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S. Hrg. 114–566 

INSIDE THE MIND OF ISIS: 

UNDERSTANDING ITS GOALS AND IDEOLOGY TO 

BETTER PROTECT THE HOMELAND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JANUARY 20, 2016 

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 

DAVID S. LUCKEY, Director of Homeland Security 

ELIZABETH MCWHORTER, Professional Staff Member 

SHAD A. THOMAS, U.S. Coast Guard Detailee 

GABRIELLE A. BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

HARLAN C. GEER, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

STEPHEN R. VIN ̃ A, Minority Chief Counsel for Homeland Security 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

BENJAMIN C. GRAZDA, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

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

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 2 

Senator Peters .................................................................................................. 17 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 20 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 23 

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

Senator Ernst .................................................................................................... 27 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 30 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Johnson ............................................................................................... 41 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 42 

WITNESS 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016 

Bernard Haykel, D. Phil., Director, The Institute of Transregional Studies, 

and Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University ......................... 4 

Jessica Stern, Ph.D., Research Professor, Pardee School for Global Studies, 

Boston University ................................................................................................. 6 

Lorenzo Vidino, Ph.D., Director, Program on Extremism, Center for Cyber 

and Homeland Security, George Washington University ................................. 7 

Hedieh Mirahmadi, President, World Organization for Resource Development 

and Education ...................................................................................................... 9 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Haykel, Bernard D.Phil.: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Mirahmadi, Hedieh: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 76 

Stern, Jessica, Ph.D.: 

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

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50 

Vidino, Lorenzo Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 64 

APPENDIX 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Haykel ........................................................................................................ 81 

Ms. Stern ........................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. Vidino ......................................................................................................... 85 

Ms. Mirahmadi ................................................................................................. 87 

(1) 

1The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 41. 

INSIDE THE MIND OF ISIS: 

UNDERSTANDING ITS GOALS AND IDEOLOGY 

TO BETTER PROTECT THE HOMELAND 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

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

Present: Senators Johnson, Portman, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, 

Sasse, Carper, McCaskill, Tester, Heitkamp, Booker, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON 

Chairman JOHNSON. This hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everybody and say good morning. I certainly 

want to thank the witnesses for taking the time to appear, for taking the time to really write, I think, some very thoughtful and revealing testimony. 

I would ask unanimous consent to enter my written opening 

statement in the record,1 and Senator Carper is generally pretty 

good about not objecting. 

Senator CARPER. Oh, I will allow it. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, without objection, so ordered. 

Let me just explain a little bit. Really, this hearing has been in 

the works for quite some time, and it was really spawned by somebody who could not be here because of scheduling conflicts of the 

Committee as well as himself. But Graeme Wood wrote, I thought, 

a very interesting article published in The Atlantic a number of 

months ago, ‘‘Inside the Mind of ISIS.’’ And I would say that it certainly caught this Senator, and I think an awful lot of people, policymakers in Washington, D.C., here, somewhat by surprise. It was 

pretty revealing. I have talked to enough people that really did not 

understand the importance of the territorial gains and holdings to 

create the caliphate and the chain of events which that set up. 

So, we started discussions, and although we do not have Mr. 

Wood here today, we have, I think—he is a reporter. We have the 

experts that I think he consulted with, in terms of writing his 

thoughtful article, and so I am really looking forward to the testimony here today. 
2 

I just want to throw out one little statistic, and this comes from 

the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses 

to Terrorism (START) from the State Department. The START Report, which they initially published in 2012. The progression and 

the growth of terrorism is stark, and did we ever get to the bottom 

of the differences in the numbers from 2014? OK. Which should I 

use? OK, those are even worse. 

So from 2012, the number of attacks reported by the State Department in this report was 6,771. In 2014, the number of attacks 

had grown to 16,800 worldwide. That is 2.5 times the number of 

attacks just 2 years earlier. 

In terms of deaths, in 2012 there were 11,000 individuals killed 

in terrorist attacks. In 2014, there were 43,500. That is almost a 

fourfold increase in terrorist attacks. 

So the fact of the matter is, the risk, the threat of Islamic terror, 

from my standpoint, it is real. It is growing, and statistics prove 

it. And there is no way that we are going to be able to adequately 

address this unless we fully understand what motivates Islamic 

terrorists. This hearing is specifically about the Islamic State of 

Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—but I think that we can talk about Islamic 

terrorists, in general, and explore that—and what is their ultimate 

goal. And I think that we will hear testimony that we have some 

contradictory goals as well, which makes it even more confusing in 

terms of how we deal with the issue. 

But, again, I just want to thank my witnesses, and with that I 

will turn it over to Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. It is great to 

see all of you today. Thanks for your preparation, thanks for joining us, and for your willingness to testify and to respond to our 

questions. And I thank the Chairman for calling the hearing. 

One of the most important jobs of our government—in fact, State 

and Federal and local as well—is to make sure that our people are 

safe. That is what this Committee focuses on. 

As the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks showed us, ISIS 

and ISIS-inspired attacks remain a major threat in this country. In 

fact, just last week, ISIS carried out attacks against our allies in 

Turkey and I believe in Indonesia. 

Today, we are going to look at ISIS’s ideology and how it hopes 

to achieve its goals. One of ISIS’s key strengths is the large number of recruits that they are able to pull in. And despite the heavy 

losses inflicted on ISIS by coalition forces in recent months, the 

number of ISIS fighters on the ground in Iraq and Syria remains 

pretty much the same thanks to a stream of new recruits flowing 

into the region on a regular basis. 

ISIS also appears to have a significant online army that grows 

daily, and these ‘‘virtual’’ soldiers may never set foot in the territory that ISIS controls, but they are waging an aggressive social 

media campaign that calls on people to do the group’s bidding from 

thousands of miles away. These battlefield recruits and online supporters are attracted not only to ISIS’s ideology, but to its image 

as well. 
3 

And what is that image? Well, the image that ISIS would like 

to project is that of a winner. And even as it suffers serious defeats 

on the battlefield—I think the amount of land they control in Syria 

and Iraq is down by about 30 percent in recent months and continues to diminish. But even as they suffer serious defeats on the 

battlefield and lose key leaders, ISIS still attempts to project an 

image of indestructibility. And they do this through fictitious 

claims and propaganda on social media, and also by ignoring the 

truth about the progress that coalition forces are making. This winner message appeals to many young men who crave fame, fortune, 

love, and increased social standing. 

Just as troubling is the fact that ISIS has successfully advanced 

a twisted narrative that the United States is at war with Islam 

and that it is the duty of young Muslims to defend their religion 

by attacking the United States and our allies. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not what we are 

about. We know that, and it is important that we convey that consistently throughout the world. 

This battle is not against a religion. This battle is against ISIS, 

plain and simple. ISIS is a cowardly group of murderers who kill 

Muslims, kill Jews, and kill Christians alike. They have no regard 

for human life. The estimated 30,000 ISIS fighters have nothing to 

do with the 1.5 billion Muslim men and women who peacefully 

practice their religion around the world and in our communities. 

At the end of the day, this battle against ISIS is a war of words 

and ideas as much as it is a war of military power and action. That 

is why it is so important that we not only continue to crush ISIS 

on the battlefield, but also counter their hateful message. 

To this end, last month I introduced legislation that would create 

and authorize an office at the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) to counter the violent messages of ISIS and other terror 

groups. I welcome all of my colleagues to join me on this important 

piece of legislation. We will be talking about it during the course 

of this hearing further. 

This fight against ISIS, however, is not solely the responsibility 

of the Department of Homeland Security or any single Federal 

agency. All of us have a role to play, and we have an obligation to 

say something if we see something suspicious. 

And we all, especially those of us in public office, have a responsibility to be mindful of the words we use when we talk about 

Islam and the 1.5 billion Muslims around the world who practice 

their religion peacefully. They live in our States. They live in our 

neighborhoods, and they believe as fervently as we do in the Golden Rule: to treat other people the way that we want to be treated. 

We need to work to ensure that the rhetoric that we use does not 

play into the hands of ISIS to be used against us as a weapon. 

When we make careless comments about the nature of Islam or 

the need to keep Muslims out of the United States for political purposes, we feed ISIS’s narrative that the United States is at war 

with Muslims. 

We have to be smarter than that. I think we are. Our country 

is better than that. We do not need to engage in demagoguery or 

run from our moral obligations in order to keep Americans safe. 
4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Haykel appears in the Appendix on page 44. 

Let me close by just saying I look forward to learning more today 

about ISIS’s ideology and tactics as well as what more we can do 

to address the root causes of this difficult challenge. 

With that, welcome and thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

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

you will all rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the 

testimony you will give before this Committee today will be the 

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

God? 

Mr. HAYKEL. I do. 

Ms. STERN. I do. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I do. 

Mr. VIDINO. I do. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Please be seated. 

Our first witness is Dr. Bernard Haykel. Dr. Haykel is the professor of Near Eastern Studies and the Director of the Institute for 

Transregional Studies of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University. He is a historian 

of the Arabian Peninsula and a scholar of Islamic law and Islamic 

political movements. His research is concerned with political and 

social tensions that arise from questions about religious identity 

and authority, and he has been described as ‘‘the foremost secular 

authority on the Islamic State’s ideology.’’ Dr. Haykel. 

TESTIMONY OF BERNARD HAYKEL, D.PHIL.,1 DIRECTOR, THE 

INSTITUTE OF TRANSREGIONAL STUDIES, AND PROFESSOR 

OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. HAYKEL. Thank you very much. It is a privilege and an 

honor to be here today. I have 5 minutes, so I will be quite telegraphic, and I really have three or four points to make. 

The first is that ISIS is a religious movement with set political 

goals. The principal goal is the empowerment of Sunni Muslims 

against a long list of enemies. The origins of ISIS lie in a complex 

set of factors, a very complex context in the Middle East. It involves a religious revival that started in the 1970s. You have a situation where the governments of this region are uniformly authoritarian, brutal, and have each eviscerated the social fabric as well 

as the civic societies that they dominate. 

You have relative economic deprivation. You have a massive 

youth bulge, with 60 percent of the population under the age of 25. 

You have bad governance, as I have already mentioned. And you 

also have several wars. 

The most proximate war for ISIS’s development is the war in 

Iraq and the U.S. invasion in 2003. And then some have even attributed climate change as a cause for this kind of radicalization. 

Now, this movement is extremely adept, as you have noted, at 

using social media to propagate its culture of victimization as well 

as the sanctification of violence. And they argue that violence is the 

only means to address the weaknesses of Muslims. They target a 

long list of enemies, principally Shiites, as well as other Sunnis 
5 

who disagree with them, secular people, anyone who believes in democracy, or any of the modern ideologies of our age. 

They also have developed a culture, which is a fantasy, of what 

early Islam was like, which they are trying to reproduce. This is 

a culture that is extremely rich and taps into a very deep vein in 

the history of Islamic civilization and in the text of Islamic civilization. 

Now, I believe that there is no silver-bullet solution to ISIS. It 

is a symptom of deep structural problems in the region. Military 

defeat, while very welcome, would not address the problem of ISIS. 

And, moreover, the United States does not have the tools nor does 

the United States have the religious standing to speak authoritatively on what is or is not Islamic. 

I believe that ISIS today is, in fact, being defeated militarily. As 

you noted, they have lost 30 to 40 percent of their territory. But 

addressing the root causes that produce a phenomenon like ISIS is 

what is necessary, and this will take a generation to do. And most 

of the effort actually has to be done by people in the region of the 

Middle East and by Muslims throughout the world. 

I expect that as ISIS loses more and more territory and is defeated by groups like the Kurds or the Iraqi army, which is principally a Shiite-ruled and Shiite-dominated army, ISIS will become 

more desperate. And with desperation, we will see more lone-wolf 

and ISIS-directed attacks in the West. It is very important not to 

overreact to these attacks because it will play into ISIS’s narrative. 

And I also think that lone-wolf attacks are extremely difficult to 

stop. We must definitely mobilize our own Muslim community 

against ISIS’s ideology. They are the first and best line of defense 

against this movement. 

I also would like to underscore that ISIS should not be seen as 

an existential threat. If we speak of it as an existential threat, we 

also play into its narrative. So the solution, I think, is one that 

would require patience, but also hard-nosed realism and a strategy 

of not overreacting to its attacks on us and on others. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Dr. Haykel. 

