heritage, and so have certainly some level of distrust when 

it comes to the law enforcement activities, and yet this is an incredible opportunity for us to use patriotic Americans, Muslim 

Americans, who live here in our country. 

If the panel could address a little bit, how can we engage this 

community? What would you suggest? What are the messages that 

will be important? Perhaps, Mr. Shaikh, you have dealt with this, 
24 

and we can start with you. But others who would like to weigh in, 

I would certainly like to have other comments as well. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you very much. I am actually doing my Ph.D. 

in psychology, and I am looking at community interveners and 

what works in intervention programs. And there is this, I call 

them, ‘‘professional obstructionists,’’ community organizations 

who—I mean, they are hyper-defensive. They really mistrust the 

government, and have portrayed any kind of even meaningful, sincere interactions between law enforcement and the community as 

just an excuse to intelligence-gather. So given that level of mistrust 

how can we do it? And I think there is a way to do it. 

First and foremost, the Muslim community understands—as you 

have observed, the Muslim community does not want anything to 

do with ISIS, and really, if you look at the tens of millions of Muslims that are living in Europe and North America in total, we have 

a maximum amount of 5,000 Western foreign fighters. That is a 

very small number of people. 

So I think first and foremost, the Muslim community needs to 

understand that it affects us first and foremost, I think. I mean, 

ISIS kills more Muslims than non-Muslims. And when they do 

what they do, it is the Muslim community that feels the retaliation, 

the discrimination, the marginalization. So it is a responsibility I 

think it is on behalf of the religion. I mean, we have a duty to 

speak up and give the correct understanding of the religion, lead 

by example. 

And there is a way to still work with law enforcement, but at the 

same time keep them at arm’s length, and that is, to use programming that is developed in-house, in the communities, where the law 

enforcement agencies understand what the communities are using 

so that they can back up and say, yes, we understand that they 

have this, identifying vulnerable persons guide, let us say, and we 

understand that they have a mechanism in place where they can 

give rehabilitative programming without it necessarily being a topdown approach. 

And, just last, I mean, of course, people have their views, free 

speech, of course, but we have to be very careful not to perpetuate 

the ISIS ideology, which is Islam is to blame, because if we do that 

and we say that, yes, Muslims are terrorists and Islam is all about 

terrorism, that is exactly what ISIS says. In fact, I have seen that 

you have people who are very anti-Muslim, they even use the exact 

same verses of the Quran that ISIS uses. And if you did not see 

the name, you would swear that it was an ISIS account doing the 

promoting. 

So I think there are multiple layers to this, and it can be done, 

but it needs solid direction, I think, and community leadership. 

Senator PETERS. And direction from within the community. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Within the community, yes. 

Senator PETERS. It is an organic process. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Yes. 

Senator PETERS. But also in that process, law enforcement here 

in the United States understands to let the community lead and 

back it up and to back off, if I am rephrasing what you said accurately. 
25 

Mr. SHAIKH. Yes, just a closing point on this. Local police I think 

are best suited for this because the local police are the ones who 

will respond if somebody throws a rock through the mosque or if 

there is a crime that happens in the community. They are not seen 

as investigating terrorism like the FBI might be. The FBI will have 

big problems in dealing with them at that level. 

So there is a way to develop those relationships, and it needs to 

be done. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you. 

Does anybody else want to add to that? 

Mr. BERGEN. Just to give a couple of specific examples about 

some of the things Mubin is talking about. We cannot take down 

all bad speech, even though that is desirable, but we can also help 

reinforce better speech. So two examples: 

Rabia Chaudry is a Maryland-based Muslim American lawyer 

who goes around the country training Muslim American leaders 

and imams, many of whom do not really understand how the Internet works, about how to use it themselves, Google rankings and 

these kinds of things. So that is one very concrete thing. It is very 

hard to measure countering violent extremism. The success is 

where nothing happens. But this I think is an example of something that is concrete and working. 

Another is a woman called Nadia Oweidat, who is a D.Phil. from 

Oxford, who is aggregating all satirical content about ISIS in Arabic online, because satire is a very powerful weapon against this 

kind of group. 

And, finally, for the U.S. Government, the U.S. Government cannot engage in any kind of theological debate for all sorts of obvious 

reasons, but the message that U.S. Government officials should 

constantly say is, ‘‘This group positions itself as the defender of 

Islam, but its victims are overwhelmingly Muslim.’’ It is a factually 

correct statement that requires no special knowledge of Islam, and 

I think it is a powerfully undercutting message for what this group 

is trying to say about themselves to the Muslim world. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you. I am out of time. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Peters. Senator Booker. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOOKER 

Senator BOOKER. I want to jump right in. I have to say, in preparing for this hearing, I was surprised if not stunned at how we 

are approaching our messaging and our countermessaging, frankly. 

I find that there are about 2.9 million Muslims living in the United 

States, and half of them are under 30. We are talking about a very 

young population. 

Now, I agree with Senator Peters, the overwhelming 99-pointwhatever percent are good young people that reflect the rest of the 

population. But we are dealing with a population of young people 

that are online and engaged in an extraordinary manner. And in 

the Middle East, you have an even greater percentage of people 

that are under 30 years old, and the new form of communication 

is social media. Ninety percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 use social media. Nine in 10 18- to 29-year-olds watch online video, and 

almost half of them, that is where they get their news. 
26 

1The information submitted by Senator Booker appears in the Appendix on page 101. 

And I know a little bit about social media, I have to say, and 

when I started going around to the sites that we have in our various agencies—DHS, National Counterterrorism Center, State Department—I was shocked at our countermessaging. 

I want to pass this iPad around to my colleagues, and support 

two things to take note of. There are two tabs at the top, and you 

can toggle between them. One is a YouTube video, and there are 

hundreds of hours going up every minute on YouTube. The videos 

that ISIS is producing are incredibly slick, fancy, and attractive. 

Here on this video are terrorists giving out things to kids and sharing and the like.1

If you toggle back over, here is the ‘‘Think Again Turn Away’’ 

website by the Department of State. If you know anything about 

social media, one of the things you should look at is the engagement of people on our social media feeds, the engagement here is 

laughable—three retweets, two retweets. 

Now, if you think about this, last year, or fiscal year (FY) 2013 we spent $196 million on Voice of America. This is old-school 

media. It is radio and the like. And, Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, maybe 

you know, how much money are we investing and appropriating for 

social media countermessaging? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. They do not specifically budget out social media separately, but it is clear that it is a small percentage 

of what is being done. And, further, as you point out, a lot of times 

what we push out via social media is very crude. 

Senator BOOKER. I mean ‘‘crude’’ is a generous statement. You 

said a wonderful phrase. You said, ‘‘We need to compete at the 

speed of social media. Mr. Bergen, you said in your written testimony that the one thing that unifies these folks is their age and 

that they are online. And you would think that if this is one of the 

threats, and we have asked counterterrorism experts from the 

United States, what is their biggest concern, it is domestic lone 

wolf individuals. Online in social media is where the majority of 

them are getting radicalized. If we have an inadequate response to 

that, it is very frustrating. 

Now, Mr. Shaikh your work is incredible. I see you online trying 

to push back on this. There are easy tactics—I know them, as you 

said, from politics—for how to get more voice and virality to messaging. We are not using these tactics as government to get 

countermessages out there. The data that you are presenting regarding Muslims killing Muslims, and ISIS is a group that is killing more Muslims, shows they get their memes to go more viral. 

Look at their fancy memes and our lack of compelling contact. 

And so I just want to start with Mr. Shaikh. It looks like to me 

that you are trying to do countermessaging, but we have a government that is spending millions and millions of dollars on old-school 

forms of media, and as you said, Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, very crude 

social media efforts. What do you imagine could be done if we were 

to do an effective social media online countermessaging effort? 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you very much. In some kind of defense to 

the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, they 

have a very small group of people. They are trying to contest this 
27 

space, and they are trying to do something. And I get that. And 

yes, ‘‘crude’’ is a very polite statement. 

Look, at the end of the day, if you want to fight back against recruitment of 15-year-old kids, you need to work with 15-year-old 

kids. When I see my own kids showing examples of what affects 

them and what motivates them and what resonates with them, it 

tells me that this is exactly what you need to do. Talk to the kids. 

They can do a really good job. 

With respect to producing material, one of the comments that I 

said was, I mean, really I feel that it is unacceptable, especially 

given—I mean, you have Hollywood in the United States. I mean, 

yes, you do not even need to go at that level. Maybe this is something that should be done to go at that level, I mean, to blow the 

production capabilities out of the water. 

But even college levels, high school kids, to be given projects for 

them to do, just as part of a school project, as part of a civic engagement process, even Muslim organizations. I mean, maybe you 

have NGO’s who could fund projects within the community to come 

up with these sorts of things. 

The government is really not well placed other than if you were 

to take it to the covert level of psychological operations and then 

you do have individuals who know influence activities, who know 

to generate stuff which they can deploy but in a more covert manner. So, again, multiple layers, there is a way to do it, but—— 

Senator BOOKER. And, Mr. Bergen, I have very little time left, 

but when I was mayor of Newark, we saw that the mentions of our 

city were incredibly negative, and we set out on social media to 

change that. We used a simple sentiment analysis to see that engagement in social media began to change the brand of our city. 

You talk a little bit in your testimony about crowding out the negative messages, and I have seen people do this in many different 

forms. There are lots of different strategies. How do you characterize what we are doing to crowd out the negative messages, to 

arm many of the people within the American Muslim community 

and others to compete within this space to begin to push other 

messages? How would you describe our attempts? And is there a 

better way to centralize and coordinate across numerous agencies 

a better push from the United States? 

Mr. BERGEN. ‘‘Nascent’’ is how I would characterize what we are 

doing. NCTC has been doing some of this work and trying to work 

with some of the tech companies and the Muslim American Community. But, there is a kiss of death problem with the U.S. Government being involved. So it has to be hands-off. And it is beginning. 

It is not all doom and gloom. There are people out there doing the 

kind of work that is necessary. 

Senator BOOKER. OK. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Booker. 

There is an obvious piece of legislation that we need to start 

working on. I have already directed the staff. But let us face it. We 

invented the Internet. We invented these social network sites. We 

have Hollywood. We have the capabilities, as Mr. Shaikh was saying, to blow these guys out of the water from the standpoint of 

communications. So we need to work on that, and we need to work 
28 

on that quickly. So I hope you will engage in that effort. Senator 

Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank the Chairman, and I appreciate 

Senator Booker’s comments as well. It strikes me, though, in hearing your answers, it makes sense that this is not going to just be 

a government function, because government is not particularly 

good at some of these updated uses of technology. So I think engaging the private sector, engaging NGO’s and others to help us do 

that, and we can provide the support for that, but I think that 

would be great to establish those partnerships to be able to make 

that happen. 

I was very interested in reading, in your testimony especially, 

Mr. Bergen, about women, that there seems to be an attraction for 

young women that they are recruiting with more than, I think, a 

historical basis to ISIS. Can you talk to me about that? And it 

seems to me that as I look at some of these uses on social media, 

they almost romanticize what is happening over in Iraq and Syria 

and what these women who might want to either join or, I guess, 

connect themselves in the United States or in some other Western 

country with ISIS. So it strikes me that the more we can get the 

truth out also, whether it is embedding reporters or what are really 

the conditions—I know it is very dangerous so that is challenging. 

But however we can get the truth out about what is really happening on the ground in the caliphate, that this is not some kind 

of romantic endeavor that you are probably traveling to or asking 

to engage in. So I wanted to get thoughts on how we address this 

with women. 

Mr. BERGEN. Well, that is right, Senator. So 20 percent of the 

sample we looked at from the United States are women and about 

10 percent overall from the West are women, which is unprecedented. And why are they going there? They have been told it is 

a perfect society. They may want to meet their perfect marriage 

partner. All of these are very young. The average age is 19. But 

how do we contest that? I think you are exactly right. People like 

Mubin Shaikh and, disillusioned former militants who can actually 

speak the truth about what is happening and amplifying their 

voices, that is by far the most effective thing we can do. So it is 

finding those people, and there are already people coming back 

who—we saw this in the Minnesota case, Senator Johnson, when 

people started saying, well, wait a minute, Shabaab is not the 

Promised Land. 

But it took 2 or 3 years before the message—and I am sure J.M. 

Berger can amplify on this. But we are at the point where there 

are enough bad stories coming out that I think that is a reasonable 

kind of idea, which is amplifying the voices of disillusioned militants. 

Mr. BERGER. Yes, I think when we are looking at trying to undermine ISIS’ messaging, one problem we have is that the information we have that does undermine their projection of strength, of 

this utopian society, is mostly eyewitness testimony from defectors. 

That is not as compelling as photographs, video, and audio. And so, 

one of the things that I proposed is that inasmuch as we can deploy 
29 

intelligence assets to get pictures of what is going on in these area, 

intercepted communications, things that are much more gripping 

and much more compelling, instead of just one person’s story, 

which is easy for a radical to dismiss because radicals are already 

convinced that they have the right idea anyway. 

Mr. BERGEN. If I could jump in, on the flip side of this, there is 

a wonderful site called ‘‘Silently Slaughtering Raqqa,’’ which is a 

Twitter feed of what is really going on in Iraq. There are pictures 

of bread lines. They are saying, hey, the electricity is only on for 

3 hours a day. So the point is that there is an alternative universe 

on social media that is portraying what is really happening that exists and we should understand and know about. 

Senator AYOTTE. Absolutely, and we should promote it and encourage people to see what really is happening, because I think 

there is sort of a romanticized view being pushed out there that is 

attractive to people. 

I wanted to get your thoughts, all of you, on the leader of ISIS, 

Al-Baghdadi. They are using social media, using information to put 

out a certain image of him that does not line up with the truth. 

What is your thought on the leader? I understand we take out a 

leader and another leader can follow, but he seems to have portrayed himself in a certain way. What thoughts do you have for us 

to try to undermine the leadership to show that they are not really 

who they purport to be? 

Mr. BERGER. So I think Baghdadi is kind of an interesting figure 

in this context. In some ways, he is kind of an empty suit or a Rorschach test. He has a basic biography which is carefully calculated 

to support the legitimacy of naming him caliph. We know a little 

bit more about him through independent reporting, but the image 

that he projects is really somebody who appears rarely, who speaks 

in jihadist platitudes, and as such, he is somewhat replaceable. You 

can bring your expectations to who he is and understand him in 

the context that you want. He does not have the same powerful 

personality that somebody like Osama bin Laden did. He is replaceable. I would assume that ISIS has a plan for his succession 

because they do have to meet certain criteria to replace a caliph. 

It is not like al-Qaeda where you can just give the guy who has 

the most seniority the job. And he may be an important strategic 

thinker in the group. I mean, there are some reasons to think that. 

So replacing him may undercut their ability to operate, but it may 

not. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think we touched on this earlier, but how important in all this context is it that we—thinking about what ISIS 

is doing actually on the ground and trying to establish this caliphate in Iraq and Syria—I serve on the Armed Services Committee 

as well—that we continue to work with our partners there to actually diminish their capacity. Because I think I heard one of you say 

that the fact that they control territory gives them a greater ability 

to recruit because it shows their legitimacy. So it is almost like we 

have to be addressing this on all fronts, it seems. 

Mr. BERGEN. I think the short answer is yes to that. 

Mr. BERGER. One element of this that I would just bring up, because we have talked a lot about how their loss of territory would 

undermine their recruiting, and it would. But ISIS is also an apoc-
30 

alyptic millenarian group, and traditionally what happens with 

groups like this is when the prophecies that they are fulfilling turn 

out not to be correct, they will often double down on violence. So 

ISIS could lose its territory. We could undercut its recruiting. But 

we could see very disastrous secondary effects to that. 

Senator AYOTTE. We have seen that with al-Qaeda as well. 

Mr. BERGER. We see it with Al-Shabaab, and Al-Shabaab does 

not have the same platform or prophecy that ISIS has built itself 

on, so yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. Great. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. Senator 

Portman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having 

the hearing. This has been fascinating, and I really appreciate the 

experts coming and talking to us about this. 

Let me just give you an interesting case study from Ohio, the 

middle of the country. Like every other State here, we are concerned about radicalization, and there were recently two cases. One 

is Christopher Lee Cornell, as some of you know, a 20-year-old in 

Cincinnati, Ohio, my home town, wanted to come here and bomb 

the Capitol. That happened earlier this year. He is now under arrest. 

Just last month, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud of Columbus was 

indicted on Federal charges. He actually became the first American, as I understand it, accused of training in Syria and then returning to try to conduct a terrorist attack here in the United 

States. 

So one is a classic lone wolf, right? So he is on the Internet, gets 

radicalized, a loner. The second is a member of a community in 

central Ohio, as I understand it, the Somali community. I know a 

number of members of that community. They are very concerned 

about the radicalization. They are engaged and involved in it. The 

leaders are working hard to have a productive dialogue about it. 

Some of the things you all talked about they are doing. And it is 

two very different challenges, and we have talked more about the 

community one, and I would like to hear more about that if you 

have thoughts, but also about the lone wolf. And maybe this goes 

to more of what Senator Booker was talking about. I looked at your 

appendices, Mr. Shaikh, and unbelievable, the kinds of stuff that 

they are doing. And we certainly have the capability to do more 

with more resources. 

So I guess my first question would be: Do you view these as two 

distinct challenges, two very different strategies, and just assessing 

the two strategies? And a subpart of that would be a specific question I have always had. You have three groups—DHS, NCTC, and 

FBI—all working together to try to support these community outreach programs, understanding that, as Mr. Shaikh said, local police are the face of it, but to get these best practices and the expertise, frankly, our local communities are not going to have the access to that. Are they doing a good job coordinating? Or should 

there be one agency that has more responsibility and, therefore, ac-
31 

countability? And I will really open it up. I would like to hear from 

all of you. 

Mr. BERGEN. Training overseas makes you more dangerous. We 

saw in Paris that the fact that one of the perpetrators had trained 

with al-Qaeda in Yemen made it a much more effective attack. So, 

yes, they are very different, and lone wolves have a natural ceiling 

to what they can do because they are operating alone and they do 

not have an organization and they usually do not have training. So 

they are two separate issues. 

I am glad you mentioned, Senator Portman, Mr. Mohamud from 

Cincinnati, Ohio, because he is the only returnee who has come 

back to the United States who is alleged to have plotted an attack. 

Senator PORTMAN. Columbus. 

Mr. BERGEN. Columbus. Pardon me, sir. Crucially, he was 

trained by Nusra, which we have not really talked about today, 

which is the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. So, the focus is a lot on 

ISIS, but the two cases of Americans coming back to the United 

States, one of whom did not plot anything here, one who is alleged 

to, were both Nusra. So we need to keep that in mind. 

Senator PORTMAN. This is particularly troubling and interesting 

because it was not Al-Shabaab, even though, as I understand it, he 

came from the Somali community, and you would have thought it 

would have been Al-Shabaab. 

Mr. BERGER. I think in that particular case it was not clear in 

the court documents exactly who he had trained with. He had 

started with Nusra, and then he went to an unspecified training 

camp and talked to unspecified clerics while he was posting about 

the Islamic State. 

In terms of the problems, these are two different problems. We 

could see ISIS try and bridge the two to coordinate loosely lone 

wolf-type activity with organized-type terrorist activity. In the case 

of this returnee, this may be a dry run to see what happens when 

you send somebody back. 

We have seen that ISIS has had returned fighters who have been 

active in Europe. We have seen at least one case of what was described by investigators as an ISIS operational cell in Belgium. 

There is not much reason to think that they will not try this kind 

of thing. So, we need to sort of keep an eye on this as it develops. 

The lone wolf piece of it is easy for them. It is easy, it is something they have proven that they are pretty good at relative to 

other groups. And it is going to capture a lot of headlines for them 

without a big investment. So the question is how much they want 

to invest in attacks here, and I think that is pretty unclear right 

now. We do not have a clear bead on that. 

Senator PORTMAN. Mr. Shaikh, could you talk a little about the 

coordination between DHS and the FBI and the NCTC? 

Mr. SHAIKH. Yes, there is a DHS coordinator on countering violent extremism (CVE): David Gersten. He comes from a civil liberties background, which I was pleasantly surprised to see that 

DHS is putting that kind of resource in that area. The Office of 

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is also looking at how to avoid the 

securitization aspect of it. The securitization aspect of it is really 

poisonous to the CVE branding, I think, as communities, if they 

perceive especially at the behest of what I call these obstructionist 
32 

community groups who are really giving a false narrative of what 

the government is trying to do, it will continue to be a problem. 

If I could just quickly make a point on the lone wolf, what kind 

of lone wolves are we talking about? I call them ‘‘ISIS zombies.’’ 

These are the self-activating, might have mental health issues, 

really low level of competency. But then you could have, directed 

attackers who, let us say, are Syria returnees and do have a level 

of competency where just one person can pull off a quite effective 

attack. 

In Paris, of course, only two guys did what they did, so you could 

easily have a cell of, six people, three two-man teams, to go and 

do simultaneous attacks, and it would really cause some great disruption. So there are, again, a number of threats in that spectrum. 

Senator PORTMAN. Just back to the community for a second, you 

were making the point that we need to do a better job of providing 

best practices community by community. It would be a local face 

you said was important, getting the community engaged and involved, and, again, I said the Somali community in central Ohio 

has been very involved, and I think in a productive dialogue. Is the 

Federal Government where, we have responsibility, doing an effective job of coordinating between the three agencies I mentioned, 

and perhaps even some other agencies that are more on the intelligence side? Is that working? Or should there be more accountability that comes from more definitive responsibility? 

Mr. SHAIKH. It is working. I am positive, optimistic on that side. 

First and foremost is because there was no coordinator before, and 

so now that there is a coordinator and that is happening, it is a 

positive step. It is running into these issues of critics saying, this 

is just an excuse to intelligence-gather, but I think DHS and their 

particular mechanisms that are working on CVE are trying to navigate this space as best as possible. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Portman. We will start 

another round. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I started my opening statement with a description of that posting with the claim that there are 71 trained 

fighters, 23 have accepted assignments. Again, nobody knows 

whether that is bluster or whether it is real. I will ask the question: Is that an unprecedented posting? Have we seen similar 

things like that, similar threats that just simply have not panned 

out? Anybody? 

Mr. BERGEN. I think we have multiple times, and I will give you 

an example. Do you remember the blackout on the east coast? I 

think it was in 2005. Some jihadi group claimed credit. So, I mean, 

merely because they say something does not mean it is true. 

Chairman JOHNSON. What about from ISIS, though, I mean recently? Or is that kind of unprecedented from ISIS? 

Mr. BERGER. No, it is pretty precedented. The volume of material 

they put out is just truly extensive, and it comes in a lot of different formats. So they have made a variety of threats with more 

or less specificity over time. One of the reasons that it was surprising about the Garland event was that it was something that 

they had actually specifically talked about, but then it turned into 

an attack, and that is pretty unusual because they create so much 
33 

noise that that needle in the haystack can be very difficult to detect. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So you really take that posting with a great 

deal of skepticism? 

Mr. BERGER. Yes, I—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. The attempt at a winning message. 

Mr. BERGER. Yes. I think that, certainly they have dozens to low 

hundreds of passive supporters in this country, and some of those 

people may be prepared to act, but I do not think there is anything 

remotely as organized as what that post described. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, certainly in your testimony, both written and oral, you were talking about the rise of 

the brand of ISIS. But they are also very vulnerable to a reversal 

of that. I certainly hope that is true. I also understand strategically 

they have made a lot of enemies, and they are being attacked on 

a number of different fronts. 

The stated goal of this administration of America right now is to 

degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS. I have asked the administration officials in the past, What does defeat look like? Define it. I 

would like to have you gentlemen take a crack at what does defeat 

look like to you and how achievable is that. I will start with you, 

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I think there is actually a very clear 

thing that defeat means in this context, which is not true of other 

jihadist groups. They have staked their legitimacy to the caliphate’s continuing viability, and if the caliphate is no longer viable, 

then they can lose legitimacy pretty quickly. So I think that if you 

are able to make the caliphate no longer a viable entity and no 

longer perceived as a viable entity, then at that point they have in 

effect lost. 

Now, their narrative will not be completely dead. If you understand the nuances of their narrative and the end times argument, 

they have certain outs. For example, they believe that at some 

point there will be a grand battle and they actually will be crushed. 

But what essentially it means is that you make this already marginal movement much more marginal. 

Let me actually add one final thing, because this ties to the way 

we are conceptualizing community and lone wolves. Sometimes we 

talk about what can the community do to delegitimize the message. 

The way I would think of it is: What can the community do to continue to delegitimize the message? Because for the United States, 

if we had a 5-percent approval rating, we would think that was an 

awful thing. For ISIS, they can have a 5-percent approval rating 

and that is a great thing for them, because they are dealing with 

those who are very much on the margins. They are not even dealing with the whole jihadist movement. There are many within the 

jihadist movement who argue against ISIS. 

So the question really is not how do we change an entire community, but how do we stop this fringe group from spurring people to 

action? And that is why undermining the legitimacy of the caliphate actually will, in my view, have a disproportionate impact on 

their ability to remain viable as a movement. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Does anyone else have a different definition 

of ‘‘defeat’’? 
34 

Mr. BERGER. I think that we are best served by strategies that 

encourage ISIS to fail on its own terms. Cutting it off economically—an internal collapse or a major schism inside the group I 

think would be better for us than a forcible ejection from their territory, especially if that ejection was done primarily through American military—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. But that is the method, the defeat, I mean, 

how it looks like is the denial of that territory, the end of the caliphate, correct? 

Mr. BERGER. Oh, yes, well, it is the end of their territory, but it 

is not the end of the story. I mean, they already have branches in— 

a robust presence in Nigeria, in Libya. 

Chairman JOHNSON. An important point. I am glad you pointed 

that out. Again, does anybody else have a different definition of 

‘‘defeat’’? 

[No response.] 

So then my next question is—I am no military expert, and I do 

not think we have one on the panel. You have expertise that has 

been very valuable here. How far away are we from that definition 

of ‘‘defeat’’? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. As you said, I do not think anyone on 

this panel can say, but I can point to a few things we should look 

to. 

No. 1, looking to internal resistance movements is very important. I agree with J.M. Berger that, at the end of the day, if the 

defeat comes from within, that is going to be a much more resounding defeat. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But how possible is that? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. We already see resistance movements in 

some areas. Now, the question is how—there are two things to this. 

No. 1 is how robust are they. In the past we saw very robust resistance movements to AQI, but the United States also played a role 

in helping to ensure that they were not destroyed. 

The second thing I should warn is I think a lot of these resistance movements are also people we do not like. You have, on the 

one hand, probably Ba’athist resistance movements, and I would 

say almost certainly you have al-Qaeda resistance movements, 

which plays into the broader struggle within jihadism. 

But that being said, looking to internal dissent, looking to, No. 

2, internal squabbles—there was a question before about Baghdadi, 

and while I think that Baghdadi is replaceable, once you have a 

succession, especially within an organization like this, which has a 

cult of personality internally, that might cause some greater fragmentation within ISIS, which could be a good thing in terms of the 

defeat of ISIS specifically. 

The final thing we could look to is, given that they are a bit overstretched militarily, you could possibly see rapid reversals, just like 

when the United States engaged in its campaigns early in the Iraq 

war and the Afghanistan war, and also even in Libya, there were 

very rapid reversals of the enemy that was trying to hold territory. 

It is hard to hold territory, particularly when your population is 

not particularly happy with what you are doing. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I do have a remaining second, so I just have 

to ask this question: Mr. Shaikh, talk about engagement with com-
35 

munities; understanding local police better, how to have a coordinated effort, and how do we find more Mubin Shaikhs? How do we 

find more people like you that have had a change of heart and that 

have your capacity and your capability and your willingness to 

really appeal and try and turn people away from this? 

Mr. SHAIKH. I wish we could clone me. [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. I think we all do as well. 

Mr. SHAIKH. I tried to do the right thing. I got here because I 

believe I did make the right decisions. And it came at a lot of personal cost, I will be honest, and I think a lot of people may not be 

ready to do that. 

I think, when we say empowerment, I think it needs to be made 

clear for a lot of these individuals who are back and really the intelligence community knows who these people are after they have 

been vetted and maybe they need to have continual monitoring, but 

to have them step up, go to Muslim conferences, let them be seen 

on media, mainstream media, where people hear the message. I do 

not want to be the only person. A lot of times I feel frustrated. I 

see, I am the only guy doing it. Everyone is talking about countermessaging. Nobody is really doing enough of it. But there are others like me out there. They just do not know how to come forward, 

and so they will need some direction to do that. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I think I speak for all of us when I say God 

bless you for what you are doing. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. I am Tom Carper, and I approve that message. 

God bless you. 

This is one for all of you, please, and I just want to say, Mr. 

Shaikh, do you pronounce your name ‘‘Mu-BEAN’’ or ‘‘MOO-bin.’’ 

Mr. SHAIKH. It is ‘‘Mu-BEAN.’’ 

Senator CARPER. Mubin, all right. Have you ever been called 

‘‘MOO-bin’’? 

Mr. SHAIKH. Yes, I have. In high school it was ‘‘MOO-bin,’’ and 

then it became ‘‘Bin,’’ and then the joke was, ‘‘1A‘Bin,’ ’’ like bin 

Laden? ’’ Then it stopped being funny. [Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. We have a ‘‘Bin,’’ not like bin Laden, in our 

family. 

Several of my colleagues have said that in order for the United 

States. to have a success against al-Qaeda and against ISIS, we 

must adequately define the problem and our enemy, and they suggest that we should unequivocally announce that the United States 

is at war with Islamic extremism or radical Islam. In your opinions, is it necessary or beneficial for the United States to define 

ISIS and al-Qaeda in this manner? I will ask you, Daveed, to go 

first, please. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. The question really is: What is the benefit of doing so? I am not sure that there is a benefit in explicitly 

emphasizing that we are at war with radical Islam. There is the 

question embedded in that: What is radical Islam? 

In Libya, for example, one of the problems with one of the warring factions in that civil war, that being the Dignity faction, is 

that Khalifa Haftar, who is very high—he is their commander in 

chief—defines radical Islam, defines the enemy as including both 

Islamists who work in the political process and also jihadist organizations, which makes it, if one were to, say, support his organiza-
36 

tion, would make it a civil war that is much bloodier and much 

more broadly defined than it should be. 

Second, the administration has moved away from using religious 

rhetoric. It has tried to avoid terms like ‘‘Islam’’ and ‘‘jihad’’ in its 

own rhetoric. And I think that is a reasonable thing to do in terms 

of public messaging. The area where I sometimes disagree is that 

I think that if we as analysts are not able to process the ideological 

dimension, we are at a disadvantage. But in terms of public messaging, I do not think it is advantageous for the United States to 

make its enemy radical Islam, writ large. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. Mubin. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you, sir. Terrorists in Islamic Costume. It 

uses the adjective Islamic in a correct way, because I believe Islamic terrorism is an oxymoron. But because they are appealing to 

the Islamic sources and not the Bhagavad Gita, I mean, we need 

to see something Islam. So Terrorists in Islamic Costume, and if 

I could impose the Muslim term for these people, it is ‘‘Khawarij,’’ 

as I have in the—K–H–A–W–A–R–I–J. And I have given scriptural 

references from the Prophet—Peace Be Upon Him—who referred to 

Khawarij in the most vile terms. They are the dogs of hell. In fact, 

we believe in the Islamic tradition that these people subscribe to 

that the anti-Christ himself emerges from the last remnants of the 

Khawarij. So those are the two terms that I encourage using. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. J.M.? 

Mr. BERGER. So I do agree with Daveed that we need to understand the religious dimension of this as people studying the problem. However, in terms of public dialogue and in terms of the motivation of this, we must name the enemy kind of motif, the thing 

that I think about when I think about this is that, in 2013, I did 

a study of white supremacists’ use of Twitter and found that the 

people who were following white supremacists on Twitter talked 

continually about and primarily about mainstream conservative 

Republican politics. And we do not insist that neo-Nazis be referred 

to as ‘‘conservative radicals’’ or ‘‘Republican radicals,’’ and I think 

that there is a double standard. It is easier to insist when it is a 

minority. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks for that. Mr. Bergen. 

Mr. BERGEN. I totally endorse what has already been said. As a 

public messaging matter for the U.S. Government, it should be 

very careful about using these terms. As an analytical question, 

certainly this has something to do with Islam, difficult as that is 

to maybe say. But those are two different aspects of the problem. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you all for those responses. 

As you know, in religion in this country—I will not speak about 

other countries, but in the Protestant faith we have many flavors, 

Protestants. We have Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and the list goes on and on and on. And when we think 

of the Muslim faith, as I understand it, it is not just one or two 

but many. But we oftentimes think of Shia and we think of Sunni, 

but I realize it is not that simple. 

But when you look at those—what is it, ISIS, al-Qaeda, if you 

look at the folks that are the jihadists and they are bent on—what 

is it, caliphate or just domination, destruction? I do not notice as 
37 

much Shia involvement. Is that my imagination or not? Could you 

speak to that for me, one of you or both of you? 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. Certainly with respect to ISIS and alQaeda, you do not have Shia involvement. Both of them are Sunni 

movements. ISIS in particular is vehemently anti-Shia. al-Qaeda is 

quite anti-Shia, although has tried to constrain that a bit. 

When you think of Shia movements, Hezbollah is the primary 

one that is a non-state actor with state sponsorship. You also have 

Shia movements who are kind of part of our coalition in Iraq, these 

non-state Shia militias, but they pose their own set of problems. A 

lot of them are quite radical. If you look at what they are actually 

doing, they are brutalizing the Sunni population there, and that 

could make this a longer-term problem. 

So, yes, in terms of ISIS, al-Qaeda, absolutely. But I certainly 

would not factor out the importance of some of these Shia militant 

non-state groups. And one person who has done very good work on 

this is Phillip Smyth at the Washington Institute for Near East 

Policy, releasing a major monograph on this earlier this year, 

which I think is really essential reading for understanding that 

particular aspect of this conflict. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

Last question, if I could. Mr. Berger, could you share with us the 

story of Omar Shafik Hammami, please, and your experiences with 

him, please? 

Mr. BERGER. So Omar Hammami was an Alabama native. He 

was born in a family to a Syrian father and an Irish Catholic mother, and he became radicalized and joined Al-Shabaab. And where 

I came into the story was after he joined Al-Shabaab, he got there 

and discovered that things were not to his liking. So foreign fighters were not being treated well. Al-Shabaab had a nasty habit of 

assassinating al-Qaeda emissaries who had been sent to try and 

rein the group in. There was corruption and inconsistencies ideologically, and so he took to the Internet and put out a video saying, 

‘‘Look, I have all these problems with Al-Shabaab, and I expressed 

my opinions, and now they are trying to kill me, and I need help.’’ 

And this plea was directed to al-Qaeda central. He imagined that 

somebody from al-Qaeda would come riding in to save him, which 

did not happen. 

In many ways, he was kind of a vanguard of the emergence of 

this movement on social media, and not the only one by any 

stretch, but prior to about 2012, 2013, jihadists’ use of social media 

was much lower. And because of Omar but also because of other 

dissenters from the lockstep jihadi movement, people started getting online. They started coming online to argue with Omar. So AlShabaab dispatched people to come out and say, ‘‘This guy is a 

liar.’’ And then people popped up to push back on that, and it sort 

of escalated out from there. And the same thing was happening in 

the al-Qaeda in Iraq context on the jihadist forums. 

I had an extended correspondence with Hammami on social 

media, which was an unusual experience. Some of my comments 

about the remote intimacy and sort of the feeling of knowing somebody over social media are informed by that because, when you 

talk to somebody briefly every day or every couple of days, you can 

get a sense of them as a person, which may be artificial and in-
38 

flated in your head. But they become much more real to you than 

somebody you are reading about or somebody you correspond with 

via post. 

Senator CARPER. Very interesting. A very interesting hearing, 

and I think very informative. Thank you. Thank you all. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. Senator Booker. 

Senator BOOKER. Again, I want to thank the panel so much for 

being here today, and your written testimony was so strong and enabled my staff to begin thinking about these issues and its many 

layers, and I am grateful for that. 

In the final minutes of this hearing, I would just like to ask you 

all, if you were a Senator—and I know that is a scary prospect. If 

you all were Senators or even in a high-level executive position and 

were looking at this issue of countercommunications, in light of our 

‘‘nascent’’ and ‘‘rudimentary’’ before, communications what would 

be the ideal effort? If you could push for 2 years—and the Chairperson said this should make us think about legislation—what specifically in terms of strategy and tactics would you want to see 

being implemented on a broader scale by 2016, 2017? Anybody can 

pick that up, and maybe we can go down the line. Daveed. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I think we often look at this problem in 

a way that is very inefficient and is not getting to the solution, and 

you in your previous question, Senator, spoke to this. I referenced 

the U.S. Government as a legacy industry, and I do not say that 

lightly. A lot of established companies have actually seen it as beneficial to essentially create a startup within the company, and that 

has been a very successful thing for a number of companies to do. 

I would point to Intuit, the tax company, as one that did a very 

good job of creating a very interesting tax app where people 

through their cell phone could get all tax documents. They did this, 

very much like a startup would do, by creating a unit which was 

a startup within a broader company. 

With respect to this specific issue, social media, I would want to 

see a startup within the U.S. Government, something where you 

can get the best people on board, and there are a few layers of that. 

One is: Are we able to work with the right people? Yesterday, I 

spent the morning with a Lebanese businessman, an owner of a 

media company who had these remarkable anti-extremism ads on 

his computer that his company had put together. He knows the region well, and he was looking to shop them around. But the production value was extraordinarily high. Are we getting the right 

production value? Do we have the right people in place? Often multiple things make it hard to have the right people in place. 

So one of the things I would look at is not just starting a startup 

but looking at the broader rules that prevent us as a government 

from having the best people in place to tackle these very thorny 

problems. 

Senator BOOKER. I want to interrupt just because I want to get 

through the whole panel, but anything that you would like to provide in the days after this hearing of that idea you just mentioned, 

I would love to pounce on, because I think you are speaking not 

only a truth but you are speaking an urgent truth. But just to 

move to Mubin. Mr. Shaikh. 
39 

Mr. SHAIKH. Very quickly, subject matter experts to guide and 

train government agencies, whether it is law enforcement, whether 

it is military, psychological operations, whatever it is, and ultimately autonomy of efforts on the ground to move at the speed of 

social media. If I can quote Bruce Lee, you know, ‘‘Be like water,’’ 

formlessness, autonomy. 

Senator BOOKER. And I think that is a really important point, because somebody else mentioned that, that often you delegitimize 

the organic voices when you put a U.S. Government stamp on that. 

And I think it is really important to have strategies that create an 

atmosphere in which those organic voices can emerge without being 

delegitimized by the U.S. Government. Mr. Berger. 

Mr. BERGER. So, yes, we are getting creamed on social media, not 

just by ISIS but also by Russia, Iran, and Syria. This is a difficult 

thing. We do not do propaganda well because we have principles 

that we adhere to that these adversaries do not, in terms of truthfulness, in terms of fairness. 

What we can match them on is volume. We talk about CSEC as 

an effort to counterprogram against these guys. They are working 

with a handful of Twitter accounts. What would have an impact 

and would get around some of the logjams of government in terms 

of content would be to have hundreds or thousands of accounts that 

are putting out even very innocuous messaging just to get us into 

the space and holding a presence, and we can refine the messaging 

as we go. I think there is risk aversion in government that prevents us from doing things that are experimental and daring in 

that space. But I think if we are out there in the space first, then 

we can figure out where to take the ship after that. 

Mr. BERGEN. Two ideas about what to do, which are not to do 

with messaging, but have not been discussed so far. One is there 

is sort of a good-news story going on with Turkey. If you look at 

ISIS’ English language propaganda, they are now saying, Turkish 

intelligence is not your friend. So this Committee overseas the Customs and Border Protection (CBP). We should be giving every technical assistance possible to Turkey and reinforcing and congratulating them for basically changing what had been a very lackadaisical approach to being a more proactive approach. 

The other thing we should be doing as a government is to be 

building a database of every foreign fighter from the West, because 

we know from previous jihads that one in nine foreign fighters returning to the West will engage in an act of terrorism. If that continues to be the case in this jihad, we need to know that a group 

of visa waiver countries, who exactly these people are, to the best 

of our ability. 

Senator BOOKER. Gentlemen, thank you very much for a really 

great panel and for your work on these issues. I am grateful. I have 

learned a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Booker. 