Our next witness is Dr. Jessica Stern. Dr. Stern is a research 

professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies 

and an Advanced Academic Candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis. She was a member of Hoover Institution’s 

Task Force on National Security and Law. She is a Fulbright 

Scholar and earned a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on trauma and violence. And, finally, she is an expert on terrorism and coauthored the book ‘‘ISIS: The State of Terror,’’ and authored the 

book ‘‘Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill,’’ 

among other works. Dr. Stern. 
6 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Stern appears in the Appendix on page 50. 

TESTIMONY OF JESSICA STERN, PH.D.,1 RESEARCH PROFESSOR, PARDEE SCHOOL FOR GLOBAL STUDIES, BOSTON 

UNIVERSITY 

Ms. STERN. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and 

distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you so much for 

inviting me here. It is an honor to be here to speak to you about 

a topic I have been working on since the 1980s. 

My dissertation adviser was Ash Carter, and he thought back 

then that it was weird that I was obsessed with terrorism, Iraq, 

and chemical weapons. He has admitted in public that he maybe 

was wrong at the time. 

When we think about what ISIS wants, I think there are two different aspects. One is: What does it want collectively? What does 

the group want? And here we see two contradictory goals. On the 

one hand, the group wants to run and spread its caliphate, not just 

in Iraq and Syria but in its so-called wil ayat, or provinces. One 

of the most important of these provinces is in Libya. 

At the same time, ISIS wants to polarize Muslim against Muslim, Muslim against non-Muslim, and goad us into sending ground 

forces to fight out a final battle in the town of Dabiq. 

These are obviously contradictory goals. I believe ISIS will continue to pursue both of those goals—trying to spread the caliphate 

and also trying to goad us into sending in ground forces to destroy 

the State. 

The second part of the question is: What do individual members 

think they will get from joining this terrible organization? Well, in 

the region, as Professor Haykel has been saying, they are looking 

for security. ISIS is capitalizing on poor governance and the disenfranchisement of Sunnis. Individuals are also seeking power, status, redemption, and the lure of living in what they call the only 

Sharia-based state, though we have to remember that many people 

living in ISIS-controlled territory are trapped there. They are not 

remotely interested in this ideology. 

More importantly for us, in terms of our national security, is why 

Westerners are joining. Here I think that there is a desire to reinvent themselves, reinvent society, and to seek a new and clear 

identity. Interestingly, the work of Lorenzo Vidino has shown that 

40 percent of those who have been arrested are converts. ISIS is 

a new religion. Everyone who joins it is a convert. But we are also 

seeing non-Muslims attracted to this way of becoming a hero and 

having an adventure. 

Our military response addresses the problem over there, but obviously it does not address the problem of homegrown recruits. 

Here we have to think seriously about how to get better at containing ISIS’s ideology. I think everyone needs to be involved in 

this—the private sector and schools, for example. Ignorance about 

Islam is a vulnerability. Mothers are a key factor in fighting this 

problem. They imagine their kids are safe when they are inside on 

the Internet. We see this especially in refugee communities, where 

moms think, ‘‘Great, my son is inside on the Internet. He is safe.’’ 

We need to teach those moms that this is not true. 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Vidino appears in the Appendix on page 64. 

It requires a global effort to find a new way for kids to feel that 

they can find an identity with dignity and honor. 

Finally, I want to say that there is a problem for scholars who 

want to study the mind of the terrorist. Institutional Review 

Boards (IRBs) make it very difficult for scholars to ask such questions as: Were you recruited by ISIS? Why did you think about 

joining? Why did you not join? I cannot ask those questions. If 

somebody says, ‘‘Yes,’’ referring to recruitment or joining, then I 

have to report them to the Department of Homeland Security, and 

then I am in trouble with the Institutional Review Board (IRB). 

This needs to be revised. At this point, IRBs, as applied to national 

security affairs, are a threat to national security. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Dr. Stern. 

Our next witness is Dr. Lorenzo Vidino. Dr. Vidino is the Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. He specializes in 

Islamism and political violence in Europe and North America. The 

program he directs at George Washington recently published a report called ‘‘ISIS in America: A Detailed Look at Legal Cases of 

Jihadism in the United States.’’ Dr. Vidino. 

TESTIMONY OF LORENZO G. VIDINO, PH.D.,1 DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM, CENTER FOR CYBER AND HOMELAND SECURITY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. VIDINO. Thank you very much. Chairman Johnson, Ranking 

Member Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee, it 

is a privilege to be speaking here in front of you today. 

While the vast majority of American Muslims clearly reject, as 

we heard, the Islamic State’s narrative and tactics, the number of 

arrests and open investigations that we see throughout the country 

tell us that the current mobilization of Americans attracted to the 

Islamic State is unprecedented in size. It is also astonishingly diverse. It includes men and women, teenagers and men in their 40s, 

university students and petty criminals, people born into Islam and 

converts, and people born in America and recent immigrants. There 

is absolutely no such thing as a typical Islamic State sympathizer 

in America. 

Individuals with such diverse backgrounds are unlikely to be motivated by the same factors. Radicalization is a highly complex and 

individualized process, often shaped by a poorly understood mix of 

a variety of factors which are overlapping. 

One of them, which is cynically exploited by the propaganda of 

ISIS, is a deep sense of empathy for the suffering of the Syrian people, and that was true particularly at the beginning of the Syrian 

conflict. But by the time ISIS formally declared its caliphate in 

June 2014, the motivations of recruits appear to revolve more 

around fulfilling perceived religious obligations. Unquestionably, 

the main motivation today is that of living in a perfect Islamic society under the world’s only authentic Islamic government, as its 

supporters believe the caliphate declared by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 

to be. Whether in online conversations or in interrogations with authorities following their arrest, the appeal of living in this utopian 
8 

Islamic society is cited by the vast majority of American ISIS sympathizers. 

Indeed, despite the attention that it has received in the West, 

ISIS’s main appeal is not so much in its sleek social media campaign. It is, rather, its territoriality, as you correctly said at the beginning. What matters is the message, the substance, not so much 

how the message is spread. So I think that there is a bit of a misguided focus on social media where in reality the issue is the core 

of the message. 

As is typical of an ideology that mixes politics and religion, the 

obligation to join and defend the caliphate spans both. Similarly, 

motivations professed by American jihadists often frame what 

could appear to be religious factors in political terms, and vice 

versa. Political grievances are seen through religious lenses. Similarly, their political solutions are framed as fulfillments of religious 

obligations. 

The political grievances of American ISIS sympathizers run the 

gamut. Some are of a global nature. But many American ISIS sympathizers are equally, if not more, interested in domestic events, 

such as the riots in Ferguson or the current debate about Islam in 

America. These events all represent, in the conspiratorial 

worldview they have adopted, proof of the evil nature of America 

and every other entity or idea that ISIS opposes. 

Religious and political motivations are also impossible to separate from personal ones, as Jessica was saying. A search for belonging, meaning, and identity appear to be crucial motivators for 

many Americans who embrace ISIS’s ideology. 

Some individuals are particularly vulnerable, suffering from deep 

emotional issues or personality disorders. But in many other cases, 

the individuals who embrace ISIS’s message are seemingly well adjusted. Rather, they are simply individuals on a personal quest. 

Moreover, most American ISIS sympathizers suffer from none of 

the socioeconomic and integration issues that are often, somewhat 

superficially, considered the main causes of radicalization of European Muslims, for example, therefore making the often adopted 

‘‘radicalization is caused by lack of integration’’ mantra highly debatable. When looking for explanations of radicalization processes, 

I think it is arguable that psychology provides more answers than 

sociology. 

To conclude, ISIS is just the latest, and probably not the last, in 

a series of groups who have adopted what we would call ‘‘jihadist 

ideology.’’ The defeat of ISIS, as despicable as ISIS is, will not stop 

the violence. Only the defeat of jihadist ideology will, so the problem is much larger than ISIS. 

Thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward to 

your questions. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Dr. Vidino. 

Our final witness is Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi. Dr. Mirahmadi is 

the President of the World Organization for Resource Development 

and Education (WORDE). This nonprofit educational organization 

counters violent extremist ideologies by promoting charitable, service-oriented alternatives. She developed ‘‘A Community-Based Approach to Countering Radicalization: A Partnership for America,’’ 

one of the first Muslim-led reports to address grassroots strategies 
9 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Mirahmadi appears in the Appendix on page 76. 

to counter violent extremism and build resilient communities. She 

also has a degree in Islamic doctrine and has contributed to books 

on related topics. Dr. Mirahmadi. 

TESTIMONY OF HEDIEH MIRAHMADI,1 PRESIDENT, WORLD 

ORGANIZATION FOR RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Thank you so much, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee. 

Thank you for the honor of testifying before you today. 

Although the U.S. Government and our allies have spent millions 

of dollars in research to determine what is drawing Westerners to 

groups like ISIS, unfortunately we still do not have a terrorist profile. We actually cannot even prove one single factor to predict who 

would become a terrorist. 

But what we do know from the empirical research on convicted 

terrorists are some of the indicators that exist in many of those 

cases which may make an individual more vulnerable. We heard 

about several of those from both Jessica and Lorenzo. We also 

learned, as Lorenzo’s report has told us, that over 40 percent of 

those arrested for ISIS-related crimes were Muslim converts, so 

that means that they grew up in a house that did not practice 

Islam. This tells us that no family is immune from the threat and 

that the solution will lie in a holistic approach. 

However, just because we cannot predict who will be a terrorist, 

it does not mean that we cannot or should not do anything or that 

what we do cannot be measured. 

In fact, we can design programs and clearly articulate a theory 

of change that connects the program activities with the risk factors 

that we are trying to reduce. If we measure those with traditional 

and innovative evaluation tools, we can show whether they reduced 

the vulnerabilities of program participants. 

At my organization, WORDE, that is what we did to create and 

adapt a community-led partnership with local government, known 

as the Montgomery County Model. I am pleased to say that after 

2 years of rigorous scientific evaluation, funded by the National Institute of Justice, it is now the only evidence-based Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program in the country. 

It has a great potential to revolutionize community policing, allowing the community to lead and building relationships of trust 

and respect among diverse community members, rather than separating them off into silos that further feed distrust and isolation. 

This relationship among community members is more critical now 

than ever. Domestic terror attacks are creating fault lines in our 

society that will only lead to more violence if not repaired. The separation of Muslims from non-Muslims feeds into that bifurcated 

worldview of the terrorists who are saying, ‘‘It is us versus them, 

the West against Islam.’’ A comprehensive prevention agenda must 

include programs that prevent that divide, so that there is only an 

‘‘us’’ against the terrorists. 

In response to the need for specialized individual interventions, 

we also provide counseling and direct services for those who may 
10 

be at risk of radicalization, before they choose a path of violence. 

Ours is the first of its kind in the United States. 

Besides treating the psycho-social needs of clients, our team can 

also tackle the ideological risk factors by referring the individual 

to a mentor. It used to be that becoming a violent jihadist took 

years of religious indoctrination. The process was long because the 

Islam that they preached was so foreign to mainstream interpretations of the faith that they had to undo what Muslims have believed for centuries. And besides, their calls to suicide and killing 

of innocent civilians was, quite frankly, unappealing. 

Unfortunately, civil war in Syria, continued persecution of 

Sunnis in Iraq, and upheavals across the Middle East provided the 

perfect opportunity for the jihadist recruiters to reformulate the 

strategy. Constant depictions of torture and bombing of families in 

the region, motivated young Muslims across the world to go and 

join the ‘‘humanitarian jihad’’ and save Muslims who were dying at 

the hands of brutal dictators. Many of them were not even 

radicalized until they reached the battlefield. Suddenly, as if almost overnight, the terrorists had discovered the holy grail of recruitment: encourage people to come and build, not to come and 

die. That message would appeal to young and old alike, Muslim 

and non-Muslim. Anyone who saw the global powers as corrupt and 

oppressive would be welcome in this new utopia of misfits. 

As a result, taking someone off of the path now requires more 

than just a Muslim preacher. The process must include a culturally 

proficient, trained professional that can resolve the feelings of cultural homelessness and help the individual find a sense of belonging and purpose in our society. 

Since our program follows the protected health information 

guidelines of professionals, our client information is kept entirely 

outside the purview of law enforcement unless an individual is an 

‘‘imminent threat’’ or a ‘‘threat to national security.’’ If we want to 

encourage more community groups to get involved or to enter this 

space, there needs to be more legal guidelines for practitioners, including how do we balance the privacy rights of our clients with 

national security interests. 

The government has created numerous violence prevention programs and alternatives to prison sentencing for all sorts of crimes. 

There is no reason why we cannot establish guidelines for extremist cases as well. Most importantly, communities need resources to 

create the multidisciplinary community-based prevention programs 

that can operate independently of law enforcement, as well as diversion programs that can actually treat radicalized individuals. It 

is impractical to think that we are going to arrest our way out of 

this problem. With thousands of individuals across the country that 

are vulnerable to radicalization, it is irresponsible of us not to create alternatives. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Dr. Mirahmadi. 

I will start with the questioning. I really do want to concentrate 

on trying to describe the full dimension of this problem. Senator 

Carper talked about the number of Muslims in the world. There 

are about 1.6 billion, according to Pew Research. Dr. Haykel, do 

you have any sense in terms of what percent of the Muslim popu-
11 

lation would identify with this extreme version of radical Islam, Islamic terrorism? Because one percent would be 16 million. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right. Senator, you put your finger on it, which is 

that even a small percentage of people who identify with this movement would still be a very large number. 

I think, though, when it comes to identification, one has to make 

certain distinctions. So, for example, in Saudi Arabia, a country 

that I visit often, there are a number of people who do not actually 

share the Islamic State’s ideology or goals—they would never want 

to be ruled by the Islamic State—but nonetheless feel that they are 

the good guys out there fighting the good fight because they are 

fighting against Shiites, they are fighting against Americans, and 

so on. 

There are people in the Middle East, for instance, who would 

never want to be ruled by them and do not identify with them, but 

still see them as heroes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And support them financially? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Private individuals may support them financially. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, again, is one percent wildly too large? 

Again, I am just trying to get some sort of feel, because often we 

say, well, this is just a very small percentage, but a very small percentage could be a very large problem. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right. So in terms of actual recruits, I think the 

numbers and estimates that I have seen vary from about 30,000 to 

100,000. A hundred thousand out of 1.5 billion is a very small—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, that is recruits into ISIS, into 

the caliphate. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Yes, that is right, people who are fighting. 

Chairman JOHNSON. There are news reports that show that there 

are ISIS-affiliated branches in 30 different countries. We are seeing 

ISIS move into Afghanistan to take over the poppy fields. 

You were talking about how we do not want to overreact. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And, by the way, I realize ISIS is not going 

to come in and invade America and offer an existential threat here. 

I do not want to be putting ideas into the minds of terrorists. But, 

it does not take much of an imagination to understand that a coordinated homegrown terrorist effort could do unbelievable economic harm. Brussels did not have a terrorist attack, and yet it 

shut down after the Paris attack. So we have heard that we should 

adopt a strategy of strategic patience. OK, we do not want to overreact, but as long as ISIS maintains that territory, they are going 

to continue to inspire what could be incredibly damaging events— 

maybe not existential, but unbelievably damaging. 

So how do we deal with it? I mean, do we recognize that territory 

is the primary motivator? Come and build, as Dr. Mirahmadi was 

talking about? Come and build, build that utopian society. As long 

as that territory exists, we are going to be under threat. And, 

again, we will continue to be—even if we defeat ISIS, even if we 

deny them the territory, we have all these affiliates, all these 

branches of this extreme ideology around the world. 

So what is the full extent of this threat? I do not think strategic 

patience is working. 
12 

Mr. HAYKEL. Well, military victory is the most significant contributor to recruitment. The fact that in 2014 they were able to 

conquer so much territory—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. ISIS’s military victory? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Correct. It made it seem like the reality was confirming that they were chosen by God to represent Muslims and to 

win in the name of Islam. So making them lose militarily is extremely important in drying up the fantasy that they are projecting 

and the appeal that they have to recruits. So it is very important 

to defeat them militarily. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But, again, would you be describing that as 

an overreaction? I want to go to Dr. Stern because you are talking 

about the contradictory goals, which are: grow this movement, grow 

the caliphate, and, at the same time, draw us in to defeat them, 

so that they end up with the final battle of Dabiq, or whatever. 

What is the name of that? Yes, Dabiq. Talk about that. Talk about 

that contradiction. 

Ms. STERN. Yes, there is a contradiction. I do not think that our 

policy should be dictated just because they want us to fight them 

in a final battle in Dabiq. I mean, I do think that we need to fight 

them. I think anything we can do to not feed into their fantasy that 

the West is at war with Islam is good. Therefore, special forces are 

better than big armies. Sunni Arab forces are much better than 

Western forces. But, I think it is important to point out that, as 

you say, this organization is now in many parts of the world. In 

Libya, it is very important. Afghanistan—it is also there. It is an 

ideology that is here as well. 

I am not sure that the victory narrative that I know you are 

quite interested in is so important. I think that, in a sense—why 

victory? Victory is important because of this sense of disenfranchisement, humiliation, and the sense that Islam has fallen behind 

the West. It has. We need to find a way for young Muslims and 

those who sympathize with them, including converts, to find another way to be heroes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. But rebuilding these societies that have existed for quite some time, these governments that are authoritarian 

and that offend our sensibility of freedom and democracy, that is 

a long-term project. Can we sit back and be strategically patient 

and allow this caliphate and the territory to exist and have that 

threat continue to grow? Because I think that it will continue to 

grow. 

One way that we can counteract that goal is to not let the final 

battle be in Dabiq. Let us take Dabiq first and let the final battle 

be someplace else. I am not being flippant here. We have to understand what they are trying to accomplish, but, again, I just do not 

think that we can be strategically patient. I think that we have to 

defeat them. I think that we have to deny that territory as our first 

step in a very long struggle. And let us face it, this struggle—let 

me be clear. We are not declaring war on Islamic terrorists. They 

declared war on us—I think, definitely starting in the early 1990s 

with the bombing of the USS Cole, and the attack in Saudi Arabia, 

and then the attempt to take down the Twin Towers initially in 

New York. If you are going to end a war, there are two ways of 

doing it: either both sides agree to end the war—and it is obvious 
13 

to me that Islamic terrorists are not agreeing to end the war—or 

one side has to be defeated. 

And so, trying to make this simple, I sit there and go, well, this 

caliphate is something that is pretty attractive. People want to go 

there. They want to either get there physically or become adherents and, as they are being encouraged to, kill where they are. 

So, to me, that is the first step that we have to undertake, and 

the sooner, the better. I just do not think that we can be strategically patient. 

I will go to you, Dr. Vidino. 

Mr. VIDINO. You are absolutely right. I think the reason for 

ISIS’s success is its success, the fact that it has controlled territory. 

I think that if the Syrian conflict had gone in a different way for 

a variety reasons, and Jhabat al-Nusra had taken over territory 

and created this State-like structure, Jhabat al-Nusra would be the 

big problem that we would be facing. I think ISIS was just better 

militarily, but there were a lot of circumstances there on the 

ground that led ISIS to be the one controlling territory. But it is 

that territoriality which is the main appeal for a lot of people, 

whether it is in the Middle East or here, in the West. 

I think that to some degree—I do not want to be overly negative, 

but it is almost too late because the State has been around for a 

year and a half now. So that idea, even if we were tomorrow to 

completely destroy what is the Islamic State, the idea or the fact 

that they created that society for a year and a half will linger for 

a long time, and you will find plenty of groups that will try to recreate that. 

Obviously, there are also, from a secret military and terrorism 

point of view, significant problems in keeping that structure there. 

There is more pressure on them now, and it makes it, to some degree, more difficult to expand their territory. They are losing territory. There is some pressure that does not allow them to plan attacks in the way that they would probably have been able to a few 

months ago, but now they are indeed planning them more. So, yes, 

they are being bombed. They are running from place to place, to 

some degree. But part of that strategy has been that they are also 

trying to carry out attacks, and I think Paris was obviously probably the first successful one, at least in the West, of an attack that 

was planned with some strategy. It was not just left to some lone 

individual to carry out. There was some strategy behind it, some 

planning, centralized planning involved. 

Clearly, I think that is one of the lessons from the 9/11 Commission. The more you allow an organization, a terrorist organization—and ISIS is more than a terrorist organization, but the more 

that you allow them to plan and have a sanctuary, the more dangerous they are going to be. 

Chairman JOHNSON. They have revenue streams. They control 

research labs within universities. I will just quickly let Dr. 

Mirahmadi comment, and then I will turn it over to Senator Carper. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, I definitely agree with the comments of 

my colleagues. I just want to add, though, that I think, long term 

and generationally, we are not going to bomb our way out of this 

problem. So even if we solve the military battles and we win 
14 

against ISIS in terms of its controlling territory, ISIS is just a metastasized version of al-Qaeda and the groups that came before it. 

So I think that what we really need to bring to bear on this 

struggle is our other resources, both domestically and through foreign policy. For example, let us face it, our Western governments 

have been complicit or tacitly allowed a lot of the Gulf States to 

export this very virulent, intolerant ideology across the Muslim 

world and throughout Western countries. It has destroyed the cultural fabric of a lot of these countries. I mean, thousands and thousands of Pakistanis, Afghanis, Asians, and Africans have died trying to defeat it. 

So I think that it is very important that we use our diplomatic 

leverage with those countries to tell them to stop exporting that 

stuff and try fixing all the damage that they have caused so far. 

In addition, we should also bolster the efforts of countries like 

Egypt, who is now in a post-Islamist government who wants to use 

its might and its religious infrastructure to start exporting the opposite—start exporting a pluralistic interpretation of Islam. And 

that, quite frankly, is the core, it is the mainstream fundamental 

of Islam, so let us help them and empower them to be able to do 

this in a way that is authentic to the rest of the Muslim world. 

So I think that from a foreign policy perspective, we still have 

a lot of resources to bear on this problem that we need to use long 

term. And then domestically, as I mentioned, we need to be intervening and preventing the radicalization in the first place. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So, again, I understand that it is a multifaceted, generational problem, but just a quick answer. We have to 

deny them that territory, correct? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Yes, absolutely. 

Chairman JOHNSON. The fact that the caliphate exists is a real 

problem. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. But, we still have all these other 

steps that we have to simultaneously—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. I know. It is a nasty, big problem. I got it. 

OK, Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Again, our thanks to each of you for joining us 

today. Dr. Stern, thank you for writing a couple of really good 

books, really informative books, in one of them, ‘‘Terror in the 

Name of God,’’ which I was struck by the way you went into—literally across the world, right into the heart of the centers of these 

violent folks, these violent groups, and talked to them. Why did 

they let you in? And why did they open up like that to you? It was 

amazing to me. 

Ms. STERN. Terrorists, in my experience, young people, really do 

want to talk, and that is one of the reasons that I am frustrated 

that at a university it is impossible for me to replicate that kind 

of work, even in prisons. It is very hard for us to get into prisons 

because of the IRB rules at our universities and also at the prisons. 

There is a wealth of information that we could be collecting. 

I also think that Saudi Arabia is actually, perhaps ironically, at 

the cutting edge in thinking about prevention and 

counterradicalization. They have been spreading this Wahhabi ideology everywhere where they think it might work. 
15 

I just came back from Bosnia a couple of days ago. They have 

been very active in Bosnia. Bosnia is very vulnerable now. Why 

can’t we—and you know a lot about this, Dr. Haykel—try to get 

them to help run a prevention and counterradicalization campaign? 

They did not mean to be spreading ISIS ideology. They meant to 

be spreading Wahhabi ideology. 

What do you think of that, Dr. Haykel? 

Senator CARPER. Go ahead, Dr. Haykel. What do you think about 

that? 

Mr. HAYKEL. I think that the Saudis are extremely important in 

this fight, and I am always in favor of getting others to do the 

heavy lifting when we cannot do it or we should not be doing it. 

So they are definitely partners. 

As far as Wahhabism is concerned, this is just a very literalist 

interpretation of the faith, and it does come with money, but money 

is not enough to turn people to this version of the faith. I mean, 

I think that people turn to it because it responds to particular anxieties that modern people have—that modern Muslims have. 

So I think that just to blame Wahhabism for the rise of ISIS is 

wrong. But the Saudis would definitely be helpful in this regard. 

Senator CARPER. We spend a fair amount of time on this Committee focusing on root causes, as opposed to symptoms of problems. I will use an example. Our border with Mexico, we spent 

about a quarter of a trillion dollars in the last 10 years to fortify 

the border—walls, dirigibles, blimps, drones, and some 20,000 Border Patrol personnel. And that is all well and good, but we spent 

about one percent of that—not even one percent of that—addressing the root causes of emigration factors in Honduras, Guatemala, 

and El Salvador and the misery that those people live in and how 

we have contributed to that misery. 