Again, I am very serious. We need to work on this, and I certainly want to engage the members of the panel and other experts 

you can put us in touch with in terms of how do we do this. How 

do we set up a Center of Excellence? Is it inside government? Outside of government? Do you fund it? We need to work on this. 

Senator BOOKER. I suspect it is both. 
40 

Chairman JOHNSON. I agree. But, again, it is urgent, as we have 

said. 

One thing I do like to do is provide the witnesses a final bite at 

the apple here if there is something that you want to get off your 

chest, a final statement. I would start with Mr. Bergen. 

Mr. BERGEN. Looking forward, we have a chance to not have a 

hearing like this 5 years from now about Afghanistan if we change, 

the idea that we are going to turn off the lights of our presence 

there on December 31, 2016, merely because the Obama Administration is going to be shortly out of office is crazy. The Afghans 

want us to stay, and we were attacked from there, obviously, on 

9/11. It is in our interest to stay, and I think it is in the interest 

of both parties to say that we plan to stay. We have an agreement 

with the Afghans until 2024, a strategic partnership agreement. 

The work has already been laid out. So I would, looking forward, 

this is a proactive measure to prevent having the same kind of 

hearing about Afghanistan several years from now. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I hope we have learned that failed States 

are not good for our security. 

Mr. BERGEN. Indeed. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Mr. Berger. 

Mr. BERGER. I think that ISIS is kind of the harbinger of radical 

social change ahead of us and that we need to sort of be prepared 

to see what happens when people can communicate in these daily 

routine ways with people of similar interests around the world and 

you can travel to join somebody in a relatively easy way. I think 

we are going to see social networks and societies that are going to 

be sorting themselves out into groups that are clustered around 

specific interests, and, unfortunately, we are seeing, what I would 

hope would be the worst example of that is the first, but I think 

there is potential for a lot of interesting evolution of how we deal 

with each other as human beings that is ahead. 

Chairman JOHNSON. I fear that is the future reality. Mr. Shaikh. 

Mr. SHAIKH. Thank you, sir. Very quickly on, I guess, the Muslim 

side of things, just given the things that have happened, we really 

need to pay attention to the marginalization narrative. I think 

Muslims are your best partners in this. I think Muslims understand that we cannot do it without each other. It is a common 

enemy. They are not going to think twice, if I am there with my 

family, I will be killed just along with everyone else. So we are in 

this together. Let us move together. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, help us make those connections. Mr. 

Gartenstein-Ross. 

Mr. GARTENSTEIN-ROSS. I agree with what J.M. Berger said, that 

we are in for an era of radical social change due to the unprecedented ability for a variety of movements to organize. And the 

question for us is: Are we up for this new era? I think we have 

grown content with a system in which a lot of things do not work, 

where we try to address problems and it gets lost somewhere in the 

bureaucracy, and there is an interagency process, and everyone is 

waiting for someone else to do something, and what we are getting 

in terms of outputs is so suboptimal that, if the U.S. Government 

were a corporation, people would lose their jobs. 
41 

I think the questions are: Can we move fast enough? Are there 

too many bureaucratic obstacles? If so, what can we do to smash 

those obstacles? And are we transparent enough both internally, in 

terms of getting by within the government, and also externally, 

getting by publicly and in the broader world community? 

We have talked a number of times about how the United States 

has a bad brand. That is absolutely true. There is no question 

about that. But I also think that, looking at the big picture, we 

should not be content with this. The United States is a great country. We should not be content with the United States just having 

a bad brand and there is nothing we can do about it. I think that 

is also one of those very big issues that we should try to change, 

and we should make sure we can have the right people in place 

who can bring the right ideas. And right now, even having the 

right people in place is something that is hard for the government 

to do. That should change. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Well, again, having come from a manufacturing background and solved a lot of problems, there is a process. 

It starts with laying out the reality, understanding exactly what it 

is, then set yourself achievable goals. I think today’s hearing has 

certainly laid out a reality here that I wish were not true. I wish 

we did not have to face it, but we cannot keep our head buried in 

the sand. 

So, again, I just want to thank the witnesses for your thoughtful 

testimony and your thoughtful answers to questions. Mr. Shaikh, 

again, thank you for doing what you are doing. Thank you all for 

doing what you are doing. 

This hearing record will remain open for 15 days until May 22 

at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the 

record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:34 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(43) 

A P P E N D I X 
44 

Statement of Ranking Member Thomas R. Carper 

"Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment" 

May 7, 2015 

As prepared for delivery: 

As this Committee has discussed at a number of hearings over the years, the threats our country 

faces have evolved significantly since 9/11. 

"After 9/11, the most acute terrorist threats came from Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, which had 

orchestrated large, complex attacks from remote caves in Afghanistan. Today, Bin Laden is 

dead. The core of Al-Qaeda as we knew it has been dismantled. 

"Unfortunately, Al-Qaeda's affiliates in Yemen, Africa and Syria have filled the void. At the 

same time, new terror groups like ISIS present an immediate and different kind of threat to the 

United States both at home and abroad. 

"While the threat of major aviation attacks still remains a top concern for American counter 

terrorism officials, the tactics employed by the groups who are targeting us have broadened and 

are not as focused on this attack method. 

"Groups like ISIS, Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have used social media 

and online propaganda to spread their call to extremists here in America and around the world to 

carry out their own attacks against. 

"Moreover, ISIS has seemingly perfected the ability to use social media to lure Western recruits 

to Syria for training. These new tactics mean that we can no longer rely solely on our ability to 

use military force to eliminate a terrorist threat. We must- in partnership with our allies overseas 

start examining the root causes of why Westerners join the ranks and act in the name of ISIS 

and Al-Qaeda. We must continue to evolve our own counter terrorism tactics to address these 

root causes. 

"Today, we will begin to examine the narratives put forward by these terrorist groups over social 

media, and also how those narratives are being used to influence vulnerable individuals here and 

in other Western countries. And, we will look for common-sense solutions that the government 

can employ to counter these groups' narratives and to eliminate this tool from terrorists' tool 

box. I look forward to a productive hearing." 
45 

"Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next Evolution of 

Terrorist Recruitment" 

Testimony for the U.S. Senate Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

May 7, 2015 

Peter Bergen 

Director, International Security Program, New 

America and Professor of Practice at Arizona State 

University 
46 

This testimony is divided into eight sections. 

--the first examines who the Americans involved in Syrian militancy are; 

--the second, how these Americans were recruited; 

--the third wi II try and answer the question of why these Americans are being recruited; 

--the fourth will assess the true level of threat posed by American fighters returning from Syria; 

--the fifth will analyze the threat from those "homegrown" militants who are inspired by Syrian 

militant groups; 

--the sixth will examine the threat to American interests posed by militants from other Western 

countries fighting in Syria; 

--the seventh will examine the climate of fear surrounding the perceived ISIS threat to the States; 

and 

--the final section will discuss what can be done to mitigate the terrorist threats that are 

considered in this testimony. 1 

!. Who are the Americans recruited by militant groups in Syria? 

One of the fundamental challenges facing law enforcement about ferreting out which Americans 

are being drawn to the Syrian conflict is that they fit no profile. Those accused of being involved 

in Syria-related militancy include Joshua Van Haften, a 34-year-old white man and registered 

sex offender from Wisconsin, Hoda Muthana, a 20-year-old Alabama woman from a YemeniAmerican family who is using social media from Syria to radicalize and recruit others, and 

Tairod Pugh, a 47-year old African-American convert to Islam who once served in the Air 

Force. 1 Among the 62 American citizens and residents who have been identified by researchers 

at New America as being involved in Syria-related militancy there is no ethnic profile they are 

Caucasian, Somali-American, Vietnamese-American, Bosnian-American, and Arab-American, 

among other ethnicities and nationalities. Strangely, and perhaps surprisingly absent from those 

who have gone to fight for ISIS or al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, are SyrianAmericans, except for one individual. 2 

1 Thanks to David Sterman of New America for his help in preparing this testimony, and 

Emily Schneider and Courtney Schuster of New America for their work on research that 

also contributed to it. 2 The one individual is a South Carolinian teen from a Syrian-American family whose name is 

not public because he is a juvenile. He was convicted of a gun charge and prosecutors said he 

intended to join ISIS and conduct an attack inside the United States before leaving. For more see 

Dys, Andrew. "York teen sent to juvenile prison after plotting to join ISIS, kill American 

soldiers." Charlotte Observer. 4/21/2015. 

http://www .charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article 1915 5336.html#storyl ink=cpy 

2 
47 

This is in sharp contract to an earlier wave of jihadist recruitment from the States that began in 

2007 in which a cohort of U.S. militants were drawn to the Somalia civil war and fought 

alongside the Somali terrorist group, Al-Shabaab. Those militants were overwhelmingly SomaliAmericans, most of whom were from Minnesota. 

By contrast, Americans drawn to the militant groups fighting in the Syrian conflict hail from all 

over the United States. According to FBI Director James Corney, the FBI is investigating cases 

in all 50 states. 2 Indeed among the 62 individuals in the United States that New America has 

identified in public records or news accounts who tried to join militant groups in Syria such as 

ISIS or Nusra, or have succeeded in joining such groups, or have helped others to join such 

groups were residents of 19 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, 

Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, 

Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

The majority of those involved are, no surprise, men since jihadist terrorism has in the past 

overwhelmingly been a male domain, but more than one in five of the 62 Americans involved in 

Syria-related militant activity are women- an unprecedented development. Women were rarely, 

present, if at all, among jihadists in previous holy wars in Afghanistan against the Soviets, in 

Bosnia against the Serbs, and the initial insurgency in Iraq against the U.S.-led occupation more 

than a decade ago. 

Many of the Americans drawn to the Syrian conflict are young. One quarter are teenagersincluding five teenage girls, the youngest of whom was 15. On average, New America found that 

the individuals involved in Syrian militancy are 25. 

2. How are the Americans drawn to militant groups in Syria being recruited? 

We have seen several models of terrorist recruitment inside the United States. The stereotypical 

view of how al-Qaeda recruitment occurs is that an al-Qaeda operative arrives from overseas to 

the United States and physically recruits a group of American militants. This form of recruitment 

is, in fact, quite rare. The Lackawanna Six were one such case. They were a group of six 

Yemeni-Americans living in the small, decaying Rust Belt town of Lackawanna, New York 

where they had grown up as American as a Big Mac. But in 2000 they fell under the spell of 

Kamal Derwish, a charismatic, deeply religious, fellow Y emeni-American, who told them 

stirring tales of derring-do about his role in the early-1990s war between the Bosnian Muslims 

and Serbs. Over late night bull sessions fueled by pizza, Derwish, who was a member of alQaeda, along with Juma Dosari, another a! Qaeda recruiter, led the group of very ordinary men 

telemarketers, delivery men, and car salesman- in discussions about the plight of Muslims 

around the world: gradually they came to embrace a militant form of Islam. 3 Derwish eventually 

3 
48 

persuaded the six men that they should go to Afghanistan to see the Taliban in action and deepen 

their commitment to jihad by attending training camps there. 

Derwish and his buddies traveled to Afghanistan in two groups during the spring and summer of 

2001. At one ofal-Qaeda's Afghan training camps the men trained on Ml6 rifles, RPGs, and 

AK-47s. Eventually almost all of the Yemeni-Americans returned home to Lackawanna. It was 

their bad luck that in the spring of 2002, a handwritten, anonymous letter arrived at the FBI 

office in Buffalo, which led to their investigation and imprisonment. 

A second model is a militant group that forms around a charismatic leader such as a radical cleric 

or a returning fighter from an overseas jihad. An example of this was a group of young SomaliAmerican men recruited in Minnesota to fight for Al-Shabaab in Somalia who coalesced around 

Caabdullahi Faarax. Faarax had returned from fighting in Somalia in 2007 to Minneapolis in 

order to recruit fighters. 4 

The militants drawn to Syria are not radicalizing in prisons. Indeed there is only one clear 

example of prison radicalization inside the United States since 9/11: a small group of prisoners 

led by Kevin Lamar James, an African-American convert to Islam, formed a cell dedicated to 

holy war while they were jailed in California's Folsom prison. James' crew planned to attack a 

U.S. military recruiting station in Los Angeles on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 as well as a 

synagogue a month later during Yom Kippur. Members of the group financed their activities by 

sticking up gas stations, and their plans only came to light during the course of a routine 

investigation of a gas station robbery by police in Torrance, California who found documents 

that laid out the group's plans for jihadist mayhem5 New America examined the cases of288 

jihadist militants in the United States accused of jihadist terrorism since 9/11 and found that 

despite a great deal of hyperventilation about the putative dangers posed by "prison 

radicalization" in American jails, only three of those militants, Kevin James, Levar Washington, 

and Gregory Patterson, can be said to have clearly radicalized in a U.S. prison. 3 

The only profile that ties together American militants drawn to the Syrian conflict is that they are 

active in online jihadist circles. More than eight out often of the 62 individuals New America 

identified as involved in Syria-related militancy- with either ISIS or the al-Qaeda-affiliated 

Nusra Front were active in online jihadist circles. This is something of a boon for law 

3 For another six individuals accused of terrorism related activity there has been limited reporting 

that they may have radicalized in prison or that they reportedly spent time in jail or prison and 

the reporting regarding their radicalization is at too early a stage to make a determination. 

However, in other cases reports have often misidentified individuals as having radicalized in 

prison when they in fact did not. The six individuals are Farah Mohamed Bcledi, Donald Ray 

Morgan, Michael Finton, Ruben Shumpert, Alton Nolen, and Joshua Van Haften. 

4 
49 

enforcement as many of these militants are prolific posters on publicly available social media, 

which it is perfectly legal for the FBI and police departments to monitor. 

Militants in the United States today radicalize after reading and interacting with propaganda 

online and have little or no physical interaction with other extremists. This trend has been going 

on for the past several years. Major Nidal Hasan, for instance, who killed 13 at Fort Hood, Texas 

in 2009, appears to have radicalized largely through reading militant propaganda online. As an 

active officer in the U.S. military, there was, of course, little opportunity for him to physically 

meet with fellow militants. 

Social media has dramatically accelerated this trend. Of the 62 individual cases that New 

America examined there were no clear cases of physical recruitment by a militant operative, 

radical cleric or returning foreign fighter or radicalization while in prison. All of the recruitment 

happened online, taking the form either of self-recruitment or in some cases direct contact over 

the Internet with members of! SIS or Nusra. This is not to say that there are no similarities with 

older models of recruitment. For example, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud of Ohio remained in 

contact with his brother who fought with Nusra before he allegedly left for Syria himself to fight 

with Nusra. 6 Similarly the complaint filed this year against six Minnesota men charged with 

trying to join ISIS reveals that they were in contact with Abdi Nur, another member of their 

group, after he had successfully reached Syria. 7 However, even in these cases, which are 

exceptions to the rule, the radicalization process resembles radicalization via social media far 

more than radicalization in person. 

In a more representative case in the late summer of2014 19-year-old Mohammed Hamzah Khan 

of suburban Chicago purchased three airline tickets for flights from Chicago to Istanbul for 

himself and his 17 -year old sister and 16-year-old brother (who have not be named publicly 

because they were minors). Khan met someone online who had provided him with the number of 

a contact to call once he had landed in Istanbul who would help to get him and his siblings to the 

Turkish-Syrian border, and from there on to a region occupied by ISIS. His sister planned to 

marry an ISIS fighter, while Khan planned to serve in the group's police force. Before leaving, 

Khan wrote a three-page letter to his parents explaining why he was leaving Chicago to join 

ISIS. He told them that ISIS had established the perfect Islamic state and that he felt obligated to 

"migrate" there. The three teenagers planned to meet up with the shadowy ISIS recruiter they 

had met online, known as Abu Qa'qa, and travel with him, most likely to ISIS headquarters in 

Raqqa, Syria. They didn't make it. FBI agents arrested Khan and his two siblings at O'Hare 

airport in early October 2014. 

There is no evidence that Khan planned to any act of terrorism in the United States or elsewhere 

and he failed in his goal of reaching ISIS, but he faces up to fifteen years in prison for allegedly 

5 
50 

attempting to provide "material support" in the shape of his own potential "services" to the 

terrorist group. 

3. What is the attraction for the Americans drawn to militant gronps fighting in the 

Syrian war? 

Why would the Khan teenagers, from a comfortable, middle-class family in Chicago, be drawn 

to Syria and to ISIS? Some answers to that question can be found in ISIS' English webzine, 

Dabiq. In Dabiq's first issue, which debuted in July 2014, the magazine declared that a "new era 

has arrived" for Muslims. Dabiq is the name of a town in Syria now controlled by ISIS where the 

final battle between Islam and Rome (the West) is supposed to be fought, according to a hadith, 

one of the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed. 8 

Photographs in the webzine of ISIS militants in American armored vehicles rolling through Iraq 

seemed to buttress that claim. Graphic photos of dead soldiers from Iraqi forces litter the pages 

of each of the issues of Dabiq. The magazines are also, unsurprisingly, highly sectarian, 

repeatedly showing images of Shia shrines and tombs, which ISIS believes to be idolatrous, that 

they had blown up by ISIS. Iraqi Army soldiers- who are generally Shia are referred to as 

"apostates" and graphic photos of their executions by ISIS fighters are a staple of the magazine. 

With these actions, ISIS members fervently believe that they had established a true "caliphate" in 

the areas that they control, a supposed replication of the perfect Islamic rule of the Prophet 

Mohammed and his immediate successors in the seventh century. Indeed, ISIS declared a 

caliphate after it had seized much of northern Iraq in June 2014, an act of chutzpah that not even 

Osama bin Laden had ever contemplated. 

Other articles in Dabiq aimed to reassure readers that ISIS is an actual state that provides social 

services and constructs infrastructure. The magazine asserted that administrators govern towns 

after the main ISIS fighting force moves on. One issue of Dabiq included photos with captions 

showing "services for Muslims," including street cleaning, electricity repairs, care homes for the 

elderly, and cancer treatment centers for children. 9 The first issue of Dabiq even had a sort of 

classified ad for "all Muslim doctors, engineers, scholars, and specialists" to come and join ISIS. 

ISIS also went to great lengths to highlight how norma/life was in its Islamist utopia releasing, 

for instance, a video in March 2015 that showed smiling kids taking fairground rides at the Dijla 

city fairground, near Mosul. 

ISIS propaganda, in its various English language online publications and videos, all broadcasted 

on social media helped to answer the big question: Why would anyone in the United States want 

to give up their comfortable lives to join ISIS? The answer for ISIS' recruits was some 

combination of the need to belong to something that they believed was greater than them. It is an 

idealistic belief that motivates many young people who go on to join the Marines or the Peace 

6 
51 

Corps. In the minds of ISIS' recruits, the group is doing something that is of cosmic importance 

that is sanctioned by Allah: defending Sunni Muslim civilians from the terrible onslaughts of the 

Assad regime, which has not hesitated to use chemical weapons in its war against its own people. 

At the same time, ISIS is creating what its recruits believe to be a perfect Islamic state, restoring 

the Caliphate that ceased to exist after the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman 

Empire- an act that means that every Sunni Muslim should come to its aid. And ISIS is even 

presenting itself as the vanguard of Muslim warriors who will usher in the End of Times and the 

final, inevitable battle between the West and Muslims, which presages the arrival of the Mahdi, 

the savior of Islam and the triumph of Islam over all its enemies including the West. 

ISIS also presents itself as literally creating a real state with plentiful social services and a place 

where pious, young Muslim men and women from around the Islamic world can gather and even 

find their perfect marriage partner. For its Western recruits, there is also something glamorous 

and even exciting about leaving behind their humdrum lives in the West to join ISIS. 

4. What is the true level of threat posed by American fighters returning from Syria? 

Four years into the Syrian civil war, little evidence has emerged to support the notion that 

returning fighters from Syria pose a great threat to the United States. To date, there has been only 

one deadly attack in the West from a fighter returning from Syria- the May 24, 2014 shooting at 

a Jewish museum in Brussels, Belgium by Medhi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old Frenchman- that 

killed four people. 10 In the United States, there has only been one case of a fighter returning and 

allegedly plotting an attack. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in March, Director of 

National Intelligence James Clapper said that about 40 individuals had returned from Syria, and: 

"We have since found they went for humanitarian purposes or some other reason that don't relate 

to plotting." 11 In comparison, New America recorded four deadly acts of political violencekilling eight people - inside the United States by extremists with anti-government or racist 

political views in 2014 alone. 12 

In order to assess the threat posed to the United States by fighters returning from Iraq or Syria, 

New America collected information on 62 U.S. citizens or residents who have reportedly gone to 

fight in Syria and Iraq, attempted to do so, or provided support to others who went. Our review 

of these 62 cases suggests that the threat is worrisome but far from existential, and U.S. law 

enforcement has generally done a good job of containing it. 