The Chairman and I have been down—and some others on the 

Committee have been down—to actually visit those countries. I was 

down and met with the Presidents, all three of them, just last week 

and did see how they are doing. They swore in a new President in 

Guatemala. 

But we actually go to the source and say, ‘‘What are you willing 

to do to turn around your countries? And what do we need to do?’’ 

Because we are complicit in your misery, given our addiction to the 

drugs that travel through their countries. 

If we had the ability to ask—I believe in asking your customer— 

our Chairman comes out of the business community. You always 

want to ask your customer. In this case, if we are asking those that 

are being drawn to ISIS—whether the folks have actually gone to 

fight militarily or to set up these satellite operations—to ask them 

as our customer, ‘‘Why you are doing this?’’ and to better understand how to counter it, what would they likely say? Hedieh, would 

you lead that off, please? Ms. Mirahmadi, what would they say? 

Just very briefly. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, I mean, to tell you the truth, I have tried 

to study this scientifically, so we tried to apply evaluation tools to 

determine what those root causes are, and I do not think that you 

can point to any one root cause. So I think that people have 

claimed that it is poverty, but we have debunked that theory be-
16 

cause it cannot be just poverty because a lot of poor people do not 

become terrorists. 

People say that it is social alienation, or it is disenfranchisement 

in Western countries, or it is ideology. I think that we have come 

to the conclusion that it is a range of risk factors that overlap and 

can cause a variety of responses. There is no single factor that has 

been proven to cause terrorism or proven as a root cause. 

Senator CARPER. OK. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So it is a lot of things, and it is everything at 

once. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. Mr. Vidino. 

Mr. VIDINO. Unfortunately, I have to be as equally vague as 

Hedieh because the reality is that it is such a diverse—if we just 

look at the sample in the United States, the 80 individuals who 

have been arrested for ISIS-related activities, the diversity is staggering, the profiles: 40 percent converts, different levels of knowledge of Islam, for example. We have people who convert literally 

on Google and overnight think they know everything about Islam 

and they think that it is their religious duty to go and join ISIS. 

But you also have people who have grown up in the faith, actually 

they are Hafiz, who have memorized the Koran, they are teachers 

themselves in Islamic schools in the States, and then try to join 

ISIS. So there is absolutely no one answer. 

The psychological profile of a lot of them is that they feel the 

need to help. It is obviously misguided, but there is, I think, a lot 

of evidence that they are people with a high sense of empathy, of 

compassion, and they feel that they are doing something good or 

that they are helping. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Dr. Stern, you ask this question of a lot of people. ‘‘Why do you 

do this?’’ 

Ms. STERN. Yes, I agree with my colleagues that there absolutely 

is no single root cause, no typical pathway. But we do know that 

the lone wolves—I mean, this is one thing that actually has come 

out of the literature. Lone wolves are much more likely to have 

mental illness. This is the thing we are most worried about now, 

lone wolves, here in the United States, not what we are worried 

about over there. 

We are finding in a study that I have been involved with at Children’s Hospital in Boston that a lot of time on the Internet is a risk 

factor. But there are so many risk factors. Obviously, I spend a lot 

of time on the Internet doing my research, and it is not a risk factor for me to join ISIS. 

I think that we are not going to get very far in identifying exactly what the risk factors are, but that we can use what we learn 

about each individual who is thinking about it and who is sitting 

on the fence. How do we stop that person from joining? We need 

to understand each individual. And I feel very strongly about the 

efforts to talk to these kids one on one online before they join, and 

also to deploy formers, people who have actually joined and recognized that it is not a heroic existence and that joining ISIS was 

nothing like what they had imagined. 

There are hundreds of clerics all over the world, learned scholars, 

who have said, ‘‘Well, this is not Islam’’—that is not quite true. It 
17 

is based on Islam. But, ‘‘This is not the Islam that we believe in.’’ 

They are boring. We need people who can communicate with these 

kids who find the idea of ISIS appealing. 

So we need to understand, with each individual, why they are 

drawn and to address that. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. My time is up. Let me just close 

with this thought. In an earlier existence, as a Governor, I was a 

founding Vice Chairman of something called the ‘‘American Legacy 

Foundation,’’ created out of the tobacco settlement, 50 States and 

the tobacco industry, a lot of money flowed out of that to the States 

to offset the health care costs that States were incurring because 

of tobacco. One of the things that came out of it was $1 billion or 

more to set up a foundation called the ‘‘American Legacy Foundation.’’ The responsibility of the foundation was to create a truth 

campaign to convince young people who were thinking of smoking 

not to and young people who were already smoking to stop. And 

the message was developed not by us, but actually by young people, 

sort of like you are suggesting, and they worked with public relations folks who were really good at messaging and did a multimedia campaign. And if you think it might have worked, look at 

the rates of teen smoking from about 2001 until the end of that 

decade. Remarkable. But the key was, as you suggest, to go to 

other young people and let them help develop the message—this is 

why smoking is bad for you. This is why you do not want to do it— 

and to be able to use that source of delivery to convey the message. 

And maybe that is part of what we need to do here. 

There is an entity within the Department of Homeland Security—it is called the ‘‘Office of Community Partnerships’’—which is 

designed, in part, to do that work, and we are trying to help connect them with the people in the American Legacy Foundation, 

who have done this truth campaign successfully and see if maybe 

this is a way to do it to address an even graver threat than tobacco. 

Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Carper. Senator Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS 

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

our panelists for what I think is very interesting testimony, and on 

something that is so important so that we get a better understanding of what we are dealing with from an ideological standpoint, from a messaging standpoint, and from the general narrative 

that we are hearing from ISIS as they are recruiting folks and 

moving forward with their terrorist activities. 

I think that it is important to bring this hearing to what is happening actually later today on the Senate floor. We are going to be 

dealing with an issue related to refugees. Certainly right now, we 

are dealing with a humanitarian crisis that we have not seen since 

the Second World War. We have folks who are fleeing ISIS. Dr. 

Haykel, I think that you mentioned that folks would not want to 

live under ISIS rule. We have people who have been persecuted, 

who live in fear, who live in terror, and who are fleeing that part 

of the world as fast as they can, both Syria and Iraq, looking for 

a safe haven. 
18 

The United States, in my view, should welcome folks as refugees, 

those who are legitimate refugees, as part of our commitment to 

the world community. Yet there are people who are saying, ‘‘No, we 

should shut down the refugee program, we should not accept any 

refugees in this country.’’ 

I would like to hear from each of the panelists. To what extent 

does the fact that there are certain folks in the United States who 

believe that we should shut down a refugee program that accepts 

people who are fleeing the terror and fleeing ISIS, play into ISIS’s 

narrative? Or is that a good thing for us to be doing? Let us start 

with Dr. Haykel. 

Mr. HAYKEL. So the refugee crisis in the Middle East is largely 

the result of the civil wars and the governments themselves not 

keeping the State together. In the case of Syria, for instance, the 

refugees are largely produced by the Assad regime, a regime that 

is backed by both Russia and Iran. ISIS does not actually allow the 

people it rules over to leave the territory. 

The way in which the refugee issue plays out—and the only way 

that I have seen it was, most recently, in the way that Mr. Trump 

mentioned that Muslims should not be allowed into this country. 

That plays into the ISIS narrative because it basically confirms 

that the United States is an enemy of Islam. But more broadly, I 

do not think that ISIS is focused on the debate over refugees, in 

general. 

Senator PETERS. Well, we heard from a previous panel, and folks 

were saying that refugees are somewhat of an embarrassment to 

ISIS because their narrative is that people should welcome the caliphate and people should want to come. So why does everyone 

want to leave the area and not come into their protective sphere, 

I should say? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right, you are correct. ISIS calls for Muslims to 

give their oath of allegiance to the caliphate and then to come to 

the territory. Most of the people, though, who have left that region 

have left actually—for instance, Christians are a large percentage 

of the people who are leaving because they are persecuted, both by 

ISIS and other Islamists there; also moderates, liberals, all kinds 

of people who have left actually are people who would not fit into 

an ISIS-like world or a world in which Islamism dominates, whether it is ISIS or—many of the other groups, for instance, in Syria 

are all Islamists. Most of the opposition is Islamist and intolerant 

of difference. 

But you are right. I think that those who have left ISIS territory 

and who describe what life is like under ISIS are extremely important in the propaganda war against ISIS because they come out 

and they describe it as a ‘‘living hell.’’ 

Senator PETERS. Any other panelists? 

Ms. STERN. I would say that I agree with you that we must accept refugees. I think that we must thoroughly investigate them. 

I think that we must recognize that ISIS will try to insert 

operatives into that refugee flow. I think that those are facts. 

At the same time, if we do not accept the refugees, that harms 

our position in the long run even more. It is not just ISIS, as my 

colleagues keep saying. This is an ideology. We can defeat ISIS. 

There will be another iteration of this jihadist ideology. 
19 

Senator PETERS. Dr. Vidino? 

Mr. VIDINO. I agree. If we look, for example, at the numbers of 

individuals who were arrested in the U.S., only really a handful 

have a refugee background. We basically had two cases of people, 

very simply, one in Texas and one in California, with a refugee 

background out of people arrested for ISIS-related activities. There 

were a couple of other individuals of Bosnian and Somali backgrounds who have a refugee background, but their radicalization 

took place here in the States well after receiving asylum. 

I agree that it is, to some degree, an opportunity, but we are 

missing—if we are welcoming people, we should be telling these 

stories. They are an asset in undermining the ISIS narrative. I am 

not seeing that kind of message being put out in a good way, stories being told in the right way, being put on social media, whether 

in Arabic, whether in English and other languages, of people saying, ‘‘I left ISIS because of this and this and that, and I am now 

here, and I am being treated humanely and everything.’’ We are 

doing something nice. We are not then using that opportunity. 

Senator PETERS. OK. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I think that there is a corollary issue about the 

refugees as well, in that we have to make sure that we are providing the requisite services for them to adapt to life in the United 

States. We actually have a lot of clients who are refugees, and a 

lot of them are having a real difficult time adjusting to life in the 

United States because they do not speak the language, and they 

have suffered from years of post traumatic stress disorder from war 

and from losing family members. And so it is really important that 

the refugee resettlement services are doing their job and also referring them for psychiatric services or other kinds of therapeutic 

needs that they may have to make sure that when they do come 

here, they are acclimating and integrating into society and not 

leading to further problems down the road. 

Senator PETERS. So, if I could summarize, you believe that the 

refugee program is an important aspect of U.S. policy, that it 

speaks to our values as Americans, and that we do welcome folks 

who are fleeing persecution and violence. Certainly, we have to 

make sure that we are screening those refugees and that we have 

a process to protect the homeland, which I believe very strongly in, 

that we have a very vigorous screening process. But, nevertheless, 

refugee program provides a very important element in pushing 

back against this extremism, not just with ISIS, but just generally. 

In fact, as all of you have said, defeating ISIS by itself is important, but that is not the end. There is still much more that we have 

to do, and having a credible, workable, and secure refugee program 

in the United States, and then using the stories that these refugees 

can tell us about what they are fleeing and why American values 

are so important, will be important to our effort. Is that accurate? 

Does anybody disagree? 

[No response.] 

Let the record reflect that no one disagrees with that. Thank you 

so much. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Peters. 

Let me just quickly repeat what I have said, which is that if we 

are going to accept, let us say, 10,000 refugees, which is just a pit-
20 

tance in terms of the numbers of refugees, why do we not establish 

criteria, allow women and children who have been properly vetted 

and who are relatives of Syrian American citizens who can financially support them? I mean, would that not make sense? So, hopefully, the administration would take that type of advice, and I do 

not think that we would have much of an issue here. Senator 

Portman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As tempting as it 

is to get into the refugee issue, I am going to try to stay away from 

it, except to say one thing. We have had testimony in this very 

hearing room. Seated right where you are, Dr. Stern, in fact, was 

the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), who told 

us that there were gaps in intelligence that did not allow them to 

properly vet these refugees. And, of course, we should be helping 

the refugees, and as the Chairman has said, bringing 10,000 in, out 

of the roughly 4 million who have fled Syria, is a small drop in the 

bucket. A much larger role that the United States plays is supporting these refugees as they are trying to reestablish their lives 

in these refugee camps, and we should and can play a huge role 

there, and we do. American tax dollars are used. But we do need 

to protect the homeland as well, and I guess that is where my 

questioning would be. 