Of the 62 reported cases, we identified only 19 involved individuals who actually reached Syria. 

31 attempted to travel to Syria but were unsuccessful in doing so, and 12 provided support to 

others fighting in Syria. 

7 
52 

Far from being a launch pad for attacks at home, Syria turned out to be a graveyard for several of 

the Americans who traveled to fight there. Of the 19 individuals who reached Syria, eight died 

there. One American, Moner Abu Salha, died conducting a suicide bombing in northern Syria. 13 

Douglas McArthur McCain was killed fighting for ISIS. 14 A third American, Abdirahman 

Muhumed, reportedly also died fighting with ISIS. 15 

Given the high casualty rate in Syria, stopping Americans from a quite-likely death after they are 

lured to Syria by often predatory online ISIS recruiters may be a significant justification for 

focusing resources on this issue, in addition to the more obvious goal of preventing an attack in 

the United States by a returning fighter. 

Eight of the Americans who reached Syria remain at large. 

Four American fighters returned to the United States from Syria, three of whom were taken into 

custody and one of whom returned to Syria where he conducted a suicide operation. Eric 

Harroun returned to the United States after discussions with American officials. 16 He was 

arrested and charged with providing material support and conspiring to use rocket propelled 

grenades that he claimed to have fired in Syria. 17 In a second case, Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen, who 

had returned from Syria where he fought with Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, was arrested in 

an informant-led operation and pled guilty to a terrorism charge in December 2013. 18 Another 

fighter, Moner Abu Salha, who also fought with Nusra, returned to the United States before 

leaving again for Syria, where he died conducting a suicide attack. The fourth returnee, 

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, a 23-year old Ohio man, is the only case of a returning fighter 

accused of plotting a terrorist attack in the United States upon his return. 

Much remains unclear about Abidrahman Sheik Mohamud's case complicating efforts to 

determine how serious the alleged plot was. Court documents in the case allege that Mohamud 

exchanged communications with his brother Abdifatah Aden, who left in May 2013 for Syria 

where he later died fighting for Nusra. On April 18, 2014, Mohamud left the United States and 

fought in Syria before returning to the United States on or about June 8, 2014. 19 The indictment 

alleges that a cleric in Nusra told Mohamud that he should return to the United States to conduct 

an act of terrorism. 20 The indictment further alleges that Mohamud discussed a desire to kill 

three or four American soldiers execution-style at a military base in Texas.21 He reportedly also 

went to a firing range to practice shooting though his defense attorney says there is no evidence 

that he sought to stockpile weapons. 22 Mohamud came to the government's attention more than 

one year ago before he left for Syria and the FBI tried to intervene to prevent him from traveling 

overseas. 23 After his return, he was monitored by an informant, leading to his arrest. 24 In 

addition, the owner of the gun range where he practiced shooting reportedly provided a tip to the 

police. 25 

8 
53 

Rather than being an easy target for returning fighters, the United States benefits from a series of 

layered defenses that make returning and plotting a sophisticated attack undetected quite 

difficult. It takes more than a plane ticket for a returning fighter to conduct a sophisticated attack: 

they also have to gather arms, conduct surveillance, and carry out the attack undetected. 26 This is 

difficult as Muslim communities have often reported suspicious activity and law enforcement has 

instituted an aggressive effort using informants and other investigative tools to prevent such an 

occurrence. According to New America's data, Muslim communities and family members have 

provided tips in about 30 percent of the 288 jihadist terrorism related cases since 9/11, and in 

about 8 percent of cases, other individuals have reported suspicious activity.27 Almost half of the 

288 individuals accused of jihadist terrorism-related crimes since 9/11 have been monitored by 

an informant. 28 Even in the case of Moner Abusalha, which is certainly not a success story given 

his return undetected to the United States after training with an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, when 

he started to try and recruit Americans to go to Syria, a tip put him on the government's radar. 29 

A side-note that is worth considering regarding the cases of Abusalha and Mohamud, the two 

returnee cases that are the most worrisome regarding the threat posed inside the United States, is 

that both were affiliated with Nusra, the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, and not with ISIS. While ISIS' 

recruiting may dominate the headlines- it is not the only militant group in Syria that poses a 

potential threat to the United States. 

In assessing the threat posed by returning American fighters, it is worth putting the current 

Syrian conflict into historical perspective. The historical comparison most people are aware of is 

the Afghan war against the Soviets and the ensuring civil war, which helped launch bin Laden's 

ai-Qaeda. 

Though an important cautionary tale, much has changed since then that makes it a weak 

comparison for how "blowback" from foreign jihads might affect Western countries. 3

° For 

example, on 9/1 I, there were 16 people on the U.S. "no fly" list. 31 Today, there are more than 

40,000 people. 32 1n 2001, there were 32 Joint Terrorism Task Force "fusion centers," where 

multiple law enforcement agencies work together to chase down leads and build terrorism 

cases. 33 Now there are 104 centers. 34 A decade ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 

National Counterterrorism Center, Transportation Security Administration, Northern Command, 

and Cyber Command didn't exist. In 2014, all of these new post-9/11 institutions make it much 

harder for terrorists to operate in the United States. The U.S. intelligence budget also grew 

dramatically after 9/11, with Congress giving the government substantial resources with which to 

improve its counterterrorism capabilities. In 2013, the United States allocated $72 billion to 

intelligence collection and other covert activities. 35 Before 9/11, the budget was around one third 

of that figure: $26 billion. 36 

9 
54 

Perhaps of most relevance to the issue of returning fighters is that prior to 9111, the law 

enforcement community demonstrated little interest in investigating or prosecuting individuals 

who traveled abroad to fight in an overseas jihad. 37 Today, as demonstrated by this hearing, the 

government considers such persons to be a concern and attempts to track their activities. Many 

analysts, myself included, predicted "blowback" and attacks in the West after the insurgency in 

Iraq first took off in 2003 and thousands of foreign fighters flooded into Iraq, yet that blowback, 

at least in the West, never materialized. 38 

A post-9/11 American fighter flow to jihadist groups abroad that sparked fears but turned out not 

to be a real threat to the United States was AI-Shabaab's recruitment of American fighters to 

wage war in Somalia. According to a review by New America, no American fighter who fought 

in the conflict in Somalia returned to plot an attack in the United States. 39 Instead, about one 

third of the individuals known to have traveled to fight in Somalia died there, either as suicide 

bombers or on the battlefield, while others were taken into custody upon their return. 40 

There are, however, worrisome cases of returning militants to the United States since 9/11 that 

attempted serious attacks. The United States' experience with Americans fighting or training in 

Afghanistan and Pakistan provides an illustration of what a more serious returnee threat might 

look like. Najibullah Zazi, A dis Medunjanin, and Zarein Ahmedzay, who all grew up in New 

York City, traveled to Pakistan, where they ended up receiving training from al-Qaeda, and were 

sent back to the United States where they were part of a serious plot to bomb the New York City 

subway in the fall of2009.41 On May I, 2010, Connecticut-based Faisal Shahzad, who was 

trained in bomb-making techniques in Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban, left a car bomb 

undetected in New York City's Times Square that failed to properly explode. 42 

Given the presence of senior al-Qaeda figures in Syria, and Moner Abu Salha's undetected return 

to the United States, Americans trained by Nusra could be a threat to the United States. Al-Qaeda 

operatives from Pakistan closely connected to Nusra and known as the Khorasan group are a 

particular problem. While there is plenty of evidence that much of the focus of Syrian militant 

groups is on the war in Syria, the Khorasan group is interested in carrying out attacks in the 

West. Leaders within the group have ties with members ofal-Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, which 

attempted to bring down a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, and Western 

officials are concerned that they could pull off an attack on an American or Western passenger 

jet.4J 

5. The 'Foreign Fighter' Threat from other Western countries. 

Many fighters from countries other than the United States have traveled to fight in Syria and 

could pose a potential threat to the United States. So far we have not seen a case of a foreign 

fighter from another country traveling to the United States to conduct an attack, however, it is 

10 
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not beyond the realm of possibility. Since 9/11, two of the most serious al-Qaeda plots against 

the United States have been infiltration attacks from abroad- the 200 I attempt to bring down a 

U.S. airliner by British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the 2009 Christmas Day bombing 

attempt of another U.S. airliner by Nigerian "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. 

The large number of foreign fighters traveling to fight in Syria from other countries magnifies 

the potential threat of an infiltration attack. In February 2015, the United States assessed that 

there are 20,000 foreign fighters from 90 different countries who have traveled to Syria. 44 Of 

particular concern is the large number of fighters who traveled to Syria from Western countries 

many of which the United States includes among the countries with "visa-waiver" status so they 

can enter the United States relatively easily. The U.S. government estimates that there are 3,400 

fighters from Western countries who have fought in Syria. In December 2014, French Interior 

Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 1,200 individuals from France are involved or have been 

involved in the Syrian war, 60 of whom are dead and 185 of whom have returned to France. 45 

British officials say 700 British citizens have gone to Syria, about half of whom have returned to 

the United Kingdom. 46 

Tracking the many foreign fighters from Western countries that have gone to Syria and that have 

returned to the West poses a greater challenge given their larger numbers than tracking the 

handful of returning American fighters. 

6. The ISIS-inspired homegrown threat. 

Acts of violence by individuals inspired by but with no direct connection to the terrorist groups 

in Syria pose a more immediate challenge than attacks by returning fighters from Syria. As FBI 

Director James Corney noted in September 2014 while referring to the December 2013 arrest of 

Terry Loewen, who was accused of plotting an attack on Wichita Airport in Kansas: "We have 

made it so hard for people to get into this country, bad guys, but they can enter as a photon and 

radicalize somebody in Wichita, Kansas." 47 At the time, Corney also noted that ISIS lacked the 

capability for a sophisticated attack in the United States. 48 

On May 3, 2015, the United States saw its first actual attack inspired by ISIS along the lines of 

similar ISIS-inspired attacks in Ottawa, Copenhagen, and Paris.49 Two men were killed by police 

after opening fire at a contest to draw cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Garland, Texas 

organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative featuring right-wing Dutch politician 

Geert Wilders, who had been listed on an ai-Qaeda hit list. One of shooters, Elton Simpson, had 

previously been convicted of making a false statement to the FBI regarding plans to travel to 

Somalia. Before conducting the attack Simpson tweeted his allegiance to ISIS. 50 Simpson, a 30-

year old resident of Phoenix, Arizona who was born in Illinois and converted to Islam during his 

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youth, was joined in the attack by his roommate Nadir Soofi, a 34-year old who was born in 

Garland, Texas. 51 

The shooting in Texas is not a lone case. While the United States has seen only one possible case 

of a domestic attack plot by a returned fighter from Syria, it has seen a number of alleged Syriarelated plots to conduct violence that were inspired by the propaganda put out by Syrian militant 

groups. 

• Last year, the United States charged Mufid Elfgeeh, a naturalized American citizen, with 

recruiting people to try and join ISIS as well as purchasing a firearm, allegedly for use in 

attacks on returning American soldiers. 52 Elfgeeh was monitored by an informant. 

Though he allegedly had sought to recruit people to fight in Syria, he had not gone 

himself. 

• In January, the United States filed a criminal complaint charging Christopher Lee Cornell 

in relation to an alleged plot to attack the U.S. Capitol. 5

3 According to the complaint, 

Cornell posted material supportive ofiSIS online which led to his being monitored by an 

informant and eventual arrest. 54 

• In February, the United States charged three Brooklyn men with conspiring to provide 

material support to ISIS, and in the complaint alleged that the men had discussed 

potential attacks inside the United States. 5

5 A fourth Brooklyn man was charged in April 

in relation to helping fund other group members' alleged plans to travel to fight in 

Syria. 56 The men were monitored by an informant. 5

7 

• In March, the United States unsealed charges against Hasan Edmonds, a 22-year-old 

member of the National Guard, and his cousin Jonas Edmonds alleging that Hasan 

Edmonds had sought to travel to fight with ISIS and that they had plotted to have Jonas 

Edmonds conduct an attack against a military facility. 58 The plot was monitored by an 

undercover officer. 59 

• In April, the United States charged John T. Booker and Alexander Blair with an alleged 

plot to bomb Fort Riley, in Kansas, in support ofiSIS. 60 The two men were monitored by 

an informant. 61 

• The same month, the United States charged two New York City women, Noelle 

Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui, in relation to a domestic attack plot in support of ISIS. 62 

The two women were monitored by an undercover officer. 63 According to the complaint, 

Siddiqui had regular contact with members of AI Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.64 

When FBI agents arrested Velentzas and Siddiqui in Queens, they seized propane tanks, 

soldering tools, a pressure cooker, fertilizer, and bomb making instructions. 65 

In each of the above cases, the alleged plotters were monitored by an informant, which suggests 

that U.S. law enforcement is doing a good job of staying on top of plots as they develop. Indeed, 

in February, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen stated that the 

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threat from terrorists "will remain at its current level resulting in fewer than I 0 uncoordinated 

and unsophisticated plots annually from a pool of up to a few hundred individuals, most of 

whom are known to the IC [intelligence community] and law enforcement."66 

This is not to say that ISIS-inspired violence is not a real threat worthy of attention. The 

requirements for successfully organizing and conducting an act of lone wolf terrorism are much 

lower than they are for a directed attack from abroad by returning fighters. Individuals inspired 

by jihadist ideology- but not affiliated with any terrorist group such as Major Nidal Hasan and 

the Boston Marathon bombers have killed 26 people in the United States since 9/ll. 67 These 

deaths were tragedies, but not a national catastrophe as 9/11 was. 

Finally, policymakers should take care not to "over-Syrianize" the challenge of inspired 

violence. It is not clear to what extent the current spate of alleged plots are caused by the Syrian 

conflict and to what extent the Syrian conflict is merely the cause du jour of those plotting 

attacks. A particularly relevant example is the alleged plot by Noelle Velentzas and Asia 

Siddiqui. Siddiqi was close to Samir Khan, an American who joined AI Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula in 2006, and she had submitted a poem to Jihad Recollections the precursor magazine 

to Inspire, suggesting that ISIS was only the latest of many influences upon her jihadist views. 68 

Indeed, Siddiqi had also allegedly expressed support in 2010 for Mohamud Osman Mohamud, 

who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Portland Christmas Tree ceremony. 69 Given these 

facts, attributing the plot to ISIS or even simply ISIS's inspirational power rather than a broader 

challenge of homegrown inspired extremism risks overlooking other sources of threat. 

7. A Climate of Fear 

In March 2015, 80 percent of Americans believed that ISIS posed a very or fairly serious threat 

to the United States, according to CNN polling. 70 In September 2014, shortly before President 

Obama gave a speech laying out his strategy against ISIS, an NBC poll found that almost half of 

Americans felt the country was less safe now than before 9/11, a larger percentage than it found 

in September 2002, only one year after the 9/1 I attacks. 71 

The American public has an exaggerated sense of the threat posed by fighters returning from 

Syria. Al-Qaeda has not conducted a successful attack inside the United States since 9/11 and the 

belief that ISIS poses a threat even greater than al-Qaeda at its height lacks any basis. While 

speaking at Brookings in September 2014 then-director of the National Counterterrorism Center, 

Matt Olsen, said there was no credible evidence that ISIS planned to attack the United States; 

that they lacked the cell structure al-Qaeda had in the 1990s; and that law enforcement had 

improved since the pre-9/ll era. 72 On February 11,2015, Francis Taylor, under secretary of the 

Office oflntelligence and Analysis for the Department of Homeland Security, similarly noted: 

"At present, we are unaware of any specific, credible, imminent threat to the homeland."73 

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Though a source of concern that needs monitoring and addressing, fighters returning from Syria 

do not pose a substantial threat to the United States at the moment, and the more likely threat 

will be from homegrown militants inspired by ISIS or other militant groups. But even in these 

cases, care is required not to exaggerate the threat. The threats from both returning fighters and 

ISIS-inspired lone wolves are worrisome, but they are far from existential. 

What Can Be Done? Nine Action Items: 

1. Assist Turkish authorities in clamping down on fighters traveling to Syria via 

Turkey. 

In a Nusra propaganda video released following his death conducting a suicide bombing in Syria 

last year, Floridian Moner Abu Salha described arriving in Turkey and meeting an al-Qaeda 

member who took him to a safe house and eventually sent him on into Syria. 74 In the video, Abu 

Salha said: "From tons of research I knew that mujahideen [holy warriors] come from all around 

the world, they come to IstanbuL l heard that the Turkey-Syrian border is close."75 Several 

Americans who have been arrested for trying to joining ISIS or Nusra were turned back in 

Turkey. These cases include Donald Morgan of North Carolina, who was stopped by Turkish 

authorities, and Tairod Pugh of New Jersey, who was stopped in Turkey in January allegedly 

trying to reach Syria. 76 

It is clear from a 50-page ISIS English language booklet titled Hijrah, which ISIS posted online 

in early 2015, that the organization has begun to feel some pressure from the Turkish 

government which has been frequently criticized by Western governments for its hitherto 

lackadaisical approach to controlling the flow of Syria-bound foreign fighters. ISIS explained to 

potential recruits from around the Muslim world: "It is important to know that the Turkish 

intelligence agencies are in no way friends of the Islamic State [ISIS]." 

Turkish authorities should be encouraged to keep up the pressure on preventing foreign fighters 

transiting their country and aid should be offered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for any 

technical support they may need for this purpose. 

2. Provide off-ramps for susceptible young Americans seduced by ISIS propaganda. 

Right now Muslim-American families who suspect a young family member may be radicalizing 

or attempting to join ISIS or some other militant group have an unpalatable choice to make: If 

they seek help from law enforcement their son or daughter can end up being arrested and charged 

with a crime that carries a long prison term; if they don't alert law enforcement their son or 

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59 

daughter may travel to Syria where they can be easily killed in the dangerous war being waged 

there or they can get caught by the FBI attempting to do so and also face a long prison term. 

If families felt that the U.S. government might provide some kind of mix of token prison terms; 

probation; counseling services and some kind supervised release to family members who were 

radicalizing or thinking of joining ISIS, they would be more incentivized to tell authorities about 

the radicalization of their loved ones. Such a deal would not be offered to anyone planning some 

kind of terrorist plot, but could be offered to someone like 19-year-old Mohammed Hamzah 

Khan of Chicago who had no plan to conduct any terrorist act anywhere but simply wanted to 

join what he considered to be the perfect Islamic state created by ISIS in Syria and whose case 

was considered earlier in this testimony. 

3. Educate families about the risks of militant social media. 

Many parents have little understanding of social media or the siren appeal of the propaganda on 

social media that is put out by ISIS and other Islamist militant groups. Muslim-American leaders 

and clerics must speak out about this issue. 

4. Ensure social media companies enforce their own Terms of Use. 

Social media platform such as Twitter and Facebook, which are frequently used by ISIS and 

other militant groups to propagate their propaganda, should be encouraged to enforce their own 

Terms of Use which prohibit the solicitation of violence and terminate any accounts that 

encourage violence. Private watchdogs like J.M. Berger (who is also testifying today) have done 

a good job of putting pressure on social media companies to ensure that this happens. 

5. Crowd out bad speech with better speech. 

It is not, of course, possible to take all ISIS-related content off the Internet; the Internet is just too 

big. What is possible is to amplify voices with an alternative narrative about the nature of Islam 

as well as anti-ISIS voices. New America fellow Rabia Chaudry is a Muslim-American lawyer 

who works with Muslim-American community leaders and imams around the country to help 

them better understand how to use the Internet as a vehicle to amplify the messages of 

mainstream Islam. Another New America fellow, Nadia Oweidat, a Jordanian-American who has 

a doctorate from Oxford in Islamic thought, is collecting and aggregating Arabic language 

content that satirizes ISIS. Satire can be a powerful weapon to deflate ISIS' claims to be the 

vanguard of the new caliphate. 

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6. Counter-messages against ISIS by the U.S. government. 