I do not disagree with the comments about taking on ISIS in the 

current caliphate that they are developing in Syria and Iraq. I 

think that we need to be more aggressive militarily, and I do think, 

to Professor Haykel’s comments, that a military victory is an important victory, outside of the military aspect, because it shows 

that they are not invulnerable. It shows that they, in fact, can be 

defeated. 

I also believe that we have to protect the homeland in more effective ways, including better screening, and not just for refugees. 

That is, of course, a very small part of the people who come here. 

The visa programs, obviously we had this issue arise in San 

Bernardino, where a spousal visa was used to gain entry for one 

of the terrorists, and we did not do the proper vetting, including 

looking at her social media, which would have been the obvious 

thing to do. And, of course, people coming across our borders illegally, so protecting the homeland is critical. 

But to me, the most difficult part of this and the most important 

part, which is why this hearing is so important—and I thank the 

Chair and Ranking Member for holding it, and I thank our 

witnesses who have provided us with a lot of very valuable information—is dealing with the core issue. Some call it the ‘‘hearts and 

minds.’’ I do not know if that is an appropriate way to describe it, 

but, essentially, how to keep this extremism from growing. And the 

jihadists who have converged in Syria come from all over the 

world, and we know that. 

We also know that attacks are occurring all over the world. We 

have a New York Times story from December. Some of you know 

this. I counted up the number of deaths from terrorism. This is not 

from military actions by ISIS. This is really from terrorism. It is 

over 1,500 people who have been killed in the last year through 
21 

terrorist attacks, including some we know a lot about, like Paris 

and San Bernardino, and others we just do not talk about much. 

So how do we get at changing the hearts and minds? 

Professor Haykel, you talked about our first and best line of defense being the Muslim community. I could not agree with you 

more, and I think we do not spend enough time and effort on that. 

I was riding with police officers in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend, in the communities in Columbus that are Muslim communities, particularly the Somali community there. How do we encourage better communication and cooperation to the point that we 

heard earlier from Dr. Mirahmadi about separation versus, I would 

say, inclusion or social alienation versus, I would say, community 

involvement? How do you get that interaction? I think that is incredibly important, and we are not doing enough there, and it is 

about domestic terrorism and the fact that we do have, even with 

success overseas, a problem right here at home. 

Dr. Vidino talked about this interest of living in a utopian Islamic society. We need to have the counternarrative to that, obviously, much more effectively online and elsewhere. You talked 

about the core of the message being more important than the medium. In other words, we can complain about the fact that we do 

not do an effective job to counter it online, which I believe we do 

not, but also we have to get at the core message as well. 

And then Dr. Stern had a number of interesting comments. One 

that I thought was the most interesting was that we can defeat 

ISIS, it will just crop up elsewhere, essentially that was what you 

were saying. And it is almost like Whac-A-Mole. If we are successful in Syria—I look at, again, this New York Times story and the 

analysis that we have done. There are at least ten other countries 

where ISIS now has a presence, a huge one in Libya, for instance. 

And even beyond ISIS, of course, other groups will emerge because 

of the core. And then we also have the example from Dr. 

Mirahmadi, as an expert, saying we are not going to bomb our way 

out of this problem and talking about other ways to deal with it. 

So that is what I want to get at, if I could just get more ideas 

from you all. What should we be doing? You mentioned Egypt. 

There are also other Sunni countries that should be playing a more 

aggressive role in, as you say, exporting not Salafi jihadi Islam, but 

traditional Islam. What more can be done there? You mentioned, 

Dr. Stern, deploying former jihadists, using clerics more, and the 

counter narrative that we talked about. If each of you could give 

me a couple of examples of what we should be doing to address this 

third, and I think most difficult, problem that we face of how to get 

at the core and how we change those hearts and minds. Let us 

start with Dr. Mirahmadi and go to our right. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So in addition to the things that we could do 

with Egypt, Morocco, and Indonesia—when I talk about helping 

them export, I meant materials, curriculum, books, and Imam 

training programs. So basically what the Wahhabis—what the 

Salafists did—was they exported such material, through this mechanism of taking over small centers, creating new centers of learning, starting at a very young age, and then establishing an Imam 

in these centers that would then basically change the ideology of 

the community around them. So we need to do the reverse. We 
22 

need these countries to train Imams, create curriculums, and start 

creating that kind of groundswell around traditional pluralistic 

concepts of Islam. And I am not talking about making it up on the 

fly. This is part of 1,200 years of Islamic history that they can use. 

Senator PORTMAN. We should use our leverage, the United 

States’ diplomatic leverage—— 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Diplomatic, exactly. 

Senator PORTMAN [continuing]. Economic leverage, whatever leverage we have. That is an urgent need. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. And we are doing it. I know that our 

cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), hosting conferences, for example, Sheikh Bin Bayya is also doing a number of 

events that are cosponsored by the United States. So I know that 

we are doing it. For example, Al-Azhar University and its network 

has 400,000 students at any one time—400,000 people. So that is 

a lot of people that could influence the way the ideological religious 

dynamic plays out in the next 5 to 10 years. 

Senator PORTMAN. Dr. Vidino. 

Mr. VIDINO. Yes, generally speaking, I think that the United 

States has been somewhat reluctant to get into the religious debate, for obvious reasons: separation of church and State, and because it is a religion that we are not very familiar with. And I 

think that reluctance, to some degree, has to go, although we do 

not have to do it directly, but I think there needs to be more support for the right people—whether it is governments or, even better, civil society organizations abroad, and domestically, to work on 

the religious aspect of it. It is not purely a religious problem, clearly, we all agree, but there is a big religious component there. 

I said that maybe we sometimes overestimate the online aspect. 

Now I am going to reverse what I said. I think a lot of the message 

is out there. You mentioned Morocco, Jordan, and the UAE. A lot 

of these countries do put out a lot of very good products, very good 

reinterpretations of Islamic texts that undermine ISIS’s interpretations. But they are not slick, they are not cool—they need to be 

marketed in the right way. You go to these conferences, and you 

have a lot of people with a lot of gray hair. You do not get to the 

right people. And often you reach those right people through social 

media. So it is a matter of repackaging, and I think that is a goal, 

to have a lot of—I do not know if there are a lot of debates, but 

conversations between the White House and Google and Facebook 

and so on. And I think that is one other aspect where we should 

have that conversation, how to repackage—— 

Senator PORTMAN. My time is expiring. I want to be considerate 

of our other colleagues here, so I would like for the record if you 

all, Dr. Haykel and Dr. Stern, would provide me with specific examples, in addition to any more that Dr. Vidino and Dr. 

Mirahmadi have. 

But one final question. The Office of Community Partnership has 

come before us from the Department of Homeland Security. Are 

they doing what you just said? Yes or no. Not so much. 

Mr. VIDINO. Not so much. 

Senator PORTMAN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Portman. Senator 

Heitkamp. 
23 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to get to 

a story that was just released in the last probably 20 hours, which 

is that ISIS is cutting the salaries of their fighters in half. And I 

think that it was unclear how they were dealing with food stipends. 

I think they thought that the food stipends were fairly consistent, 

but not the stipends for children and for wives. And that has to be 

an indicator of some of the challenges that they are experiencing 

right now, and I want your reaction to kind of the financial aspects 

of this, how we can do a better job to cripple this organization from 

a financial standpoint. I think $26 oil is having a pretty dramatic 

effect. But beyond that, what does this reduction in salaries and assets mean for this organization, for this terrorist organization? And 

how can we further flame the financial challenges of ISIS? I would 

like everyone’s reactions. 

Mr. HAYKEL. So I am of the view that ISIS is actually losing and 

has been actually for quite a few months now, not only territory, 

but also financially. 

One of the ways in which that can be furthered financially is to 

have better control over private financial flows out of the Persian 

Gulf, and here I am specifically talking about the countries of Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. 

Senator HEITKAMP. And I just will interrupt and say that we recently were on a trip to the Mideast, and this is exactly supported 

by what we heard there. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Yes, and they are definitely trying to do this. The 

problem is that many of the payments take the form of cash 

bags that are carried across the border. So getting the Turks 

on board—because that is often where the cash is carried 

through—is extremely important. 

But I think that would be very important, and then the way in 

which we are using special forces, in particular with the Kurds, is, 

I think, a model that should be replicated with other fighting 

groups on the ground. That is proving extremely effective as well. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. Dr. Stern. 

Ms. STERN. I guess one question I would want to ask is: Are they 

cutting the salaries of propagandists? We know from a really good 

story in the Washington Post, that the propagandists are actually 

paid more than the fighters. 

Senator HEITKAMP. There is an indication that it is across the 

board, that all salaries are being reduced, not just fighters’ salaries. But, again, this is based on intel that we are receiving, that 

is being reported. 

Ms. STERN. Yes. So this is a very good sign. Stopping the sale 

of oil from ISIS to inside Syria, that is obviously pretty hard to accomplish. Also, they make money from so many different operations. They are selling amphetamines such as Captagon. They are 

managing to get those antiquities out. So this has to be a major 

effort to stop both the flow of foreign fighters in and the flow of 

goods out. I mean, I do not know what else to say. It is great. If 

this is happening, it is great. 

Mr. VIDINO. I agree with everything that has been said, and I 

think that the emphasis on Turkey is there. It is all really about 

Turkey. Yes, the Gulf States in terms of private donations are very 
24 

difficult, but probably the crucial role there is to be played by Turkey. 

I think what concerns me also, to some degree, is how many 

places ISIS has expanded to. Libya, it is probably also, from a financial point of view, particularly concerning because ISIS is starting to control parts of Libya, and this is also very crucial from an 

oil point of view and from an immigration point of view. It is sort 

of the end of a route that starts in Sub-Saharan Africa, where all 

sorts of goods and refugees are imported to Libya, and it is a gateway to Europe. 

So there is a reason why ISIS is focusing on that part of Libya 

specifically, and why it is even telling its fighters not to go to Syria 

and Iraq any longer, but actually to shift to Libya. It is obviously 

because there is a political vacuum there. It is an opportunity. But 

it is a big financial opportunity as well. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I think that for some of the cases that we have 

seen here in the United States, financial incentives are important. 

So them learning about a reduction in financial incentives would 

hopefully reduce incentives to go. We had one case in particular, 

Mona Abu Salah, who talked about how he had food in his truck 

all of the time and that it was so great to have these resources in 

the caliphate. So I think that it is a very important issue. 

And what tools we have mentioned already: the Department of 

the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), all of their 

financial control systems, designating more individuals to stop the 

flow of money, and reducing the price of oil. Anything we could do 

to cutoff their ability to provide financial incentives is important. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I know that earlier we had this conversation 

about what are, in fact, the root causes, and I think that we could 

all argue that feeding someone’s family and providing a salary in 

a war-torn area may, in fact, be a great incentive beyond the ideology and beyond the broader mission. And one of the things that 

has arisen in this discussion is, never mind the migration of refugees to this country, but once they are here, the need to provide 

social services so that we do not see radicalization. We could vet 

folks all we wanted, but once they come here, if they are alienated, 

if they feel isolated, and if they feel separated from the communities that they are living in, then that is another risk factor. 

And so I want you, I guess, Doctor, to expand. I thought it was 

an important point that I want to reemphasize here because I do 

not think that anyone here is talking about eliminating refugees. 

What we are talking about is vetting them appropriately on the 

front end, but you raise a very important point, which is that there 

are risk factors if we do not manage the refugee population, if we 

do not assist the refugee population once they are here. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. I mean, Lorenzo mentioned the fact 

that refugees were not radicalized before they came and the small 

number of cases. I mean, a case in point is Minnesota. So when you 

have a large resettlement effort—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. You are talking about the Somalis. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Yes. The resettlement agencies tend to focus on 

particular communities and continue to put refugees in a single 

place, thinking that they are creating a circle of resources. But the 
25 

problem is it also can ghettoize communities and not allow them 

to adjust and to integrate. So it is very important that there are 

social services provided and that there are also community service 

opportunities and other kinds of community-based programs that 

will help them to integrate in mainstream society, such as English 

language training and all sorts of job, vocational training, to make 

sure that once we do welcome refugees, which is a very important 

part of our society, that they do become productive, healthy, and 

integrated American citizens. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes. I just wanted to reemphasize that point 

because I think that, as we are rightfully focused on what is the 

appropriate vetting process, we still have these challenges moving 

forward. And if we as a country do not have a more unified message, we risk our national security in not managing the refugee 

population that we have. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp. Senator 

Booker. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BOOKER 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you, Ranking Member. 

I just want to say at the outset how much I appreciate you all 

being here, and your written testimony was really important. I am 

grateful for your presence here. 

I just want you to know that there are many tools to stop ISIS. 

I think that one of the first things we need to be doing as a country 

is to put forth an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) 

for this engagement. I think that it is actually an abdication of our 

authorities, as delineated by the Constitution, that we are engaging in such an important war without Congress at all doing its job 

and its constitutional duties. There are a lot of other things we 

need to do, from working with our allies, to making sure that we 

are coordinating efforts to destabilize and destroy ISIS. We need to 

craft a political solution, overall, to what is happen in Syria. 

I say all of this at the outset because I tend to be focused a lot 

on the issue of counter-ISIS messaging, and I want to say that that 

is just one tool in a toolbox. But it is one that I really do not believe we are doing that well. 

Ms. Stern, in your testimony you talked a lot, I think, about important information about the alienation and marginalization that 

can go on with young people—that they have had humiliating encounters with the police and that ignorance of Islam makes a youth 

more vulnerable to ISIS’s ideologies. All of these things create an 

atmosphere with which people can be radicalized. And what I 

found interesting is an important point that I think needs to be understood. When it comes to those immediate threats in our Nation, 

you point specifically to the fact that it is the Western recruits that 

can so easily get back into this country, or never leave this country 

in the first place, who offer the most immediate threats to the safety and security of the United States of America. And so that is 

really where I want to drill down, because I am a little frustrated 

when it comes to our efforts at countermessaging. 
26 

Now, you mentioned at the outset of your testimony, that our 

counter-ISIS strategy is lacking in our investment in counternarratives that appeal to specifically Millennial youth. To that end, 

you will be offering a Peer-2-Peer (P2P) course in your classroom 

next fall, which sounds like an interesting course. Perhaps you 

should hold it here in Washington. My staff has been involved in 

extensive conversations with Tony Sgro, the founder of the P2P 

program. So we are very focused on this, and I am working on legislation right now to give DHS the tools to widely implement the 

Peer-2-Peer course. 

So can you tell me, in your own words, what you believe are the 

benefits of the P2P program and why it is so critically needed? 

Ms. STERN. I think that we really have not taken this issue, as 

you say, seriously enough. If you think about what we did during 

the Cold War, when we realized that we had to fight the Soviet ideology, it involved the private sector and the government working 

together with covert and overt programs. We spent a lot of money. 

It led to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). It led to Voice 

of America. We are not taking this nearly as seriously as we 

did—— 

Senator BOOKER. And, by the way, we still spend an extraordinary amount of money on those programs of the Cold War era. 

Ms. STERN. Right, because they are effective. 

Senator BOOKER. Well, I would question whether they were effective—and thank you very much—and we are spending hundreds 

and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on things 

like Voice of America and not on the programs that you have such 

a specialty in. 

Ms. STERN. Right. So Tony Sgro’s course—it is amazing. This is 

a guy who had found a way to help Honda design cars—the car 

that a 19-year-old kid would want to buy, by having the youth get 

involved in the design of the car. Why not get youth involved in 

writing that counternarrative instead of a bunch of middle-aged 

people in the State Department or—— 

Senator BOOKER. With no disrespect to middle-aged people. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. STERN. Right. The program is now—it is in 30 countries. I 

have just spoken with a university in Bosnia where it is very important because of the spread of ISIS there. The kids get to develop 

their counternarrative. Hopefully they find some hip-hop artist who 

had joined ISIS and quit. They know what is attractive to young 

people. I think it is really important that this be offered not just 

in universities, but also in high schools. And as it happens, the 

Saudis are now going to try to offer this program in high schools. 

I would like to see that happen all over the world. I think it is so 

inexpensive compared with the money we spend on the military aspect of fighting ISIS. We can afford to experiment and see what 

works. So I am a big proponent of EdVentures and Peer-2-Peer—— 

Senator BOOKER. And I appreciate that, and just to highlight the 

urgency here—and I really want to turn to Professor Haykel, not 

only because I want to hear your testimony, but because you are 

from New Jersey and I should highlight you, sir. [Laughter.] 

But, look, one of the factors in your explanation of the multifaceted appeal of the Islamic State is the massive youth bulge. We 
27 

are talking about a boom of Millennials within this region. Sixty 

percent of the population across the Arab world is under the age 

of 30. Think about that. Seventy-five percent of the population in 

Mali, for example—excuse me. The median age is 15.9. In Tunisia, 

youth unemployment among graduates is around thirty percent. So 

you have, in all of these countries, massive youth populations, and 

youth are making up the majority of the population in these countries where we are currently facing ISIS or its affiliates. How 

should this demographic reality, of these Millennials, as we were 

just talking about, really affect the way that we think about Syria, 

Iraq, and even Turkey and other countries in the region, to tune 

our strategy in terms of countermessaging? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Thank you. I have been involved in seeing how ISIS 

recruits the Millennials. So, for instance, ISIS has created its own 

version of Grand Theft Auto, the video game. ISIS goes into where 

these young people are involved in discussions online and then 

lures them with its own version of these video games. So they are 

very sophisticated in basically using our culture, things that we 

have produced, and then distorting them for their purposes. So it 

is very important, I think, to focus on this. 

And the other point is that these Millennials that you are talking 

about are actually, today, extremely connected through the Internet to the world, largely because in many countries of the Middle 

East, there is no other way to communicate and there is no other 

way to have a discussion, an open discussion. 

So I think that one has to think about these young people, and 

especially the cultural products of the United States and how they 

are being contorted and distorted to attract these young people to 

extremism and radicalism. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you. So, in other words, we have a region of the globe that is a Millennial region, and we need to attune 

sort of the Baby Boomer and Gen X efforts to really focus in on language that they understand and that they are engaging in. 

Mr. HAYKEL. That is absolutely correct. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Booker. 

Just because you brought up AUMF—I am on the Senate Foreign 

Relations Committee—let me give you my insight on that. I would 

say that as soon as this administration were to present and we 

were to have Democratic support for an Authorization for Use of 

Military Force that shows the full commitment of this Nation and 

this administration to accomplish the goal of defeating ISIS—it 

does not limit this administration, or the successor administration, 

in any way, shape, or form. You have that authorization, but we 

have not seen that yet. That is why we do not have one. Senator 

Ernst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 

witnesses today. It is very good to have this discussion, very relevant with everything that we have going on today. 

Dr. Vidino, if I could start with you, please, in December your 

organization published a report, which I think was very well titled, 

‘‘ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa.’’ And one of the re-
28 

port’s conclusions suggests that intervention is an effective alternative to arrest—and I would like to hear a little bit more about 

that—to really help sway some of those individuals from the path 

of radicalization. So you do note a potential number of issues with 

this intervention, including the lack of legal guidance and a set of 

best practices. So if you could expound a little bit on that, please, 

I would love to hear more about that. 

Mr. VIDINO. Of course. Thank you very much for your question. 

What we advocate is a system—I think that we all understand, as 

we said earlier on the panel, that we cannot arrest our way out of 

this problem. And the FBI were the first ones to say this, that the 

numbers are too big. And I think in many cases, you have people 

who are minors or people anyways who have not crossed a certain 

threshold. So I think there should be at least the choice—the authorities should have the ability to, in some cases, of course, monitor, investigate, arrest, and go the hard traditional way, but there 

should be, in certain cases, an ability to have a system in place 

where some kind of mentoring, some kind of intervention is carried 

out. 

Of course, there are different ways of doing this. You have a lot 

of European countries that have been experimenting with this with 

mixed results, but I think that they have gotten much better over 

the last 3 or 4 years in how to do that, whether it is law enforcement directly that does it or, as I would personally advocate, the 

lighter the footprint of government, the better, so it is civil society 

that does that, of course, with some kind of guidelines that come 

from the government, some kind of clear legal guidelines aboout 

what can be done when the intervention transcends into criminal 

investigation and so on. But things need to be clarified from the 

beginning. It also has to be very clear in the message that is sent 

to the community, because there has been a lot of controversy and 

a lot of pushback from some quarters in the Muslim community 

that Common Vulnerabilities and Exporsures (CVE) interventions 

are used as ways to spy on communities and so on. I think that 

it should be done in a very clear way, explaining that these are 

ways, not to criminalize people, but actually to help people not 

criminalize themselves. This is a way out for people, before they 

cross a certain line and do something that is criminally relevant, 

and also something that damages their own lives. 

So finding the right people, finding the right partners, whether 

it is an Imam, people from a religious background, or in some cases 

they do not have to be, but people that can find a way to gain the 

trust of these young people who are radicalizing and sway them. 

And, of course, it is not easy. It does not work all of the time. But 

the European experience tells us that it works—for example, in the 

U.K., they talk about a sixty to seventy percent success rate. That 

is huge. That takes away a big, big chunk of work from what the 

FBI has to do. Their resources are spread thin. If we eliminate 

sixty to seventy percent of people who are potentially dangerous, 

but just starting to flirt with the ideology, and we sway them, not 

only are we doing something good for these individuals, first of all, 

but we are also really helping law enforcement to focus, to zero in 

on the really bad guys. 
29 

So it needs to be done in the right way, and I think there should 

be some kind of legislative intervention there in setting how the 

rules of the game should be. And, of course, there should be participation with the law enforcement community in that, and then getting communities involved. 

Senator ERNST. Do you think that we would have good participation from non-governmental agencies here in the United States, organizations that would step forward and be able to fill that role? 

And, Ms. Mirahmadi, I would love to hear your take on that as 

well, please. 

Mr. VIDINO. Yes, I think, first of all, one should have civil society 

involved in general, and I think Hedieh can give a practical example of how that is done. But I think that the local level is also crucial when it comes to government. I think that it has to be done 

at the county level and at the State level. These are the people 

who, more than the FBI, really have the pulse of the community. 

And to some degree, they are seen not as the bad guys, as the FBI 

would be. Obviously, there is a role for the FBI for sure there, but 

I think that it is local law enforcement, health departments, and 

a variety of entities at the local level that are cricial in getting the 

communities to be involved. 

I think that we have seen a bit of pushback from communities, 

but I think that it comes from some self-appointed leaders of the 

community. So there are big parts of the community that do want 

to help, do want to work with government, because they understand that the problem is targeting their own children. So one has 

to be really clear about how diverse the community is and who they 

will find as partners. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Ms. Mirahmadi, if you would, please. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I absolutely agree with what Lorenzo mentioned 

in terms of legal guidelines. So we do run one of the first intervention/prevention programs on violent extremism in the country, and 

it is difficult, risky, and complicated, but that does not mean that 

we cannot navigate our way through it. We are able to operate 

completely outside of the purview of law enforcement until there is 

an imminent threat or some national security risk. So there is a 

way to develop a program that protects client health information, 

and then when it goes to a case of radicalization, or when the FBI 

or the police department would want to refer a case, you could follow the rules of informed consent and balance those interests with 

our national security concerns. 

And I would just like to say that as long as the FBI continues 

to have jurisdiction on those cases, as unpopular as it may be to 

some people, they need to be part of that process, because, at the 

end of the road, they will be involved if those cases go south. So 

it is important to have a balance between the community being 

able to stay within its purview and protect the client information 

and then still have a relationship with the Bureau when it is something beyond their control. 

Senator ERNST. OK. Is this reflective of what the Europeans 

have done? What are the greatest takeaways that we can learn 

from what their governments have done? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. As Lorenzo mentioned, there are many different 

kinds of models. So in Europe, a lot of them are led by government 
30 

channels in the U.K. In my opinion, you should do both. We can 

have community-led programs and rectify inconsistencies in the 

process. In other words, if you do not follow a systematic approach, 

some dangerous people may be missed. For some, there is this hesitation to deal with law enforcement too closely so that they can do 

only prevention work. 

So I think that you can set up diversion programs, like we do in 

a lot of other violence prevention programs, that are in partnership 

with law enforcement. And then separately you could have prevention/intervention programs that are largely community run. 