The U.S. government can't engage in theological debates with ISIS because of it lack of 

knowledge of Islamic texts and also is hampered by a significant "kiss of death" problem, which 

is that the U.S. government has little credibility in key Muslim countries. But U.S. officials can 

point out as a matter of course that ISIS positions itself as the defender of Islam, yet its victims 

are overwhelmingly Muslims who don't share its ultra-fundamentalist views to the letter. This 

observation requires no special knowledge of Islam: It's simply a factual observation, which 

undercuts ISIS' principal claim that it is the defender of Muslims. The same can also be said 

about similar terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates. 

7. Amplify the stories of disillusioned militants. 

There is likely nothing more powerful to dissuade potential ISIS recruits than hearing the stories 

of disillusioned militants. The kind of work that former extremist Mubin Shaikh (who is also 

testifying today) is doing contesting ISIS' messages and engaging with radicalizing individuals is 

far more valuable than a bunch of nebulous meetings about Countering Violent Extremism 

(CVE). 

8. Build a database of all the Western foreign fighters who have gone to Syria to fight 

for ISIS and Nusra. 

Recent research by a leading scholar of jihad ism, Thomas Hegghammer, of previous flows of 

foreign fighters to other jihads found that found that between 1990 and 2010, one in nine 

Western foreign fighters subsequently became terrorists in the West. 77 This underlines the 

necessity of understanding of who exactly is fighting in Syria who is from the West. 

9. Stay in Afghanistan beyond 2016. 

One only has to look at the debacle that has unfolded in Iraq after the withdrawal of U.S. troops 

at the end of2011 to have a sneak preview of what could take place in an Afghanistan without 

some kind of residual American presence. Without American forces in the country, there is a 

strong possibility Afghanistan could host a reinvigorated Tali ban allied to a reinvigorated alQaeda- not to mention ISIS- which is gaining a foothold in the region. Needless to say, this 

would be a disaster for Afghanistan. But it would also be quite damaging to U.S. interests to 

have some kind of resurgent al-Qaeda in the country where the group trained the hijackers for the 

9/11 attacks. 78 

Merely because the Obama administration will be almost out the door at the end of2016 doesn't 

mean that suddenly at the same time that the Tali ban will lay down their arms, or that the Afghan 

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army will be able to fight the Tali ban completely unaided. Nor does it mean that al-Qaeda- and 

ISIS, which is beginning to establish small cells in Afghanistan -would cease to be a threat. 

This U.S. military presence in Afghanistan doesn't have to be a large, nor does it need to play a 

combat role, but U.S. troops should remain in Afghanistan to advise the Afghan army and 

provide intelligence support. Such a long-term commitment of several thousand American troops 

is exactly the kind of force that the Obama administration was forced to deploy to Iraq following 

ISIS' lightning advances there over the past year. Selling a longer-term U.S. military presence in 

Afghanistan would be pushing against an open door with that nation's government. Consider that 

within 24 hours of being installed, the new Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani 

and CEO Abdullah Abdullah signed the basing agreement that allows American troops to stay in 

Afghanistan until December 2016. 

Consider also that the Afghan government has already negotiated a strategic partnership 

agreement with the United States lasting until 2024 that would provide the framework for a 

longer term U.S. military presence. Consider also that many Afghans see a relatively small, but 

long-term international troop presence as a guarantor of their stability. Keeping a relatively 

small, predominantly U.S. Special Forces presence in Afghanistan to continue to train the 

Afghan army past December 2016 is a wise policy that would benefit both Afghans and 

Americans. 

1 Richmod, Todd. "Wisconsin Man Pleads Not Guilty to Trying to Join Terrorists." AP. 

4/24/2015.http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/man-accused-join-terrorists-pleads-guilty-30557944; Hall, Ellie. 

"Gone Girl: An Interview With An American in ISIS." Buzzfeed. 4/17/2015. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-with-an-american-in-isis#.ko1DzBA6y3; Lamothe, 

Dan. "Picture emerges ofTairod Pugh, U.S. veteran accused of trying to join the Islamic State." Washington Post. 

3/18/15. http://www. washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/20 15/03/18/picture-emerges-of-tairod-pugh-u-sveteran-accused-of-trying-to-join-the-islamic-state/. 

2 Byrnes, Jesse. "FBI Investigating ISIS Suspects in AliSO States." The Hill. 2/25/15. http:i/thehill.com/blogs/blogbriefing-room/233832-fbi-investigating-isis-suspects-in-all-50-states. 

3 Draws on Bergen, Peter. The Longest War (Free Press: New York, 2011), and "fueled by pizza": Dina TempleRaston, The Jihad Next Door (PublicAffairs: New York, 2007), p. 30-39; "spring and summer of 200 I": PBS 

Frontline, "Chasing the sleeper cell: chronology: the Lackawanna investigation," 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/inside/cron.html. 

4 Elliott, Andrea. "Charges Detail Road to Terror for 20 in U.S." New York Times. 11/23/2009. 

http://www .nytimes.com/2009111/24/us/24terror .html? r~ 1 &. 5 This section draws on The Longest War. 6 lndictment, United States v. Mohamud, No. 2:15-cr-00095 (S.D. Ohio E. Div., Apr. 16, 2015). 7 Criminal Complaint, United States v. Farah eta!., No. 0: 15-mj-00312 (D. Minn., Apr. 18, 20 15). 8 McCants, Will. "ISIS Fantasies of an Apocalyptic Showdown in Northern Syria." Brookings. 10/3/14. 

http://www. brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/20 14/ I 0/03-isis-apocalyptic-showdown-syria-mccants. 9 This section draws on Peter Bergen and Emily Schneider, "ISIS Reveals its Strategy." CNN. 10/22114. 

http://www .cnn.com/20 14/1 0/20/opinion/bergen-schneider-isis-magazine/. 10 Dickey, Christopher. "French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche is the Shape of Terror to Come." Daily Beast. 9/9/14. 

http://www. thedai lybeast.com/articles/20 14/09/09/the-face-of-isis-terror-to-come.html. 11 Clapper, James. "James Clapper on Global Intelligence Challenges." Council on Foreign Relations. 312115. 

http://www .cfr.org/homeland-security /james-clapper-global-intell igence-challenges/p36 I 95. 

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12 "Deadly Attacks Since 9/11." New America. http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html. 13 Bergen, Peter. "The all-American al Qaeda suicide bomber." CNN. 7/31/2014. 

http://edition.cnn.com/20 14/07/31 /opinion/bergen-american-al-qaeda-suicide-bomber-syriai. 14 Vinograd, Cassandra and Ammar Cheikh Omar. "American Douglas McArthur McCain Dies Fighting for ISIS in 

Syria." NBC. 8/26/14. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/american-terrorist/american-doug1as-mcauthur-mccaindies-fighting-isis-syria-nl89081. 

15 "VOA Exclusive: Family of Somali-American Fighter in Syria Speaks Out." Voice of America. 9/17114. 

http://www.voanews.com/contentlvoa-exclusive-family-of-somali-american-fighter-in-syria-speaksout/2453757.html; Ibrahim, Mukhtar and Peter Cox. "Douglas McAuthur McCain, a man with Minnesota ties, killed 

in Syria." MPR. 8/27/14. http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/26/douglas-mccain. 16 Schmidle, Nicholas. "Lost in Syria." New Yorker. 211612015. 

http://www .newyorker.com/magazine/20 15/02/16/lost-syria. 17 Schmidle, Nicholas. "Lost in Syria." New Yorker. 211612015. 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20 15/02/16/lost-syria. 18 "Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen Pleads Guilty To Terror Count." AP. 12/27/2013. 

http://www .huffingtonpost.com/20 13112/2 7/sinh-vinh-ngo-nguyen_ n _ 4509490 .html. 19 Indictment at 7, 15, United States v. Mohamud, No. 2:15-cr-00095 (S.D. Ohio E. Div. Apr. 16, 2015). 20 Ibid at 16. 21 /bidat17. 22 Dolan, Matthew. "Ohio Gun-Range Owner Says Terror Suspect's Visit Was Suspicious." Wall Street Journal. 

4/21/15. http://www. wsj.com/articles/more-details-in-the-fbis-probe-of-ohio-terror-suspect-1429589161; Dolan 

Matthew and Andrew Grossman. "Ohio Man Pleads Not Guilty to Terror Charges." Wall Street Journal. 4117/15. 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ohio-man-pleads-not-guilty-to-terror-charges-1429293238. 

23 Dolan, Matthew. "Ohio Gun-Range Owner Says Terror Suspect's Visit Was Suspicious." Wall Street Journal. 

4/21/15. http://www. wsj.com/articles/more-details-in-the-fbis-probe-of-ohio-terror-suspect-1429589161. 24 Connor, Tracey. "Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, Ohio'Terror Suspect, a 'Normal Kid': Lawyer." NBC. 4/17/15. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohios-syria-trained-terror-suspect-pleads-not-guilty-n343486. 

25 Dolan, Matthew. "Ohio Gun-Range Owner Says Terror Suspect's Visit Was Suspicious." Wall Street Journal. 

4/21/15. http://www. ws j .com/articles/more-details-in-the-fbis-probe-of-ohio-terror-suspect-14295 89161. 26 Sterman, David. "The Traveling Terrorism Fallacy." Weekly Wonk. 9/4/2014. 

http://weeklywonk.newamerica.net/articles/traveling-terrorism-fallacy/. 

27 "Homegrown Extremism 2001-20 15." New America. http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/analysis. 28 "Homegrown Extremism 2001-2015." New America. http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/analysis. 29 Sterman, David. "The Traveling Terrorism Fallacy." Weekly Wonk. 9/4/2014. 

http://weeklywonk.newamerica.net/articles/traveling-terrorism-fallacy/. 

30 The section below is drawn from Peter Bergen et al. "2014 Jihadist Terrorism and Other Conventional Threats," 

Bipartisan Policy Center, September 2014. 31 Kroft, Steve. "Unlikely Terrorists on No Fly List." CBS News. 10/5/06. http:// www.cbsnews.com/news/unlikelyterrorists-on-no-fly-list/. 

32 Sullivan, Eileen. "No-Fly List Rules Get Changes." AP. 8/20/14. http:// abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/apexclusive-us-changing-fly-list-rules- 25044681 ?singlePage=true. 33 Federal Bureau oflnvestigation. "Protecting America from Terrorist Attack: Our Joint Terrorism Task Forces." 

Federal Bureau oflnvestigation. Accessed August 5, 2013. http://www.fbi.gov/aboutus/investigate/terrorism/terrorism_jttfs. 

34 Federal Bureau oflnvestigation. "Protecting America from Terrorist Attack: Our Joint Terrorism Task Forces." 

Federal Bureau oflnvestigation. Accessed August 5, 2013. http://www.tbi.gov/aboutus/investigate/terrorism/terrorism jttfs. 35 Intelligence Resource Program. "Intelligence Budget Data." Federation of American Scientists. Accessed August 

25, 20 14. http://fas.org/irp/budget/. 36 Dilanian, Ken. "Overall U.S. intelligence budget tops $80 billion." Los Angeles Times. I 0/2/10. 

http://articles .latimes.com/20 I 0/oct/28/nation/la-na-intelbudget-20 1 0 I 029. 37 • Berger, J.M. Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name oflslam. Washington: Potomac Books, 2011: 

pp. 30-32. Berger, J.M. "Boston's Jihadist Past." Foreign Policy. April22, 2013. http://www. 

foreignpolicy .com/articles/20 13/04/22/bostons j ihadist_past. 

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38 Bergen, Peter and Alec Reynolds. "Blowback Revisited." Foreign Affairs. November/December 2005. 

https://www .foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghan istan/2005-1 0-0 !/blowback -revisited. 39 Bergen, Peter and David Sterman. "ISIS Threat to U.S. Mostly Hype." CNN. 9/512014. 

http:i/edition.cnn.com/2014/09/05/opinion/bergen-sterman-isis-threat-hype/. 

40 Bergen, Peter and David Sterman. "ISIS Threat to U.S. Mostly Hype." CNN. 9/5/2014. 

http:/ /edition.cnn.com/20 14/09/05/opinion/bergen-sterman-isis-threat -hype/. 41 "AI Qaeda Operative Sentenced to Life Imprisonment in One of the Most Serious Terrorist Threats to the United 

States Since 9/11." U.S. Attorney's Qffice. 11/16/2012.http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/a1-qaedaoperative-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-in-one-of-the-most-serious-terrorist-threats-to-the-united-states-since-9-

II. 

42 Kornblut, Anne and Karin Brulliard. "U.S. blames Pakistani Taliban for Times Square bomb plot." Washington 

Post. 5110120 I 0. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20 I 0/05/09/ AR20 I 0050901143 .html. 43 Dilanian, Ken and Eileen Sullivan. "AP Enterprise: al-Qaida's Syrian cell alarms US." AP. 9/13/2014. 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-enterprise-al-qaidas-syrian-cell-alarms-us. 

44 Rasmussen, Nicholas. "Hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security "Countering Violent Islamist 

Extremism: The Urgent Threat of Foreign Fighters and Homegrown Terror." 2/11/2015. 

http://docs.house.gov/meetings/HMIHM00/20 150211/10290 1/HHRG-114-HMOO-Wstate-RasmussenN20 1502ll.pdf. 45 Abu-Nasr, Donna and Caroline Alexander. "Burned French Passports Show Threat oflslamist Training Grounds." 

Bloomberg. 1/9/15. http://www. bloomberg.com/news/articles/20 15-0 1-09/burned-french-passports-show-threat -ofislamist-training-grounds. 

46 British officials. 47 Kendall, Brent and Jay Solomon. "FBI Cites Online Terror Recruiting, Training, Damps Subway-Plot Claim." 

Wall Street Journal. 912512014. http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-director-cites-online-terror-recruiting-trainingdamps-subway-plot-claim-1411688762. 

48 Kendall, Brent and Jay Solomon. "FBI Cites Online Terror Recruiting, Training, Damps Subway-Plot Claim." 

Wall Street Journal. 9/25/2014. http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-director-cites-online-terror-recruiting-trainingdamps-subway-plot-claim-1411688762. 

49 Ahmed, Saeed, Ed Lavendera, and Joe Sutton. "Two killed outside Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, 

Texas." CNN. 51412015. http://www.cnn.com/20 15/05/04/us/garland-mohammed-drawing-contest-shooting/ 50 Ahmed, Saeed, Ed Lavendera, and Joe Sutton. "Garland, Texas, shooting suspect linked himself to ISIS in tweets" 

CNN. 5/4/2015. http://www.cnn.com/20 15/05/04/us/ garland-mohammed-drawing-contest-shooting/ 51 Goldman, Adam and Mark Berman. "FBI had known about suspected Texas shooter for years." Washington Post. 

5/4/15. http://www. wash ingtonpost.com/news/post -nation/wp/20 15/05/04/fbi-had-known-about-suspected-texasshooter-for-years/; Yan, Holly. "Texas attack: What we know about Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi." CNN. 515115. 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/texas-shooting-gunmen/ 

52 Craig, Gary. "Federal prosecutors: U.S. terror suspect recruited for ISIS." Democrat and Chronicle. 9/17/2014. 

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2014/09/16/mufid-elfgeeh-islamic-state-indictmentyemen/15734983/. 

53 Criminal Complaint, United States v. Cornell, No. 1 :15-mj-00024 (S.D. Ohio, Jan. 14, 2015). 54 Ibid at 8. 55 Complaint and Affidavit in Support of Arrest Warrant, United States v. Juraboev, No. 1:15-m-00172 (E.D.N.Y., 

Feb. 24, 2015). 56 "Fourth Brooklyn, New York, Resident Charged With Attempt and Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to 

ISIL." Department of Justice. 416115. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fourth-brooklyn-new-york-resident-chargedattempt~and·conspiracy-provide-material-support. 

57Homans, Charles. "How Serious Was the Brooklyn ISIS Plot?'' New York Times Magazine. 2/27/15. 

http://www .nytimes.com/20 15/02/27/magazine/how-serious-was-the-brooklyn-isis-plot.html. 58 "US Army National Guard Soldier and his Cousin Arrested for Conspiring to Support Terrorism (ISIL)." 

Department of Justice. 3/26/15. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-army-national-guard-soldier-and-his-cousinarrested-conspiring-support~terrorism-isil. 

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64 

59 "US Army National Guard Soldier and his Cousin Arrested for Conspiring to Support Terrorism (lSlL)." 

Department of Justice. 3/26/15. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-army-national-guard-soldier-and-his-cousinarrested-conspiringwsupport-terrorism-isil. 

60 "Second Topeka Man Charged in Connection with Car Bomb Plot." U.S. Attorney's Office. 4/IOII5. 

http://www .fbi.gov/kansascity/press-releases/20 15/second-topeka-man-charged-in-connection-with-car-bomb-plot 61 Criminal Complaint, United States v. Blair, No. 15-mj-5040-KGS (D. Kansas, Apr. 10, 2015). 62 "Two Queens Residents Charged with Conspiracy to Use a Weapon of Mass Destruction." U.S. Attorney's 

Office. 4/2115. http:llwww.fbi .gov/newyork/press-releases/20 15/two-queens-residents-charged-with-conspiracy-touse-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction. 

63 Complaint and Affidavit in Support of Arrest Warrant at 3, United States v. Velentzas, No. I: 15-mj-00303-VVP 

(E.D.N.Y., Apr. 1, 2015). 64 Ibid at 10. 65 Letter to Judge Pohorelsky at 2, United States v. Velentzas, No. 1:15-mj-00303-VVP (E.D.N.Y., Apr. 1, 2015). 66 Rasmussen, Nicholas. "Hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security "Countering Violent Islamist 

Extremism: The Urgent Threat of Foreign Fighters and Homegrown Terror." 2/11/2015. 

http://docs.house.gov/meetings!HMIHM00/20 150211/1 02901/HHRG-114-HMOO-Wstate-RasmussenN20150211.pdf. 

67 "Deadly Attacks Since 9/11." New America. http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html. 68 Complaint and Affidavit in Support of Arrest Warrant at 11-12, United States v. Velentzas, No. 1:15-mj-00303-

VVP (E.D.N.Y., Apr. 1, 2015). 69 Ibid at 13. 70 "CNN/ORC Poll." 3/13-3/15/15. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/031!91isis.poll.pdf. 71 Murray, Mark. "ISIS Threat: Fear of Terror Attack Soars to 9/11 High, NBC News/WSJ Poll Finds." NBC, 

919114. http://www .nbcnews.comlpoliticslfirst-readlisis-threat-fear-terror-attack-soars-9-11-high-nbc-n 199496. 72 Sterman, David. "What's the hot national security phrase of the week? Seems to be 'potential threat."' Foreign 

Policy. 9/512014 http://foreignpolicy .com/20 14109/05/whats-the-hot-national-security-phrase-of-this-week -seemsto-be-potential-threat/. 

73 Taylor, Francis X. "Statement for the Record Before U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Regarding 

Countering Violent Islamist Extremism: The Urgent Threat of Foreign Fighters and Homegrown Terror." 211112015. 

http:l/docs.house.gov/meetings/HM!HM00/20 150211/10290 l/HHRG-114-HMOO-W state-TaylorF -20 150211.PDF. 74 Bergen, Peter and David Sterman. "An American's gateway to jihad." CNN.com. 8129114. 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/29/opinionlbergen-sterman-turkey-jihadistsl. 

75 Bergen, Peter and David Sterman. "An American's gateway to jihad." CNN.com. 8129114. 

http:/ /www.cnn.com/20 14108/29/opinionlbergen-sterman-turkey-jihadists/. 76 Engel, Richard, James Novogrod, and Michele Neubert. "EXCLUSIVE: American Extremist Reveals His Quest 

to Join ISIS." NBC. 9/3/14. http:l/www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terrorlexclusive-american-extremist-reveals-hisquest-join-isis-n194796; Lamothe, Dan. "Picture emerges ofTairod Pugh, U.S. veteran accused oftrying to join the 

Islamic State." Washington Post. 3118/15. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpointlwp/2015/03/18/pictureemerges-ofRtairod-pugh-u-s-veteran-accused-of-trying-to-join-the-islarnic-state/. 

77 Hegghammer, Thomas. "Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice 

between Domestic and Foreign Fighting." American Political Science Review. February 2013. 

http://hegghammer.com/ files/Hegghammer - Should I stay or should I go.pdf. 78 Bergen, Peter. "Why U.S. troops need to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2016." CNN.com. 3/25/15. 

http:/ /www.cnn .com/20 15103/21/opinionslbergen-leave-troops-in-afghanistanl. 