Senator ERNST. OK, great. Wonderful. Well, I thank you very 

much for your input. It is something that we really do need to tackle. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ernst. Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to follow up on your report, Dr. Vidino, and ask you 

about the aspect of it where you noted that there is a largely untapped opportunity to leverage American ISIS recruits that have 

become disillusioned with the cause, and that these individuals 

have dropped out for a variety of reasons, whether experiencing the 

brutality of life under ISIS firsthand or finding a more positive outlet for the quest that led them to ISIS in the first place. You noted 

that we would do well to provide avenues for their stories to be amplified to help dissuade would-be recruits. 

Could you explain that to us and just let us know, first of all, 

how many Americans do you think that would constitute? I am just 

curious. And, what are the reasons they have become disillusioned? 

And how could we use them to help us get at this issue? 

And then I am going to ask a dual question to all of you after 

that. How do we get the message out as to what life is like for 

women in ISIS? Because as I understand it, the way that they are 

portraying the role of women in how they are marketing it is quite 

different than the reality of being engaged with ISIS or obviously 

traveling to Iraq and Syria and joining up with the caliphate if you 

are a woman. 

So, Dr. Vidino, I am going to have you address the American 

issue, and then if people could jump in on women and how ISIS 

treats women, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. VIDINO. OK. Thank you for your question, Senator. What we 

advocate—and, again, this is an idea that has been floating around 

in the Department of Justice (DOJ) and in other quarters—is the 

idea that, as we said earlier, there is a very powerful message that 

can be sent by people who are part of ISIS or, in general, the 

jihadist movement. I think that you are right that we are probably 

going to have some difficulties in finding a lot of Americans who 

have left ISIS. It is not really public information, but I would argue 

that there probably are some very isolated cases that you would 

find. We can definitely find more people who were al-Qaeda-linked, 

or anyway, jihadists. We have a whole wave of people who are coming out of prison now. These are the people who were sort of arrested post-9/11, sort of the second-tier guys, the people who did 
31 

not go to fight, mostly the people who were convicted for material 

support and got between 10 and 15 years, and who are coming out 

of prison now. 

There is really no de-radicalization program in the U.S. prison 

system, but some of these people are coming out de-radicalized on 

their own, reformed. That is a very powerful message. We go back 

to—it is a message, but it is also the messenger. The legitimacy 

that somebody that has maybe served time in jail, maybe even 

went to Afghanistan or to Yemen, and can come back and say, ‘‘Listen, the stories that we were fed are lies. The reality is completely 

different,’’ that messenger is so much more powerful than the 

countless books the four of us can write here. 

So we argue that in some cases, whether it is people coming out 

of prison, whether it is people who, in one way or the other, are 

living in the States, or, even better in my opinion, if we have people coming back from ISIS—obviously if they have committed 

crimes, nobody argues that participation should be a way to get 

away with not being prosecuted and not being held responsible for 

what they did. But since we know that there are sort of borderline 

cases, with the proper considerations, I think that there is such a 

powerful countermessaging tool there that should be used. It is sort 

of a gutsy, alternative way of dealing with the problem, but I think 

that we do need new solutions and I think that this is an important one. Definitely we have some of those that come from the ‘‘old 

guard,’’ let us put it like that, the al-Qaeda people who were active 

4 or 5 years ago, and I think that is very powerful. 

Senator AYOTTE. Who would like to go first in addressing how 

they are recruiting women, the reality versus—how we get that 

message out to women in particular? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I think that as Lorenzo and Dr. Stern have both 

brought up, the issue of using formers could be a very powerful 

tool. But I would also like to posit that oftentimes a lot of 

these—the would-be recruits are very skeptical of messages that 

come from a former, because it is what they consider to be propaganda against the caliphate. So it would also be valuable to think 

of not only what we are against, but also what we actually stand 

for. So not just telling girls why they should not go, but also telling 

them why they should stay. And I think that it requires—whether 

it is a Muslim mentor or some other kind of social network that 

gives them a motivation for saying, ‘‘I am Muslim, but I am also 

British or I am also American, and this is my country. I feel part 

of it and I have a faith that provides me with the spiritual and the 

intellectual needs that I have.’’ I think that is a much more complicated question, but it is definitely something that we need to get 

to, because we need a positive message not just a countermessage. 

Senator AYOTTE. Am I missing something? And maybe I am 

wrong about this, but I thought that they were misrepresenting to 

women what the reality was. And maybe I am wrong about that. 

I just would like to understand—— 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. No, what I mean is that they do not believe it 

when we say women are mistreated. 

Senator AYOTTE. OK. I understand. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So when we say, ‘‘They treat you terribly. They 

make you wear a burqa. You do not ever get to go out. They do 
32 

not feed you.’’ Their response is, ‘‘You are lying. You are making 

that up.’’ 

Senator AYOTTE. Oh, they think that we are misrepresenting it. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. Professor. 

Ms. STERN. Here I think it is important to highlight the work of 

a woman, Humera Khan, who is working one-on-one with young 

people, and particularly young women, who believe this narrative. 

I think that this kind of work really needs to be supported. Of 

course they are lying. They are saying, ‘‘You get to be a jihadi 

wife.’’ They do not say, ‘‘You get to be a jihadi wife one month with 

one guy and one month with the next—or maybe one day.’’ 

Yes, we need to get those stories out, but I think that the oneon-one approach that Humera Khan is involved in is very useful. 

That is what I will say. 

Mr. HAYKEL. The recruitment to ISIS provides meaning and 

structure to individuals. I do not think that it is gendered. I think 

that women are as attracted as men to the meaning and structure 

that ISIS provides when they are recruited. And ISIS, itself, is extremely adept in its propaganda and using women in its propaganda. So you see this in their online magazines, but also, for instance, one of their principal ideologues today, one of their principal thinkers who is writing poetry and treatises on Islam, is a 

woman. Her name is Ahlam al-Nasr. And they have a brigade of 

female morality police that roams the streets. 

So, the way that they present themselves to the outside world 

and to potential recruits is that this is a terrific place and women 

can lead meaningful lives and also produce the next generation of 

fighters, which is a duty for Islam as a religion, and for the caliphate itself. 

Unfortunately, the testimony of former slaves—so I am here 

thinking about someone called Nadia Murad, who is an amazing 

woman, a Yazidi who was enslaved and testified at the United Nations (U.N.) and also has given many interviews. If you listen to 

her, I mean, tears well up in your eyes. But it has had almost no 

effect, as far as I can tell, throughout the Arab world, because she 

is ‘‘othered.’’ She is seen as something outside of the community, 

and sometimes she is not even believed. They think that this is 

disinformation against the caliphate. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

Let me quickly pick up on that point because it ties in—I have 

three questions left. Dr. Mirahmadi, you talked about the need for 

basically a reverse Wahhabism process or project. They are not believing—I have met with young Yazidi women as well, and you are 

right, the treatment of them is horrific. How far along in that reverse process are we? I think I know, but I want to hear it from 

you. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Not very far along. 

Chairman JOHNSON. We are a long ways. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. We are long ways, but I think that it is to the 

point that Dr. Stern mentioned about not really believing what our 

problem is. We are just kind of throwing a lot of things at it and 

being, like, well, if we just do this, then it will go away, if we just 
33 

do that, then it will go away. I have been doing this for 20 years. 

It is not going away. 

Chairman JOHNSON. No. This is a long-term process. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. It is a tough, long slog. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Right, exactly. And, also, we have to get over 

the issue of our trepidation in dealing with religion. So once we can 

overcome these two aspects and really confront what we are up 

against and then not be afraid of invoking religion when it could 

be helpful to our mutual causes, Muslim and non-Muslim, a whole 

lot of other tools will open up to us. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Obviously, that was the purpose of this 

hearing, to lay out a reality. Even if we do not like it, we do not 

want to face it, it is the only way to solve a problem. First, define 

it properly and then admit that you have one. 

Dr. Haykel, can we just get back to some basics? Because I really 

think that this is very confusing to most Americans. Why do 

Sunnis want to kill Shia and vice versa? Can you just describe the 

Sunni-Shia split within Islam? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Well, it is a split that dates back 1,400 years to the 

time when, after the death of the Prophet, there was a difference 

of opinion over succession, over who was to succeed the Prophet. 

And the majority went one way and the minority went the other 

way. The majority are the Sunnis; the minority are the Shiites. 

Now, over time, this sectarian split—you can think of it as 

Catholic versus Protestant. It was not actually mobilized for military purposes or for sectarian wars. It is only evident historically, 

and today, when States, when governments, choose to use this form 

of identity, form of religious identity, for very specific purposes, 

typically geostrategic purposes and to achieve goals that States 

want to achieve. So you see the Saudis—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. What was the first instance of States using 

this split to go to war with each other? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Well, the most prominent one in pre-modern times 

was when the Ottomans fought the Safavids. The Ottomans were 

based in Turkey, and the Safavids were based in Iran. And they 

used this difference in religion to fight one another. Today we see 

it in the fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

But I think one has to dig deeper than just the sectarian—I 

mean, the sectarian language gives cover for what is otherwise a 

battle over power. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And then even within the Shia-Sunni, there 

are factions within those groups as well, which is, again, even more 

confusing. Sunni governments obviously want to destroy ISIS because ISIS wants to destroy them. They are all basically kind of 

Sunni-based, correct? 

Mr. HAYKEL. That is correct. There are divisions within it, and 

my advice to the U.S. Government is not to enter into the fray of 

these sectarian wars, because we should not take sides, for one, 

and, two, I do not think, again, that we have standing to decide 

what is and what is not correct, Islamically. I think that we should 

be very hard-nosed about what our interests are and pursue those 

relentlessly. 
34 

Chairman JOHNSON. And what are those interests then? Again, 

we want to defeat ISIS. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right. 

Chairman JOHNSON. In order to do that, from my standpoint— 

this is kind of my third question, too—we need to develop what I 

have been calling a ‘‘committed coalition of the willing.’’ I often use 

the model of the First Gulf War where literally our coalition partners supplied 240,000 troops to that effort, paid for about 85 percent of it. Now, that is a committed coalition of the willing. But 

today we need a committed coalition of Sunni Arab States, correct? 

Because of the history, because we bugged out, and because we 

have had some problems. Can you just describe the lack of confidence, from your perspective, of the Sunni States right now in 

American leadership and why they might be reluctant to join this 

coalition? 

Mr. HAYKEL. The principal reason that Sunni States are not fully 

joining this coalition is because they do not regard ISIS as the 

principal enemy that they are facing. So the Saudis, for instance, 

would think that Iran is much more dangerous. The Turks think 

that the Kurds are much more dangerous. And, frankly, Iran itself 

is playing a double game, in that it is both convenient for ISIS to 

exist there because it keeps the Sunni world in disarray, and it creates an enemy that is convenient for the Iranians, and it brings the 

West on to their side with Assad and to side with Iran. 

So, this is a part of the world where, what is really happening 

is not obvious, and one cannot have any illusions, because all of 

these States use forces, these forces like ISIS, for their own purposes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So I would like to give you the opportunity 

to just go through that in a little greater detail, I guess starting 

with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and just really describing in 

detail what their aims are, who they are concerned about, who 

their true enemy is, and who their corollary enemy is because, 

again, it is incredibly complex. Can you just step through that 

again in greater detail? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Sure, and I will in a thumbnail—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. Again, kind of talking about their strategic 

goals and aims. 

Mr. HAYKEL. The Saudis basically want to reverse Iranian influence throughout the Arab world. They consider Iran’s projection of 

power, especially through non-State actors like Hezbollah and the 

militias of southern Iraq, to be unacceptable, and they want to roll 

it back because they want to dominate that region. They consider 

the region to be Arab, and they consider themselves to be the dominant power in that—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. And what was their goal in terms of the 

Wahhabism schools and setting all of that up? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Actually, the Saudis were never involved in setting 

up Wahhabism is either Iraq or Syria, because the regimes in those 

two countries, authoritarian regimes, would not permit the Saudis 

to do this. So the conversion of the Sunnis of Syria and Iraq to 

Salafism is a very recent thing, and it is—I think that there are 

reasons for why they are doing this, why the Sunnis are becoming 

Salafists. I think that it has to do with power again. 
35 

Chairman JOHNSON. So maybe not there, but they spread 

Wahhabism—— 

Mr. HAYKEL. They spread Wahhabism throughout the world. 