20 
65 

Social Media: An Evolving Front in Radicalization 

J.M. Berger 

Non-resident fellow, Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World 

The Brookings Institition 

The self-styled Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, is not the first group to employ 

social media as a tool for recruitment and propaganda, but its innovative and 

aggressive approach has afforded it an unprecedented level of success, and its activities 

will likely provide a template for future extremist initiatives. 

Since the beginning of 2015, at least 30 Americans in 13 states have been subject to law 

enforcement action for attempting to join ISIS or carry out violence inspired by ISIS. In 

every case, a significant social media component was found in the radicalization or 

recruitment process. 

In cases where a clear trajectory could be determined, about one-third of the suspects 

appear to have been radicalized by al Qaeda-affiliated content prior to the rise of ISIS, 

and only later shifted allegiance to the Islamic State. The remainder were reportedly 

radicalized by ISIS directly. While this points to the growing influence of ISIS among 

those vulnerable to radicalization, it also highlights the fact that this activity takes place 

in an evolving context, rather than being an entirely new or different problem. 

While trends can be detected, those radicalized continue to defy generalization. The 

majority of those charged were males under the age of 30, but almost 20 percent were 

women and approximately 30 percent were older than 30. About 30 percent of the cases 

involved some discussion of a violent plot in the United States, with most of the 

remainder involving efforts to travel to Syria and join ISIS there. 

The role of global social media has made it possible for adherents of even the most 

outlying extremist ideologies to connect and communicate. In addition, the increasing 

ease of global travel makes it possible for the most committed and fanatical to gather in 

specific geographical locations. 
66 

Furthermore, a proliferation of technologies for inflicting mass casualties empower 

those who are frustrated in their efforts to travel to Iraq and Syria to act violently at 

home, often with outsized consequences that echo through the 24-hour news cycle. 

In the blunt numerical context of a world with 7 billion people or a Twitter monthly 

active user base of 302 million, active supporters of ISIS barely register. They represent 

a fraction of 1 percent of Muslims worldwide, and an even smaller fraction of the 

world's population. 

But when adherents of a violent ideology can connect and communicate swiftly and 

easily, these tiny percentages add up to hundreds or even thousands of people who can 

congregate or act in loose concert, exerting a disproportionate impact on global politics 

and world events. Social media is a critical tool for organizing such activity. 

There are three major components to ISIS's social media campaign. 

The first is disseminating propaganda to generate support for the group and attract 

potential recruits and supporters locally and abroad. 

The second is disseminating propaganda designed to manipulate its enemies' 

perceptions and political reactions. While some of this material purports to demoralize 

and deter potential enemies from taking action, its real intent is often to inflame 

animosity and engage foreign countries in a wider regional war. Some of this 

propaganda also aims to undermine the unity of the coalition opposing ISIS. Its terrorist 

actions are synchronized with this goal. 

The third major component is recruitment. Here, the broad strokes of ISIS's highly 

visible propaganda campaign give way to a host of smaller, individualized activities. 

Due to its unusually large size (in the context of extremist groups) and its large 

contingent of foreign fighters, ISIS can attack the recruiting problem using a wide 

variety of tactics, with staffing levels that allow for a very high ratio of radicalizers to 

potential recruits. 

ISIS has cultivated recruiters and radicalizers who speak the native languages of 

Western countries. In some cases, as in Minnesota, supporters and recruiters work on 

the ground and synchronize their bricks-and-mortar operations with online outreach. In 
67 

other cases, it pursues purely online initiatives, benefiting from the sense of remote 

intimacy that comes with constant contact using always-on media. 

These approaches are detectable in open sources, up to a point, although recruits who 

reach a critical decision-making stage are often shifted off of public social media 

platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to private social media such as Kik and 

WhatsApp, where interactions cannot be directly observed using open-source tools. 

In Garland, Texas, on May 3, 2015, two apparent ISIS supporters were killed attempting 

to attack an event that involved drawing the Prophet Mohammed. A police officer was 

wounded. 

ISIS supporters online had openly urged attacks on the event for more than a week 

prior, and while the attack was thwarted, it was not prevented. 

The challenge in such cases is separating the signal from the noise. ISIS supporters 

online generate a very substantial amount of noise, yet it is relatively uncommon for a 

specific attack to be so clearly reflected in data preceding its execution. Therefore 

caution should be exercised when relying on open-source intelligence to anticipate 

attacks. ISIS supporters are likely to become more vocally threatening if they believe 

U.S. law enforcement will allocate resources every time they name a specific target. 

The increasing disruption of ISIS's most visible propaganda activities on platforms 

such as YouTube, Facebook, and increasingly Twitter-- has decreased its ability to 

broadcast its message to the widest possible audiences. The crackdown by social media 

providers has created tradeoffs in detecting recruitment. 

When broader propaganda efforts are disrupted, recruitment increasingly shifts to a 

peer-to-peer model of individual relationships. For instance, one of the most commonly 

observed interactions involves foreign fighters in Syria speaking directly to vulnerable 

young people in the U.S. using private Facebook messages. This activity is harder to 

detect in open-source, but not necessarily impossible. New and better techniques are 

needed to identify both recruiters and at-risk populations. 

But while detection and interdiction for purposes of countering violent extremism 

become more labor-intensive as a result of suspensions, these disruptions also increase 

the amount of time and energy ISIS must expend to find and attract new recruits. 

Adherents are persistent in returning to the field with new accounts, an activity that can 
68 

be countered more effectively but probably cannot be entirely defeated. The bottom 

line: Extremist activity on social media cannot be eliminated, it can only be weakened. 

Current efforts to counter ISIS activity are inhibited by two key challenges. 

The first is commitment. ISIS supporters rarely tire of promoting their message, and 

they are not easily deterred. Faced with an aggressive spike in suspensions on Twitter, 

they have mounted a variety of labor-intensive countermeasures that keep them in the 

game, albeit at a reduced level. 

The process of reporting pro-ISIS users for suspension requires a steady and ongoing 

commitment. Twitter suspensions are teportedly based primarily on user reporting of 

abusive content. If the reporters get bored or distracted, the network gains time to 

regenerate. Only a consistent effort will produce a consistent result, but the current level 

of pressure is certainly having some effect. 

This leads us to the second challenge, which is the near total outsourcing of anti-ISIS 

activity online. To date, the vast majority of Twitter abuse reporting is apparently done 

by hacktivists. The largest and most organized efforts to counter ISIS online, either 

through reporting or the spread of competing messages, include: 

• "Anonymous," an amorphous collection of anonymous vigilantes, including 

significant numbers who engage in unrelated illegal or antigovernment activities. 

• Foreign and domestic activist networks and political groups that are predicated 

on anti-Muslim sentiment, at times including the language of overt bigotry. 

• Foreign government influence operations, such as Russian, Syrian and Iranian 

programs, whose operations include substantial activity adversarial to U.S. 

foreign policy and inimical to our national security. 

• Other hacktivists of unknown origin who deploy spam techniques and mal ware 

against ISIS online. Recent examples include content that appears to originate in 

Japan and Saudi Arabia, but may be deliberately misleading as to its origins. 

Similar to the bricks-and-mortar military coalition against ISIS, members of these 

networks have a variety of motives for participating, not all of them consistent with 

American values, or our security and foreign policy goals. 

A great many Muslim voices oppose ISIS and its values on a daily basis, however 

these efforts tend to be organic, rather than highly organized campaigns, especially 
69 

in English. While such individual voices are crucially important, Muslims seeking to 

counter ISIS should also pursue more organized strategies. Within the MuslimAmerican community, programs are already in development to address this gap. 

If the U.S. government wishes to directly counter ISIS online, such initiatives will 

require latitude to engage in trial and error. Programs must be prepared to produce 

and disseminate extremely high volumes of content. In the current political 

environment, where back-seat drivers and courters of controversy are found in 

abundance, this is a difficult proposition. 

Government efforts are also subject to limitations on how we conduct information 

operations, or more bluntly, propaganda. Liberal democracies require that such 

operations be truthful and acknowledge the concerns of multiple constituencies. 

And activities undertaken on social media, especially in English, are subject to high 

levels of scrutiny and instant critique. 

Any efforts to move forward in this space must create opportunities for 

experimentation and allow room for missteps. I am not optimistic that this 

administration and this Congress are capable of giving a government agency the 

latitude necessary to successfully undertake a more aggressive approach. 

Unfortunately, this means the burden falls on volunteers, activists and community 

groups. As noted above, private sector players who are currently most active in 

countering ISIS bring a lot of baggage to the process. Furthermore, private sector 

groups often lack the funding and manpower needed to be effective. ISIS deploys 

thousands of activists to promote its messages on a daily basis. To be effective 

against ISIS, we must be prepared to deploy similar numbers. 

Some of the limitations I have discussed here may be surmountable. If they are not, 

we are left with relatively few options. 

First, we can continue under the current scenario, which is already having a 

detrimental effect on the performance of ISIS online networks. 

Second, we can find ways to incentivize private sector participation in anti-ISIS 

initiatives. There are considerable complications here, including the fact that 

government support (either moral or financial) can delegitimize organizations 

working to counter violent extremism in the eyes of their target audiences. The 
70 

government's expectations of potential partners also limit the field. For instance, it is 

doubtful government-supported activists would be permitted to engage in frank 

discussions about politically sensitive U.S. policies that are important to target 

audiences. 

Third, we can create government information programs that involve a large number 

of accounts focused on generating substantial volumes of anti-ISIS activity online, 

while taking a conservative and limited approach to the content. As the example of 

Russian online propaganda demonstrates, there are benefits to simply injecting 

noise into contested online spaces, but such efforts must take place at a very fast 

tempo in order to have an effect. A modest success in this space may also help pave 

the way for more innovative efforts in the future. 

Fourth, we can deploy intelligence and other reporting assets to expose the current 

standard of living within ISIS territories. Recent news reports suggest deteriorating 

conditions in major centers such as Raqqa and Mosul, but these are based mainly on 

eyewitness accounts. To counter ISIS's highly visual propaganda, we must obtain 

and distribute images and video that undermines its extensive propaganda 

depiction of a high-functioning state. This step is critical to undercutting ISIS's 

powerful millenarian appeal. 

In conclusion, it is important to remember that the study of social media is relatively 

new and rapidly evolving. Unpredictable outcomes are inevitable in highly 

interconnected networks. While social network analysis offers great promise as a 

way to understand the world, we are still at an early stage in determining which 

approaches work. ISIS's social media campaign has evolved and adapted 

significantly over the course of its short history, and if we seek to meet them on the 

online battlefield, we must do the same. 
71 

To the Esteemed Members of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs 

In the matter related to the hearing titled, "Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next Evolution of Terrorist 

Recruitment." 

Submission by Mr. Mubin Shaikh 

On September 11, 20011 was driving to work when I first heard a plane had struck one of the two 

towers of the World Trade Center building. Immediately, I exclaimed aloud, "AIIahuAkbar" (God is 

Great). My celebratory moment was quickly muted when I asked myself; what if the very office building 

I was working in, was similarly struck by a plane? I would have perished along with everyone else just as 

those innocent people perished on that day. For me and many others, September 11, 2001 was- for all 

intents and purposes- the beginning of the end of my commitment to the extremist mindset. 

Allow me to explain how I even got here in the first place. 

1 was born and raised in Toronto, Canada to Indian immigrants. As a child, I grew up attending a very 

conservative brand of "Madressah," which was an imported version of what you would find in India and 

Pakistan: rows of boys (separated from the girls) sitting at wooden benches, rocking back and forth, 

reciting the Quran in Arabic but not understanding a word of what was being read. 

Contrast that with my daily life of attending public school, which was the complete opposite of the rigid, 

fundamentalist manner of education of the Madressah. Here, I could actually talk to girls and have a 

normal, functional relationship with them without it being some grievous sin. When I left the Madressah 

at age 12 and moved into middle school and high school, I was not discriminated against, bullied, picked 

on or anything of the like. I was actually one of the cool kids and so were my friends. 

But something happened in 1994 when I was 17. I had a house party while my parents were away, which 

my hyper-conservative uncle walked in on. Normal as it may be to the Western experience, my uncle 

and other family members were incensed that I would have brought non-Muslim friends to my home 

and they spent the next few days berating me over what I had done. Due to the sustained guilt-trip I 

received, the only way I thought I could make amends with my family, was to "get religious." 

I would then travel to India and Pakistan and in the latter, ended up in a place called Quetta, whichunbeknownst to me at the time- was the center of the Tali ban Shura and of the group known as AI 

Qaeda. As I walked around the area, I chanced upon 10 heavily armed men dressed in black turbans, 

flowing robes and sandals. One of them said to me that if you truly wish to bring about political change, 

it can only be done by using this: and he held aloft his AK47. I was completely enamored by them as 

Jihadi heroes (a consistent theme in Jihadist literature/media today) and when I returned to Canada in 

the fall of 1995, I was fully in the mindset of a militant Jihadist. In the years following, I absorbed myself 

in proclaiming the political and military disasters that had befallen the Muslim world and that "Jihad" 

was the only way to change things. When Osama Bin Laden gave his fatwa in 1998, I was on board with 

whatever had to be done. 
72 

Then 9/11 happened and I thought: wait a second, I understand the notion of attacking combatants but 

this? Office buildings in which regular people worked- Muslims included? No, something was 

fundamentally wrong about this and so, I realized I needed to study the religion of Islam properly to 

make sense of what I had just witnessed. I sold my belongings and moved to Syria in early 2002 when 

there was still some semblance of normality in the country. I attended the class of a Syrian Islamic 

scholar who challenged me on my views regarding "Jihad" and subsequently, spent a year and a half 

with him studying the verses of the Quran and the traditions ofthe Prophet (Peace Be Upon All God's 

Prophets) that the Jihadists used to justify their hate and destruction. After learning some Arabic and 

Islamic Studies, I came to relinquish my views completely, was filled with great regret over the young 

people I had myself recruited to "the cause" and returned to Canada in 2004. 

In 2004, some individuals in the UK had been arrested on terrorism charges in conjunction with the 

London fertilizer bomb plot. One of those individuals was none other than my classmate from the 

Madressah I attended as a child- Mom in Khawaja, the first Canadian charged under new counter 

terrorism laws in the country. I thought this to be a mistake and contacted the Canadian Security 

Intelligence Service to give a character reference for the family but it was too late for him. As for me, I 

would agree to work with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as an undercover operator to help 

keep Canadians safe because I felt now, this was my religious duty. 

I can say that for almost 2 years following my recruitment by the Service, I conducted several infiltration 

operations both online and on the ground involving religious extremists. In late 2005, one ofthose cases 

moved on to become a criminal investigation and I traversed from CSIS to the Royal Canadian Mounted 

Police -Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in what came to be known as the Toronto 18 

terrorism prosecution. I gave Fact Witness testimony in S hearings over 4 years at the Superior Court of 

Ontario. 11 individuals were eventually convicted. 

Since my work experience, I have committed myself to assisting governments of the West, especially the 

various mechanisms of the U.S. government including the National Counter Terrorism Center, Homeland 

Security (Office for Civil Rights and Civil Uberties) and the U.S. Department of State, Center for Strategic 

Counterterrorism Communications- three main outfits that are engaged in the study and practice of 

countering violent extremism (CVE) programming. 

In addition, I have spent the past few years on Twitter having watched the very start of the Foreign 

Fighter phenomenon and directly observed recruitment and propaganda by ISIS types online (See 

APPENDIX A). I have directly engaged with many of them some of whom are now deceased- male 

and female (See APPENDIX B) as well as some of their victims that they have tried to recruit. My 

approach is to show how wrong they are and to criticize and de legitimize them from the very Islamic 

sources that they misquote and mutilate. Thusly, the correct term to describe these TIC's (Terrorists in 

Islamic Costume) is, KHAWARIJ (See APPENDIX C). I have personally intervened in cases of even an 

America girl (see APPENDIX D) that these predators were trying to lure away and put a stop to it by 

engaging her online as someone who can show her the real interpretation of Islam. Due to this, I have 

an excellent understanding of what is happening in terms of recruitment and what needs to be done in 

terms of counter messaging, both from the civic service and NGO side as well as the military side of 

psychological operations, and I gave a presentation to this effect, at a Special Operations Command 
73 

conference in which Commanding General Vote I himself was present. There remains a massive gap in all 

the areas above that I have mentioned and that a sustainable, meaningful and effective countermessaging approach needs to be created. I submit to you it is not as hard as some may suggest, that we 

already have talent that just need the direction and guidance in order to get it going. 

Finally, as to the conflicting reports of terrorist recruitment in prisons, I submit to you 3 short 

statements: 

1. Terrorist recruitment in prisons is happening all over the world, not just in the U.S. but as for the U.S., 

the numbers are very, very low as opposed to more volatile places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and 

others. 

2. In the Western context, much of this recruiting remains unseen to the untrained eye (and also due to 

its covert nature) and usually does not manifest openly in the prison institution but afterwards, when 

the individual has left the facility. 

3. Greater vetting of the types of Imams that offer counselling is needed to ensure that pro-social 

messaging is delivered in the context of prison rehabilitation programs. By framing this under "prosocial" messaging, the state avoids having to declare which version of Islam they "approve" of since we 

all approve of anything that tends to have healthy, productive and rehabilitative components of 

counselling. 

I thank the committee and my colleagues here with me and hope this is the start of a fruitful discussion 

in dealing with the challenges and opportunities now before us. Thank you. 
74 

APPENDIX A 

PRO-AL QAEDA & ISIS MESSAGING TARGETING WESTERN YOUTH 

Here, individuals have taken the ADDIDAS logo and turned it into AI Qaeda. You will notice the plane 

flying into the blocks that make up the logo. 
75 
76 
77 

In the game, Call of Duty, when an individual is killed their character will "res pawn" and reanimate back 

to life. Here, the propagandist is tying the idea of respawning from 

bodily resurrection in the Afterlife. 

game, with the Islamic belief of 
78 
79 

APPENDIX B 

WOMEN OF ISIS 

Women from Australia- two of whom went with their husbands and who were eventually killed in 

combat posing and bragging online, trying to perpetuate the "Jihadi Cool" factor. 
80 

brothers 
81 

Portrayed as a "Jihadi Romance" story- complete wit,ff media interviews." oftwo fore'1gn fighters. The 

text reads: "The love of Jannah" (the love of Paradise") and "Till Martyrdom do us part." The male was 

killed in combat. 

APPENOIXC 

SPECIFIC RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURE USED TO DELEGITIMIZE ISIS 

Jl"tian; t\t)tJ f.,i,:tlkt ,11-/\jUfll StWJ 'T!1e SC.hol:::ll'S Old and ne\•. have no~ CllfTt:~led 

ab<Ju: H1e tact that Khav.aq atf' an ('l!.\'li Pf.~npte .-.no d;sobe;. r\Hah iSV.1) ar.d 

'.-:no ,itsobev Rasu!J'\Ilatl (S,ttv\} even;hougt! m_ay r,-,st prav on,j stniie 

hard :r'\ ·.\DfStHp So that lS o'f no berh?-flt ~o then; evt?-nthougtl thi::V ou:\varfH) 

{.ksptay f.:n;f"llmng thr- gooc:l ant1 pr•)tl!f)l1mg tt1'F f:\-1! but \t1at does not t>en~"'1It 

~t1ern bt>c::\usr:- tt1e.-v explam the C"'..>ur·an to n1ean v.t1ate\•er they dt:•stre ana 

v;hatevf'>r falStfy tO the f..,tu~1Jn1S. lr'h1f.'€'!1;'\JI::lh, t1a:-: V<<llll€'0 rt\]·1lnS1 

~hen1 R;::.tSUlAUah lSRV,.''l has v.arnPd a~1mnst Htcrn tt1e nghHV 9liJ\jf:'\1 ca!lph'S-

~a-fter tur-1 have v"'arned tht~rn me corY";pamons and tt:ose v.ho 

;ollo\·.,ed the1r: In \.,/~trnr-&numns1 ttH::>:n t<,sft-Shanat"l :3.1'~ 

The "Khawarij" were an ancient sect in early Islam who were declared deviants due to their 

declaring other Muslims as Apostates and thus, killing them. They prayed, fasted and for all 

intents and purposes, appeared to be Muslim but they have been castigated as being "out of the 

fold" of Islam for what they do. 