Chairman JOHNSON. And their aim in doing that was what? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Well, actually, it was largely to fight against Communism, Arab socialism, and Arab nationalism. They were threatened by a form of politics that was deeply destabilizing to monarchical rule, so they spread an Islamic solidarity, Islamic identity 

movement and campaign, beginning in the early 1960s, largely and 

often in coordination with us, actually. 

Chairman JOHNSON. So to really protect the House of Saud. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Correct. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. So there is encapsulated Saudi Arabia. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Yes. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Move on to Iran, then. 

Mr. HAYKEL. So Iran basically has yet to decide whether it is a 

normal country or a revolution, and inasmuch as the hard-liners in 

Iran still believe in the revolution, they want to project the power 

of Iran, militarily, but also soft power, revolutionary power, 

through proxies, from the Palestinian territories all the way—— 

Chairman JOHNSON. So describe that in detail, because everybody talks about how they are recognized as the largest State sponsor of terror. Describe that. Describe the groups that they are supporting and why they are doing it. 

Mr. HAYKEL. Right. So they support certain factions amongst the 

Palestinians. Hamas, for a while, was on their payroll, and there 

is another faction in Gaza that is with—Islamic jihad that is with 

Iran. In Lebanon, they have Hezbollah. They have a number of militias in southern Iraq. They support the Assad regime and also a 

number of militias that are fighting with the Assad regime. 

As far as the Middle East is concerned, by far, the most destabilizing country has been Iran. The Assad regime, for instance, 

which would not have survived without Iranian backing, has killed 

close to 300,000 people and has made 11 million people displaced 

as refugees. So, ISIS actually pales in comparison with Iran, in 

terms of instability in the region. 

Chairman JOHNSON. What about Turkey? 

Mr. HAYKEL. Turkey is an interesting country inasmuch as it has 

been cut off from the Middle East for some 80 years, and it has 

rediscovered the Middle East and thought that it, as a successful 

country, could dominate it through soft power. Turkey has quickly 

realized that the Middle East is much more complicated, and they 

thought, I think, until recently, that ISIS could be contained. And 

then ISIS started a suicide bombing campaign against the Turks. 

So the pipeline of recruits has shut down as a result of this. But 

Turkey still remains in an old model of thinking about the world. 

For them, the Kurds remain the most dangerous element because 

they represent 20 percent of the Turkish population and could potentially secede from the country. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Can you talk about the difference within the 

Kurdish population between those in Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and the Iraqi Kurds? 

Mr. HAYKEL. I mean, there are differences certainly between 

them politically, but on the whole, I would think of the Kurds as 
36 

an American—as natural allies for us, especially those in Syria and 

in Iraq. They are a long-suffering population. They have really suffered and have never had their own country. And you can think of 

them almost like Israel, as a group of people that will always be 

a natural ally of the United States in the region. 

Chairman JOHNSON. OK. Does anybody else want to feed into 

this line of questioning? Seeing Senator Booker has been faithful 

in sticking around, I will let you have a couple of extra questions 

as well. But does anybody else want to comment on this? 

[No response.] 

Senator Booker. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much. I appreciate your patience and the indulgence of the Chairman. 

I just have really one last line of questioning, and it really goes 

to this experience that I had 2 weeks ago when I was in the Middle 

East—I was in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—and sat down 

with Saudi Arabian leaders, many of them women and activists, 

and sat down with others in Turkey, from Erawan to just individuals I met on my way there. And I was sort of surprised at how 

much they were concerned that this Nation, America, was turning 

anti-Islamist. Do we hate Muslims? And I found myself having to 

explain that that was not our stance and actually get very strong 

in reasserting or reaffirming the pluralistic society in which we 

live, the loving and tolerant society in which we live. 

I guess my question for all of you is really, there seems to be this 

counterbacklash, as I try to observe it, over this alleged political 

correctness and how this country talks about Islam, about how this 

country talks about the terrorism that we are seeing. And I am 

wondering, basically, does language really matter and how we 

frame this to the rest of the world. Some of the comments that we 

have, some of the comments many people believe is demagoguery, 

is that hurting our ability—because I am about winning. Is it hurting our ability to deal with the ISIS threat and how we are characterizing it or how some of the characterizations have been out 

there. I think this is important coming from specialists like you, for 

me at least, to help understand American rhetoric and what we are 

seeing in the media by political candidates, as well as elected Senators. Anybody? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely it does hurt. It does hurt our ability 

to win. And I think it is because—— 

Senator BOOKER. So you are saying it hurts our ability to win in 

the battle against ISIS. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. Vilifying all of Islam and Muslims 

of course will hurt us. So talking about not letting Muslims into 

the country anymore or that Islam is the problem will alienate 1.2 

billion people for sure. 

But that does not mean that we cannot have a rational and intelligent conversation about what the threat is. So if you had asked 

me 5 years ago, I would have told you that I advocated calling it 

‘‘radical Islamism,’’ and I used the word ‘‘Islamism’’ to make a distinction between that and mainstream Islam. The problem is that 

it has metastasized so badly with ISIS that there is only a sliver 

of theology left on top now, and there are all these other countercultural, anti-social components to what is radicalizing individuals. 
37 

But at the end of the day, there is this kind of long-term problem 

with warped, deviant interpretations of Islam constantly being 

used to galvanize violence. And I think that there is something to 

be said for what are we going to do about that element of the problem. And I think that the President’s call to the Muslim community, ‘‘We ask you to stand up, we ask you to talk to your Imams, 

and to take responsibility,’’ was very important, because there is a 

piece of this that belongs to the Muslim community. I have a number of theories on why it has taken so long to speak up against it, 

but the fact is that there is a piece of this that belongs to the community, and I think that we need to do that together. But that requires us having a rational conversation about the subject. 

Senator BOOKER. And so you said that you used to call it ‘‘radical 

Islamism.’’ 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Right. 

Senator BOOKER. What do you call it now? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. ‘‘Violent extremism.’’ 

Senator BOOKER. ‘‘Violent extremism.’’ 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I mean, for a number of reasons: one, because 

it is so politically incorrect to call it anything else, and—— 

Senator BOOKER. But I am not worried about political correctness. I am worried about winning against ISIS. And so you are saying that it is not politically correct, but you are also saying that 

it is damaging, right? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. It is damaging because people do not like the 

association—Muslims do not like the association of Islam with this 

problem. 

Senator BOOKER. And so for that 27-year-old, it is alienating, it 

is further isolating, and in many ways adds to the climate in which 

people could be radicalized. Is that what you are saying? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I do not know if that term does that to him. 

Senator BOOKER. Right. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. It is the feelings people have against Islam and 

Muslims. So I do not know if it is the term that would do it or just 

the way that our society is responding. So the bullying in schools, 

for example, a number of our clients, the young people who are the 

most vulnerable, are the ones that are getting constantly harassed 

in school, called ‘‘towel head,’’ ‘‘terrorist,’’ or ‘‘Osama.’’ They are just 

maladapting. And so that is causing fissures in our communities 

across the country. There needs to be work done at the grassroots 

level, at the local level, to repair those fissures. 

Senator BOOKER. So seemingly innocent semantics coming from 

high-level leaders helps to drive intolerance? Is that—— 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, if you talk about banning all Muslims, 

yes. There is a range, right? There is a difference between addressing radical Islamism as a component of the problem and banning 

all Muslims. There is a spectrum of terminology that could be used, 

but, a large representation of the Muslim community now do not 

like ‘‘violent extremism’’ either because they think that it is code 

for ‘‘Muslim.’’ 

So I think that even though we try to avoid using certain terminology, we are still in the same place that we were before by fighting over terminology, rather than solving the problem. 
38 

Senator BOOKER. Would anybody else like to offer thoughts on 

that? 

Ms. STERN. I think that it is important to remember that the primary victims of this ideology are Muslim, and I think that some 

of the primary victims are the mothers of the kids who are getting 

seduced, basically to commit suicide, in somebody else’s losing war 

in another country. I think that hate speech right now is extremely 

dangerous, and I agree with you that certain political leaders who 

are indulging themselves in hate speech are really damaging our 

ability to fight this threat. 

Senator BOOKER. But do you think—you are not saying, obviously, that a term like ‘‘radical Islam’’ is hate speech. People using 

terminology like that, that is not problematic to you, right? 

Ms. STERN. Not for me. I mean, I think that the President’s discomfort with calling this ‘‘violent Islamist terrorism’’—I understand 

why, but I do not agree. I mean, that is what it is. And the vast 

majority of Muslims do not agree with that ideology and are petrified—some parents are petrified that their kids might, in this 

process of growing up and of rebelling against their parents, be 

drawn to that ideology. 

Senator BOOKER. And so political leaders who say ‘‘violent Islamic radicalism’’ or ‘‘violent Islamic extremism,’’ that does no damage, in your opinion? 

Ms. STERN. That does not trouble me, but saying that we cannot 

allow Muslims to come into this country, that troubles me a lot. 

Senator BOOKER. Yes. 

Ms. STERN. Very dangerous. 

Senator BOOKER. Mr. Vidino, you seemed like you wanted to say 

something? 

Mr. VIDINO. Just very briefly. I think that there are two levels 

of the conversation here. One is what public leaders say. I understand, to some degree, the trepidation when a President makes an 

address and the whole world is listening. I understand that there 

is a level of defensiveness, in Muslim communities and in allied 

countries, to any kind of statement that can, to some degree, associate Islam with violence. So the debate is much more open. When 

you go to Muslim majority countries, they talk about political Islam 

very freely among themselves. 

Senator BOOKER. Right. 

Mr. VIDINO. But if somebody else that is non-Muslim, from outside, calls it ‘‘political Islam,’’ immediately you get a sense of defensiveness, which is completely understandable. 

Senator BOOKER. As a black guy—— 

Mr. VIDINO. What I am saying is that—— 

Senator BOOKER [continuing]. I would not understand what you 

are talking about, words used by blacks that cannot be used by—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. VIDINO. I guess to some degree. [Laughter.] 

Senator BOOKER. I would not understand. 

Mr. VIDINO. What I am saying is also that there are two levels. 

So I understand why, at a level of the President or, anyways, elected leaders or political leaders in general, that there should be— 

people should be very careful about the terms that they use. Sometimes a little bit of carefulness is metastasized into a paralysis in-
39 

ternally, where we do not talk about religion out of political correctness, and what could be, for example, debates within the administration and finding solutions, to some degree political correctness has blinded us, and we look at all other aspects which are indeed important and should be looked at, but we ignore the one that 

is religious. 

Senator BOOKER. That is a very good point. 

Mr. VIDINO. Which is one of the components. 

Senator BOOKER. That is a very good point. 

Do you want to add anything to close it out at all? Being from 

Jersey, I would like for you to have the last word. [Laughter.] 

Mr. HAYKEL. Thank you. I definitely think that there is an Islamic genealogy to this group. The problem is that when you enter 

into the specifics, it gets very complicated, and for public discourse, 

it is better to be prudential and careful in how you use the term 

‘‘Islam.’’ So I understand where the President is coming from. I do 

think, though, that an honest discussion about this problem has to 

involve how this group is using Islam for its purposes and where 

it is drawing its inspiration from. 

I would also like to end by saying that there are bound to be 

more attacks in the United States like the ones that we have seen 

already, unfortunately, and this is where we have to be super vigilant in how we respond, because the temptation will be to vilify the 

entire community of Muslims. And that is where I think that we 

have to not play into the narrative of ISIS, because that is exactly 

what they would want us to do. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you for those wise words. 

Chairman JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator Booker. 

I will tell you, as a Protestant Lutheran, if there is a radical 

band of Lutherans committing terrorist attack after terrorist attack, I would call them, ‘‘Lutheran terrorists,’’ and I would denounce them, and I would renounce them. I think that is part of 

the problem. The truth is the truth, reality is reality, and this 

strain, which we will all admit is a small percentage, has to be defeated. 

So, again, I just want to thank Senator Booker—— 

Senator BOOKER. Mr. Chairman, could we have a hearing on Lutheran terrorists, please? [Laughter.] 

Chairman JOHNSON. I am not aware that it is a problem. Prove 

to me that it is a problem, and we will have a hearing. 

Again, I just want to thank all of the witnesses and all of the 

Senators who came here. We had great attendance and excellent 

questions. I think that we did lay out some of the reality here. I 

think that we helped to further define the problem, and it is incredibly complex, and it is going to be a long-term project trying 

to solve it. 

With that, the hearing record will remain open for 15 days until 

February 4th at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the record. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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