ISIS doesn't really care for "ISIS" or "ISIL" or "IS" or even "DAESH" but you will see why they hate 

the use of the label, Khawarij. 
82 

Yusair ibn Amr reported I said to Sahl1bn Huna1f. "Have you heard anythmg about the rebels 

(khaiVarij) from the Prophet peace and blessmgs be upon him?' Sahl said, 'I heard the Prophet 

say1ng while pomtmg with h1s hand towards Iraq There will appear In It some people who will 

recite the Quran but it will not go beyond their throats, and they will go out from Islam just 

as an arrow pierces through its target.' 

Source: Sahth Bukhan 6535 

Grade' Sahih (authentiC) according to Al-Bukhan 

6535 J.A'..;- ~ o\..6'-:1-J ...:i;.._ ~ ·~-- ~~~..:~·-..::;_.A :.,.;~j ..>h-i~·.J ~.:r~t --4 ..;~~ :.~ 

.f' 4~)' y. ~1 J~ :..$ ~~ ,jA ~~JA) 

• Here, the Khawarij are referred to as having left the religion, That they quote the Quran but it 

does not pass their throats (that is, they are superficial and have no depth in their 

understanding). 

There are many sahllo anad1tn narrated concernmg killing the KnawanJ. 

RasulAIIah (saw) sa10 Tooba 1s ror those who kiM them (tne KMwariJ) or 

whO are killed by them" (Ahmad Ibn Sad. ion Abi As.tm, Sunnah. Laitakl. 

Sham usululltiqad) Tiley are most evil of creat1on (MuSlim 1 ·whosoever 

encounters them let hun kill them Sl!iCe there IS a rewara on the Day of 

Judgment for the one whO kllis them .. (Bukhari' Musl!ml ·Tne Khawar~ are 

tne oogs of hellfire (from Abi A>~fa by T1rm1dhi. Ibn Ma)a. Ahmad. Ibn Asim 

as-Sunnah. Abdullah ibn Af1maa b Hanbal as-Sunnatl and from Abu 

Uthman ai-Bat1111 bv TlrmKlhi Abdurrazzaq al-t.lusanna!: bn Abt Shaybatl 

Musannat, Tabaram Mujamul Kabeer· Tabaram. ai-Awsat Tabarari 

as-Sagher: Hak1m.1.1ustadrak. Bayhaqt as.sunanul Kubtal 

Here, the Prophet (PeaceBeUponHim) refers to the Khawarij in the most derisive terms ever 

given to a group. His order is very clear: they are to be killed. 
83 

'There shall appear a group of people from my l:mma in the direction 

of the east. They u:ill recite the Qur'an but it tl'ill not pass their 

throats. Every time a generation of them appears it will be cut 

down ......... - until the .4nti-Christ appears from their last 

remnants.' - [al-:l.lusnad, al-:l.Iustadrak. and others] 

• Muslims believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (PeaceBeUponHim). Prior to the coming of 

the Messiah who shall rule with full authority and power, the Antichrist must emerge. This 

statement indicates that from the last remnants of the Khawarij, the very Antichrist himself shall 

emerge. 

A Prophetic statement goes on to say: "The Antichrist shall emerge on the road between Iraq 

and Syria." There is now a physical road between the two countries, made by ISIS itself. Thus, 

my counter messaging to them suggests that they are in fact, the Antichrist army. 
84 

APPENDIX D 

*Case study of an American girl living in the state of Washington, who has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum 

Disorder, who lives with her elderly grandparents, who was being lured by ISIS recruiters online. I was 

tagged into some tweets in which some individuals suggested I talk to her and I proceeded to engage 

her to talk her out of a life-destroying choice. 

I have left the image of the girl (top right) along with her siblings to show you how brazen these 

recruiters can be. I hope this image shall not be made public so as to protect her privacy. There 

is also an active FBI case on this file. 
85 

• Here is a screens hot of my Initial attempts. Notice first how she frames this under, "they care 

about me" {because she is somewhat developmentally delayed and emotionally immature and 

will gravitate to whomever fawns over her}. Secondly, she refers to verses from the Quran that 

they gave her. I then challenged her on producing these verses they use {so I could debunk their 

interpretation). 
86 

• At first she is still somewhat resistant and may have been taken aback by my aggressive 

approach but now l tell her directly, that 1 used to be an extremist- that I know the verses they 

use so I continue to challenge her on that point about verses from the Quran. 
87 

Here you see again that the recruiters 

getting (parents are gone, she is 

reinforce the point that they are fake and 

kindness and even "love" that the girl is probably not 

grandparents) or being made to feel special. I 

trying to lure her over. 
88 

arranged 

examples 

desire. 

you so 
89 

. • 

Senate Testimony 

Jihad 2.0: 

Social Media in the Next Evolution of 

Terrorist Recruitment 

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross 

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies 

Chief Executive Officer, Valens Global 

Hearing before the 

Senate Committee on Homeland Security & 

Governmental Affairs 

Washington, DC 

May 7, 2015 

IFDD (, 

DEFENSE 0!<' J)b;~J0Ctli\C!ES 1726 M Street NW • Suite 700 • Washington, DC 20036 
90 

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross May 7, 2015 

Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and distinguished members of the 

committee, on behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, it is an honor to appear before 

you to discuss the jihadist use of social media, and what can the govemment can do to address this 

challenge. 1 

This testimony focuses on the Islamic State (IS), which has taken strategic communications 

by a jihadist group to an entirely new level. The proficiency of IS and its supporters as 

communicators can be discemed from the group's production of tightly choreographed and slickly 

produced videos, from its apparently deep understanding of how to catch the Westem media's 

attention, and from IS's exceptionally skilled coordinated distribution of its content on platforms 

like Twitter? The group's leap forward in reaching its various target audiences is of great concern. 

Through the strength of its communications, IS has helped inspire unprecedented numbers of 

young Muslims from across the globe to flock to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq to fight on the 

group's behalf.3 IS has provoked a wave of lone wolf terrorist attacks that raises legitimate 

questions about whether extremists' savvy use of social media might produce a permanent rise in 

lone wolfterrorism.4 Not only has IS eclipsed the communications skills of its predecessors in the 

jihadist movement, but it is also widely perceived (rightly so) as winning its propaganda war 

against the United States and other Western powers. 

The key argument I will advance is that underneath the hard shell that the Islamic State has 

cultivated through its propaganda campaign exists a soft underbelly: IS has become entirely 

dependent on the success of its messaging, yet the group's propaganda is vulnerable to disruption. 

IS's flawed military strategy has left it surrounded by foes, and fighting wars on several fronts. As 

IS has made more and more enemies, ranging from the nation states bombing its convoys to the 

shadowy vigilantes killing IS officials in the territory it controls, 5 IS's propaganda operations have 

become the key to preventing its overstretched caliphate from experiencing even greater setbacks. 

Even if the U.S. government is able to undermine IS's strategic communications campaign, 

that is not the same thing as defeating the attractiveness of the broader jihadist movement's 

message. For reasons that this testimony will outline, IS--despite its technically excellent 

communication-possesses weaknesses that the jihadist movement does not overall. Nonetheless, 

1 I recently completed a study commissioned by the consulting finn Wikistrat examining how the U.S. government 

can undercut the Islamic State's messaging. See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Nathaniel Barr, The Winner's Messaging 

Strategy of the Islamic State: Technically Excellent, Vulnerable to Disruption (unpublished manuscript, forthcoming 

2015, Wikistrat). This testimony is largely adapted from that forthcoming study. I would like to thank my co-author 

Nathaniel Barr for his top-notch work on this project. 

As to the term ')ihadist," how to describe the movement of which both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda are a 

part is a topic of some contention amongst researchers. I employ the term "j ihadist" in this testimony in large part 

because it is an organic term, the way that those within the movement refer to themselves. As the terrorism researcher 

Jarret Brachn1an notes, this label has "been validated as the least worst option" linguistically for referring to this 

movement "across the Arabic-speaking world," including being employed in Arabic-language print and broadcast 

media. See Jarret M. Brachman, Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 5. 2 See, e.g., J.M. Berger, "How ISIS Games Twitter," The Atlantic, June 16,2014. 3 See Peter R. Neumann, "Foreign Fighter Total in Syria/Iraq Now Exceeds 20,000; Surpasses Afghanistan Conflict 

in the 1980s," International Centre for the Study ofRadicalisation and Political Violence (London), January 26, 2015, 

http://icsr. info/20 15/0 !/foreign-fighter-total-syriairag-now-exceeds-20000-sumasses-afghanistan-conflict-l980s/. 4 See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "What Does the Recent Spate of Lone Wolf Terrorist Attacks Mean?'', War on the 

Rocks, October 27,2014. 5 Sam Kiley, "Underground Guerrilla Force Battles IS in Mosul," Sky News, April21, 2015. 

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weakening IS's impressive strategic communications campaign would be a significant victory for 

the U.S., and would represent a first step toward better understanding the battlefield of social media 

in which the United States will be forced to compete with jihadists, and other varieties of extremist 

groups, in the future. 

This testimony begins by exploring how IS's communications strategy depends upon 

projecting an image of strength. It explores the ways that IS has sought to project that image, 

including through exaggeration and fraudulent means. Finally, the testimony concludes by 

providing a framework through which the United States can focus on IS's key vulnerability by 

undercutting that image of strength. 

The Islamic State's Need to Project an Image of Strength 

As IS has lost territory in Syria and Iraq and its supply of foreign fighters has precipitously 

declined-only around 120 foreign fighters joined its ranks in the first three months of this year6

-

IS has focused its messaging efforts on adding new affiliates internationally. There are many ways 

that drawing in additional affiliates gives IS a lifeline. New affiliates feed into the perception that 

IS is an indomitably growing force even if it is experiencing setbacks in Iraq. The Islamic State 

hopes to gain operationally by drawing new groups into its orbit, as IS may be able to compensate 

for its loss of foreign fighters by drawing manpower from these affiliates, and may be able to 

secure additional funding sources this way as well. And international expansion ensures the 

organization's survivability even if it loses its hold over broad swathes of Iraq or even Syria. IS's 

propaganda has been critical to this international growth, such the brutal Nigerian jihadist group 

Boko Haram's decision to pledge bayat (an oath of allegiance) to IS in March 2015. 7 

The comments of former and current American officials suggest that IS has fashioned such 

a powerful propaganda apparatus that it could take the United States years to formulate a "counternarrative" capable of undermining the group's appeal. 8 This view, however, conflates IS's appeal 

with that of the jihadist movement as a whole: They are not the same, and the former is easier to 

counter than the latter. Although IS obviously strikes many of the same themes as do other jihadist 

groups, conflating the narrative of IS as an organization with that of the broader movement causes 

practitioners and observers to overlook a central vulnerability in IS's propaganda efforts: IS's 

communications can be described as a "winner's message" at a time that it is, on the whole, losing. 

That is, IS's messaging depends on the group projecting an image of strength and momentumand ifiS's narrative is undermined or disrupted in this regard, then IS risks becoming unattractive 

to its target audience. 

That is precisely what happened to IS's predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Like IS, AQI 

also had a winner's message that involved the use of extraordinary brutality, including releasing 

videos in which its hostages were humiliated and beheaded. From 2005-07, the combination of 

this brutality and AQI's battlefield successes made AQI perhaps the most prominent jihadist 

organization in the world, with many observers arguing that its emir Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had 

eclipsed Osama bin Laden, the emir of the overall al-Qaeda organization, in prominence. But 

6 "Islamic State Recruits 400 Children Since January: Syria Monitor," Reuters, March 24,2015. 7 See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "The Islamic State's African Long Con," Foreign Policy, March 16, 2015 (explaining 

how IS's propaganda efforts were important to luring Boko Haram into its network). 8 See comments in Simon Cottee, "Why It's So Hard to Stop ISIS Propaganda," The Atlantic, March 2, 2015. 

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AQI's excesses pushed many Iraqi Sunni tribes to support the Sahwa (Awakening) movement that 

stood up against AQI's power. Sunni tribal engagement played an important role in AQI's defeat 

in 2007-08, and AQI's brutality shifted from a potent symbol of the group's power to a 

demonstration of bow it had overplayed its hand. 9 

Though the projection of strength is central to IS's communications strategy, much of the 

anti-IS messaging efforts attempted to date by the U.S. and its allies have focused on aspects of 

the group's narrative that are less critical to the organization and also more difficult to counter. 

Indeed, at times the counter-IS narrative and IS's own narrative have been exactly the same: AntiIS messaging has often emphasized the jihadist group's brutality, while IS also proudly proclaims 

its own brutality. The Islamic State is content to flaunt the atrocities it commits because, while 

many people will find its messaging distasteful, that bloody imagery also projects the group's 

power. 

Fortunately, IS has been experiencing significant setbacks, though the group hasn't yet lost 

control of its narrative of victory. 10 A counter-messaging strategy focused on undermining IS's 

image of strength and momentum is the best approach for the Islamic State's foes. In launching 

such a campaign, the U.S. needs to adapt some of its internal processes that stand in the way of 

competing with an organization like IS that moves at the speed of social media. The U.S.'s 

inefficient and highly bureaucratic internal processes often make it hard-pressed to even compete 

with a messaging campaign that moves at the speed of the Gutenberg Bible. 

The Islamic State's Flawed Business Model 

The Islamic State's faulty strategy has left the group with a long list of powerful enemies, 

which has in turn transformed the Islamic State's powerful communications capabilities from a 

luxury into a necessity. IS is now stuck in a multi-front war in Syria and Iraq, severely straining 

the group's resources and forcing it to lean more heavily on propaganda operations to galvanize 

its support base. 

From the outset, IS generally rejected collaboration and compromise with like-minded 

militant organizations, and instead challenged these groups directly. When IS (then known as ISIL, 

or the Islamic State oflraq and the Levant) expanded from Iraq into Syria in the spring of2013, it 

immediately began feuding with other Syrian rebel groups, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat 

al-Nusra. The two groups bad very different approaches to relations with other rebels who opposed 

Bashar ai-Assad's regime. As Charles Lister of the Brookings Institution bas noted, "Jabhat alNusra shared power and governance," whereas IS "demanded complete control over society." 11 

IS's inability to work cooperatively with other Syrian rebel groups quickly earned it a host of 

enemies who were ostensibly on IS's own side of the conflict. Indeed, the majority of IS's 

geographic gains in Syria have come at the expense of other rebels rather than Assad's regime. 

Despite its difficulties in working with other groups, IS managed to assemble a relatively 

9 See Gary W. Montgomery and Timothy S. McWilliams, Al-Anbar Awakening val. 2: Iraqi Perspectives (Quantico, 

VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009); Davecd Gartenstein-Ross & Sterling Jensen, "The Role of Iraqi Tribes 

after the Islamic State's Ascendance," unpublished manuscript, forthcoming 2015. 10 See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "ISIS Is Losing Its Greatest Weapon: Momentum," The Atlantic, January 6, 2015. 11 Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2014), p. 13. 

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broad-based Sunni coalition for its dramatic military push into Iraq in June 2014. This offensive 

obviously caused IS to immediately become the number-one foe of a wide variety of actors, 

including the Iraqi state, its ally Iran, and Iraq's Iranian-backed Shia militias. Indeed, mere days 

after IS seized Mosul, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia cleric, called on 

Iraq's citizens to join the fight against IS. 12 Thousands oflraqi Shias responded to Sistani's appeal. 

Although IS already possessed a wide array of enemies, the jihadist group almost 

immediately betrayed its partners in early July by rounding up ex-Baathist leaders in Mosul who 

had aided IS's advance.U Rather than consolidating its forces and reinforcing its territorial 

holdings, IS's next move was to attack another group, this time Iraq's Kurds-who, at the time, 

were not fighting IS-and thus opening a new front to the group's north. But IS was not done 

making enemies. Its genocidal campaign against the Yazidi minority religious sect, coupled with 

the beheading of two American journalists, prompted the U.S. and a coalition of allied states to 

join the fight, mounting a campaign of air strikes against IS. 

The flaws of IS's military strategy have become increasingly apparent. The group's 

military defeat in Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish city in northern Syria, was particularly 

damaging, resulting in the death of over 2,000 IS fighters and the destruction of hard-to-replace 

military vehicles and weaponry. 14 IS's defeat at Kobani was also a blow to its cultivated image as 

an indomitable military force. More recently, IS lost control of Tikrit, and has found its northern 

Iraq holdings under increasing pressure, although it has been able to launch a new offensive into 

Anbar province that, among other things, masks the group's overarching trajectory of mounting 

losses. 

As IS has lost territory in Iraq and parts of Syria, it has found itself increasingly dependent 

on external support to buttress its capabilities, sustain its growth, and maintain its juggernaut 

image. IS relies on three primary sources of external support: foreign fighters from outside Syria 

and Iraq (though foreign fighter numbers, as previously noted, have been in decline), likeminded 

jihadist organizations outside of Iraq and Syria who may pledge allegiance to IS or otherwise 

provide it material assistance, and other rebel factions in Syria and Iraq who may bolster IS's local 

capabilities. 

IS's propaganda machine is critical to the group's efforts to attract support from these 

sources. Propaganda is especially important in recruiting individuals and organizations who might 

never come into physical contact with Islamic State fighters, and who instead judge the group 

largely based on the image it has cultivated through social media and online strategic messaging, 

and on the mainstream media's reporting on IS's gains and overall health. Such individuals and 

organizations who are considering a relationship with IS may also judge IS based on what the 

group's emissaries tell them, although the veracity of the emissaries' messages will largely be 

judged by how well they track with perceived on-the-ground realities projected through these 

various media sources. 

In other words, IS's strong propaganda apparatus has helped to keep the organization afloat 

12 Loveday Morris, "Shiite Cleric Sistani Backs Iraqi Government's Call for Volunteers to Fight Advancing Militants," 

Washington Post, June 13,2014. 13 Maggie Fick and Ahmed Rasheed, "ISIS Rounds Up Ex-Baathists to Eliminate Rivals," Reuters, July 8, 2014. 14 Robin Wright, "A Victory in Kobani?", The New Yorker, January 27,2015. 

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despite its flawed business model. This report now explores IS's messaging, as understanding it is 

critical to defanging the jihadist group's powerful narrative. 

The Islamic State's Narrative 

The Islamic State has a 

multifaceted narrative that appeals to 

its various target audiences in several 

ways, as depicted in the pyramid in 

Figure 1. The three messages at the 

bottom of the pyramid-religious 

obligation, political grievance, and 

sense of adventure-are some of the 

most difficult for IS's foes to counter. 

They are also the areas upon which a 

significant amount of counter-IS 

messaging has focused. 

There are a large number of 

components to the religious aspect of 

IS's narrative, but the culmination of 

the various threads is that Muslims 

worldwide have a religious duty to support the caliphate. One duty allegedly upon them is to 

emigrate to the territory that IS holds. As the caliph, Abu Bakr ai-Baghdadi, said in an audio 

address released weeks after the caliphate's establishment: "Whoso is able to emigrate to the 

Islamic State, let him emigrate. For emigration to the Abode of Islam is obligatory." 15 Another 

alleged obligation is fighting jihad on IS's behalf. Foreign fighters in the theater have exhorted 

their countrymen-both through distributed statements and also peer-to-peer communicationsto fulfill this religious obligation. In one release from March 2015, titled "Message from Those 

Who Are Excused to Those Who Are Not Excused," two deaf IS foreign fighters used sign 

language to call on Western Muslims to join the caliphate. The video's title refers to the fact that 

individuals with disabilities are generally exempt from waging jihad under Islamic law, and the 

use of these deaf men was designed to shame able-bodied men who have yet to migrate to the 

Islamic State. Another set of religious arguments calls on Muslims to carry out attacks in their 

home countries if they cannot migrate to Syria or Iraq. 

A second component of the Islamic State's communications strategy emphasizes political 

grievances with the West. There are many different varieties of political grievance that the group 

can draw upon. IS, for example, has turned the U.S.-led air campaign against it into a propaganda 

opportunity, comparing the military operation to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Indeed, the 

fourth issue of Dabiq, IS's English-language magazine, was titled "The Failed Crusade," and 

discussed the new Judeo-Christian Crusade against the Muslims. 

Another component of IS's narrative appeals to jihadists' sense of adventure and 

15 Abii Bakr ai-Baghdadl, "Risala ilii '1-mujahidln wa'l-umma al-Islamiyya fi shahr Ramaan," A4u 'assasat ai-Furqan, 

July I, 2014. 

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excitement. Foreign fighter recruitment videos blend narratives about religious obligation with 

themes depicting jihad as an action-packed adventure, replete with symbols of masculinity 

intended to attract young men. IS's cutting-edge special effects also help life on the battlefield to 

seem both exciting and "cool." 

If any of these IS narratives were to be definitively refuted, it would have a significant 

impact on the organization. However, these narratives are particularly difficult to prove false 

because they are to a large extent subjective. For example, IS has offered a myriad of theological 

justifications for the atrocities it commits, and has extensively explained why IS is uniquely 

fulfilling Islamic obligations. IS's supporters are aware that the majority of Muslims, and most 

Islamic scholars, vehemently disagree: The fact that such a large body opposes their religious 

justifications is unpersuasive to most (though not all) ofiS's supporters. This is not to say that 

arguments challenging IS's religious legitimacy are unimportant, but they likely serve as a bulwark 

against too much IS expansion, as well as a means of persuading the occasional IS supporter to 

step back from the ledge, rather than a dagger through IS's heart. Similarly, the battlefield may not 

be as glamorous as IS claims, but many of the group's supporters won't know one way or the other 

until they arrive. 

But IS's claim that the group is defeating its opponents on the battlefield is not a simple 

matter of opinion: It is either objectively true or not. Thus, this is the aspect of IS's narrative that 

can be most effectively countered. It is also the aspect ofiS's narrative that is most tightly wedded 

to IS as an organization. IS, as previously noted, should not be confused with the j ihadist 

movement as a whole: It is one organization within the broader movement, an organization that is 

uniquely problematic due to its over-the-top brutality and other repugnant excesses, such as its 

institution of sexual slavery. While IS will be hurt if fewer people tum to jihadism, it will be more 

directly harmed ifjihadists choose not to support it as an organization. And its narrative of victory 

is critical to persuadingjihadists to support IS specifically, as opposed to-for example-regional 

jihadist groups. Indeed, IS's competition with al-Qaeda has been every bit as intense as its fight 

against regional governments. l6 

One important reason that IS's argument that it has immense momentum can be more easily 

countered than other aspects of its narrative is that IS has been steadily losing ground in Iraq, and 

has largely failed to take and hold new ground in the Iraq-Syria theater since October 2014. Thus, 

IS has begun to exaggerate its gains, both in the Iraq-Syria theater and internationally, and sought 

to obscure its losses. In other words, large parts of this argument are untrue, and IS's narrative of 

success can be undermined. 

A recent Arabic-language article by IS supporter Shaykh Abu Sulayman al-Jahbadhi sheds 

light on IS's messaging strategy. Warning against the "showing of weakness," Jahbadhi implored 

residents of cities controlled by IS not to show the hardships that sieges against their cities impose 

on the population-such as lack of food, water, and gas. He warned that "such announcements are 

considered to be major shortcomings in maintaining the psychological war with the enemy." 

Jahbadhi went on to say that even displaying atrocities committed by IS's enemies against civilian 

populations, such as casualties inflicted by "Crusaders" bombing IS-held areas, should be avoided, 

16 See discussion of the contours of the competition between the two in Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Bridget Moreng, 

"AI-Qaeda Is Beating the Islamic State," Politico, April4, 2015. 

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because the world would not sympathize with IS regardless. He explained: 

The caliphate showed the crimes of the coalition and the rawafid [rejectionists]; 

however, it has always featured the retaliatory attacks, that is, the slaughter of a spy 

or punishment of soldiers. This is intended to reflect the absence of weakness. The 

caliphate would never publicize the crimes of the enemy alone! This would never 

happen, for the world no longer sympathizes or empathizes with us. You show their 

crimes only when they are accompanied with the punishment. When the caliphate 

published the video of the burning of Moaz [al-Kassasbeh], it had previously 

released pictures of children burned in the shelling of the coalition warplanes. The 

caliphate shows their crimes and also shows how it is capable of retaliating for 

them. 17 

In other words, the projection of strength is IS's central message. It is acceptable to show 

the atrocities that the caliphate's enemies are committing, but only if such imagery is accompanied 

by a display of how IS retaliated-thus underscoring IS's fundamental power. 

In addition to obscuring its 

losses, IS has systematically 

exaggerated its strength. Part of the 

reason it has done so is precisely to 

disguise those losses. The best 

example of IS's tendency to 

exaggerate and embellish is in 

Africa. In October 2014, a group of 

militants in the eastern Libyan city 

of Derna openly pledged bayat to 

IS, and declared that they had 

established an emirate in the city. 

Soon after the bayat pledge, IS 

flooded social media with videos 

and pictures of IS militants in 

Derna, including a video showing a 

parade of militants waving IS flags 

as they drove down a thoroughfare in the city. 

This show of force led many observers to conclude that the Islamic State held full control 

of Derna, and numerous media outlets then reported IS's control of Derna as an objective fact. 18 

But in reality, control of Derna was, and remains, divided between a number of militant groups, 

including some al-Qaeda-linked groups that oppose IS's expansion into Libya. 

After bluffing its way into convincing observers that it controlled Dcrna, IS issued a 

deceptive claim of responsibility for the devastating March 18 attack on the Bardo museum in 

17 Abu Su!ayman ai-Jahbadhi, "War Policy against the Enemy Does Not Allow Showing of Weaknesses," posted April 

2. 2015. 18 For examples of these reports, see Paul Cruickshank et al., "ISIS Comes to Libya." CNN, November 18, 20!4; 

Maggie Michael, "How a Libyan City Joined the Islamic State Group," Associated Press, November 9, 2014. 

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Tunis. Though IS quickly claimed credit for that attack, Tunisia instead attributed it to the aiQaeda-aligned Katibat Uqba ibn Nafi, and identified the group's emir Luqman Abu Saqr as the 

mastermind. 19 Even though IS's claim of responsibility was an exaggeration, it nonetheless 

furthered the perception that the group had significant momentum internationally, as it came 

amidst a series of IS advances in various countries, including Boko Haram's March 7 pledge of 

bayatto IS. 

IS's rationale for exaggerating its role in the Bardo attack was clear. In the battle for market 

share of global jihadism, IS has al-Qaeda's media operations outgunned. The Bardo attack, 

because it was carried out by a rival, threatened IS's narrative of success at a time when IS was 

experiencing losses in Iraq but compensating by gaining ground in Africa. But IS knew from past 

experience that al-Qaeda generally doesn't claim credit for attacks while the operatives who 

carried them out are still at large: Thus, IS could issue a claim of responsibility before ai-Qaeda 

was prepared to do so. Given the way media cycles work-and IS is very attuned to the media 

cycle-a false or exaggerated claim of responsibility would dominate the news before anybody 

could disprove it, at a time when Bardo remained a top headline. Al-Qaeda's greater role wouldn't 

become known until the attack was no longer a hot news item. 

In addition to exaggerating its gains, IS has sought to downplay, or deflect attention from, 

its military defeats. Thus, as the group experienced losses in Iraq, it aggressively pushed to expand 

outside of that theater. IS's recent acquisitions of both Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in Egypt and also 

Boko Haram have been helpful in shifting the media's attention from IS's losses in its stronghold 

to its growth on a new continent. IS's extreme brutality has also seemingly been employed to 

distract from the group's military defeats. Just days after IS pulled its forces back from Kobani, 

thus finally acknowledging its defeat there, IS released a video showing the immolation of Moaz 

al-Kassasbeh, a Jordanian fighter pilot whom IS had captured after his plane crashed in Syria. The 

media fixated not on IS's defeat in Kobani but instead Kassasbeh's brutal execution. 

The media has often unwittingly aided IS's propaganda strategy by having a narrative about 

the jihadist group that mirrors its own, emphasizing IS's growth and its brutality. Indeed, in critical 

instances, the media has helped IS to portray itself as stronger than was the case by reporting its 

false or exaggerated claims-such as IS's supposed capture of De rna-as fact. Rather than refuting 

IS's false claims, the mainstream media has at critical times reported them as objective fact, thus 

reinforcing the audience's view that these exaggerations are true. (See the graphic depiction of this 

process in Figure 3.) 

19 See Patrick Markey, "Tunisia Signals Local al-Qaeda Links to Bardo Museum Attack," Reuters, March 26, 20 15; 

Richard Spencer, "Tunisia Arrests 23 over Museum Attack," Telegraph, March 26, 2015. 

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One reason the media often repeats 

IS's claims uncritically, and reinforces its 

narrative, is that IS dominates the media 

environment in territories under its control, 

making it difficult for independent media 

outlets to obtain a clear picture of 

developments in IS-controlled territory. 20 

Further, in Derna social media has low 

penetration relative to the Syria conflict, and 

it is also too dangerous for the vast majority 

of reporters to visit the city. 21 Thus, it isn't 

shocking that the media repeated IS's factual 

claims uncritically, especially when neither 

the U.S. government nor any other interested 

party took the time to refute them. The Islamic 

State has leveraged its manipulation of the 

media to present a narrative of military 

momentum and strength. 

May 7, 2015 

Figure 3: IS pushes its message, including 

exaggerated claims, to the media and its target 

audience. The media often repeats these 

exaggerations back to the target audience as fact. 

How to Combat the Islamic State's Propaganda Strategy 

The U.S. has thus far been unable to wrest control of the narrative from IS. The U.S. 

confronts a couple of major weaknesses in attempting to respond to IS's propaganda offensive. 

First, the operational tempo of the U.S. government's messaging campaign is too slow to keep up 

with IS's high-octane, rapid-fire social media apparatus. Second, even if the U.S. could keep up 

with IS's messaging campaign, it is seen as lacking credibility by key members of the target 

audience of people who are vulnerable to IS's recruitment tactics. 

So what can the U.S. do? The Islamic State's messaging strategy is based on the idea that 

it has massive momentum, at a time when this momentum is running out. That presents a 

significant vulnerability for the organization, social media juggernaut or not, and the U.S. should 

work to shift the narrative surrounding IS from one of strength and victory to one of weakness and 

loss. This can be achieved by focusing attention on the group's military defeats, fact-checking the 

group's claims of victory, and revealing the group's many exaggerations. Further, this couternarrative should expose IS's governance failures, and its struggles to function as a state. Just as 

puncturing IS's narrative of success can make it far less attractive, exposing its failings as a state 

can undermine the image of the caliphate as an Islamic utopia, dissuading foreigners from making 

the arduous trip to Syria and discouraging like-minded jihadist groups from pledging allegiance to 

a caliph whose caliphate is crumbling. 

Several steps can be taken to improve the U.S.'s counter-IS messaging campaign: 

• To address the problem of how government bureaucracies harm the U.S.'s ability to 

20 See Bryan Price et a!., The Group That Calls Itself a State: Understanding the Evolution and Challenges of the 

Islamic State (West Point: Combating Terrorism Center, 2014 ), p. 56. 21 A graphic illustration of the dangers can be found in "Army Official: Islamic State Kills 5 Journalists Working for 

Libyan TV Station," Reuters, April 27, 2015. 

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compete in a social media campaign, the government should have a small and nimble 

unit specifically charged with refuting IS's propaganda. This unit should include both 

strategic communications professionals with expertise in social media and also 

intelligence analysts who are capable of monitoring a) what messages IS is pushing out 

to advance its narrative of strength and victory, and b) in what ways IS's claims diverge 

from the ground truth. 

• The U.S. government should not always be the face of the response to IS's claims. As 

Nicholas Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, 

acknowledged, "the government is probably not the best platform to try to 

communicate with the set of actors who are potentially vulnerable to this kind of 

propaganda and this kind of recruitment." 22 Rather, one primary means of 

dissemination for this counter-IS unit should be pushing out its information-for 

example, in the form of fact sheets-to members of the mainstream media who can 

investigate the U.S.'s claims, and report them if they are persuaded following their own 

due diligence. This can break the cycle wherein IS's target audience receives the same, 

often exaggerated, factual claims from both IS and also the media. Further, while many 

jihadists are disdainful of the Western media, it is nonetheless perceived as a more 

neutral arbiter of fact in a way that the U.S. government is not. Sharing information 

with the media in this manner can have a snowball effect: IS critics and members of 

civil society may capitalize on press reports of IS's decline, thus amplifying the 

message. 

• To further the objective of undercutting IS's narrative of victory, the counter-IS unit 

should have the ability to selectively declassify information for journalists that supports 

its claim that IS is losing momentum. 

• Credibility is vital in any messaging campaign. One reason IS's message is vulnerable 

is because parts of it are not true, and thus IS risks more serious damage to perceptions 

of its trustworthiness. The counter-IS unit should strive to maintain its credibility in all 

instances, and should not push out false or questionable information even if its 

dissemination has the potential to harm IS. 

Countering the Islamic State's narrative of invulnerability is not a silver bullet. IS possesses 

the resources to threaten Iraq and Syria for the foreseeable future, and especially in the Syrian city 

ofRaqqa it may have longevity. But by showing areas where IS is enfeebled and declining rather 

than strong and vibrant, the U.S. government can diminish the group's ability to recruit new 

fighters and affiliates. 

Thank you again for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to answering your 

questions. 

22 Nicholas Rasmussen, "U.S. Intensifies Effort to Blunt ISIS' Message," New York Times, February 16, 2015. 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies www.defenddemocracy.org 

11 
INCIDENCE OF TERRORISM 

2012 2013 Total: 

18,000 17,891 

16,000 

14,000 Total: 

12,000 11,098 Total: 9,707 10,000 

8,000 

6,000 

4,000 

2,000 Rest of world: 3,936 

2.940 

0 

Attacks Killed Attacks Killed 

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism 
101 

Links Referenced by Senator Booker 

May 7, 2015 

URL: https://news.vice.com/article/isis-has-a-really-slick-and-sophisticated-media-department 

URL: https:Uwww.youtube.com/watch?v=i2fAofF39Eg 

"ISIS Releases Recruitment Video of Militants Giving Candy to Children" 

lSlS 

ISIS Has a Really Slick and Sophisticated 

Media Department 

By OfNJa Becker 

july 12. 2014 I 12'35 prn 

In addmon to being one of the most brutal militant groups currently fightlng in the Middle 

Easr, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syna (ISIS) might also have the most elaborate public 

relations strategy. 

Thls week, the msurgents released a new episode in a video senes called Mujarweets, 

depictmg an ISIS member visiting inJured fighters in a hosp1tal and offering them 

comforting and encouraging words. 
102 

Youi:ill!m 

ISIS Releases Recruitment Video of Militants Giving Candy to Children 

VICE VICE News 

NEWS i • f.ftl@i!ij 

Uploaded on Jul11. 2014 

C.1tego1y 

LKen:;e 

25.477 
103 

URL: https:{ltwitter.com/ThinkAgain DOS 

"Think Again Turn Away DOS Twitter Page" 
104 

Post-Hearing Responses Submitted by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross 

to Questions for the Record from Senator Claire McCaskill 

"Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment" 

I. Are you aware to the extent in which the State Department, the Department of Defense, or 

other agencies involved in the social media counterterrorism campaign have developed metrics 

for success? 

Though it is known that government agencies involved in counter-messaging efforts have 

established metrics to measure the effectiveness of their operations, these metrics are not 

publicly stated, and are likely classified. This raises the possibility that some of the metrics that 

analysts and journalists employ to evaluate and critique counter-messaging operations differ 

from the internal performance metrics that CSCC and other agencies have established. 

2. Are you aware of any strategic discussions or decisions by the federal government about 

changing spending priorities among different communications media? 

There is a widespread view that there exists what you might call a resource-to-perception 

mismatch on the counter-messaging front. The State Department's CSCC is considered the tip of 

the spear of the U.S.'s counter-messaging campaign by many observers (though this view is by 

no means universally shared, especially by other agencies), but the resources allocated to 

CSCC-an annual budget of $5-6 million since its inception in 2011, and a staff of about 50 

employees-pale in comparison to the resources that the Pentagon, CIA, and other government 

agencies receive for counter-messaging. 

As such, there is discussion within the government about what agency should have the lead in 

counter-messaging, and whether funding levels should be adjusted. One argument is that CSCC, 

as the perceived lead organization, should receive additional resources commensurate with its 

lead role in counter-messaging. The contrary view is that a different organization within the 

government should be seen as the lead agency, a view bolstered by the fact that all products that 

come out of CSCC are explicitly branded with the State Department's imprimatur. I don't have a 

horse in this race, but would only point out that byzantine bureaucracies and confusion about 

who has what responsibility or hierarchical role can interfere with strategy, including in countermessaging. 

3. In your observation, what are the reasons that the State Department and the Center for 

Strategic Counterterrorism Communications is failing to effectively get our message out via 

social media in a substantive way? What areas do you view as needing the most important and 

what steps would you take to see that happen? 

Before commenting on CSCC's current approach, it is worth noting that CSCC is an evolving 

organization that is seeking to adapt its counter-messaging strategy to meet current challenges. In 

February 2015, Rashad Hussain was appointed the new head of CSCC and in recent months, 

policymakers have expressed their satisfaction with the strategy that the new leadership has 
105 

articulated. It is too early to comment on whether the articulation of this strategy will be matched 

by an approach that is in fact more productive. 

One major challenge for CSCC and other government agencies has been countering the 

phenomenon I discussed in my testimony: the perception of military strength and momentum 

that ISIL has carefully cultivated through its robust propaganda machine, often through false or 

exaggerated claims. It is obviously more difficult to counter this image of strength when ISIL has 

made recent advances-including in Ramadi, Baiji and the Syrian city of Tadmur-but even 

these obviously significant ISIL gains have often been explained hyperbolically in media 

coverage. Overall, ISIL has relied heavily on a "winner's message" to attract support, a message 

that emphasizes ISIL's ability to take and hold territory and its continued global expansion into 

new theatres such as North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. CSCC and other government 

agencies have struggled to combat ISIL's narrative of strength even when it has been based on 

fraudulent or concocted "facts," such as the claim that ISIL was in complete control of the 

Libyan city of Derna-something that has never been the case. 

In my written testimony, I outlined steps that U.S. government agencies, including CSCC, can 

take to cut into this core message of ISIL's. I argue first that agencies tasked with countermessaging should push out infonnation about ISIL's battlefield losses and expose the group's 

efforts at deception to members of the mainstream media who can investigate the U.S.'s claims 

and report them if they are persuaded following their own due diligence. Second, I argue that 

counter-messaging agencies should have the ability to selectively declassify information for 

journalists that can undercut ISIL's message. 

As to the reasons that CSCC's message has been suboptimal, I would pursue the following 

questions: 

1. Does CSCC have a strong granular understanding of ISIL's messaging: In other words, 

does it understand, day to day and week to week, what major themes ISIL is pushing to 

expand its brand? Does it understand when these themes do not reflect the realities on the 

ground that ISIL is describing? If not, why not? 

2. How broad are CSCC's connections with members of the mainstream media? Is it 

cultivating the right relationships with journalists, such that it provides the U.S. 

government with a voice that is contrary to ISIL's? 

3. Does CSCC have the ability to selectively declassify information that can be damaging to 

IS!L when doing so would not damage U.S. national security interests? If not, what steps 

can be taken to selectively declassify relevant information? 

4. Does CSCC have the right capabilities to produce videos, memes, and other material that 

is as slick as that produced by !SIL? If not, should its procurement processes be revised 

to allow it to more effectively contract for these services? The United States has strong 

capabilities in its private sector in this regard, but are they being harnessed by the U.S. 

government? 

4. Do you know if the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications uses contractors in 

their social media engagement, and, if so, how they measure the success o.f those contracts? 
106 

Æ 

The State Department does hire contractors to coordinate social media operations related to its 

counterterrorism mission, though the metrics for success are not publicly stated. One contractor 

that State has engaged is JTG Inc., a security firm based in Northern Virginia, which was 

awarded a $575,000 contract in June 2014 to expand the State Department's English-language 

counter-terrorism messaging operations, but there is no public information relating to the metrics 

used to measure this contractor's performance. U.S. government officials would be better 

positioned to provide detailed answers to this question. 

5. To your knowledge, how much, if at all, does the federal government provide training 

opportunities and messages to local community organizations to assist in the online 

counterterrorism effort? 

A U.S. government official would be better positioned to answer this question.