[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION ON COUNTERING GLOBAL TERRORISM AND VIOLENT
EXTREMISM
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND CYBER
and
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA, AND GLOBAL COUNTERTERRORISM
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
September 23, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-75
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
46-091 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey Member
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts DARRELL ISSA, California
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas ANN WAGNER, Missouri
DINA TITUS, Nevada BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania KEN BUCK, Colorado
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota MARK GREEN, Tennessee
COLIN ALLRED, Texas ANDY BARR, Kentucky
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GREG STEUBE, Florida
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey PETER MEIJER, Michigan
ANDY KIM, New Jersey NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
SARA JACOBS, California RONNY JACKSON, Texas
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina YOUNG KIM, California
JIM COSTA, California MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
JUAN VARGAS, California JOE WILSON, South Carolina
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
Sophia LaFargue, Staff Director
Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Europe, Energy,the Environment and Cyber
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts, Chairman
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK,
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia Pennsylvania,Ranking Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey ANN WAGNER, Missouri
THEODORE DEUTCH, Florida ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois,
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island BRIAN MAST, Florida
DINA TITUS, Nevada DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
JIM COSTA, California NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas PETER MEIJER, Michigan
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
Leah Nodvin, Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida, Chairman
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JOE WILSON, South Carolina,
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island Ranking Member
TED LIEU, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
COLIN ALLRED, Texas ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey LEE ZELDIN, New York
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina BRIAN MAST, Florida
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
BRAD SHERMAN, California GREG STEUBE, Florida
JUAN VARGAS, California RONNY JACKSON, Texas
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
Casey Kustin, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Onidi, Olivier, Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General for
Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission................ 8
Ramalingam, Vidhya, Founder & CEO, Moonshot...................... 15
Pantucci, Raffaello, Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United
Services Institute (RUSI)...................................... 21
Levitt, Dr. Matthew, Fromer-Wexler Fellow, Director, Jeanette and
Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy...................... 29
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 63
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 65
Hearing Attendance............................................... 66
TRANSATLANTIC COOPERATION ON COUNTERING GLOBAL TERRORISM AND VIOLENT
EXTREMISM
Thursday, September 23, 2021
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Europe, Energy, the Environment,
and Cyber,
Committee on Foreign Affairs, joint with the
Subcommittee on Middle East, North Africa, and
Global Terrorism
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:11 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William R.
Keating (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Keating. The House Foreign Affairs subcommittee will
come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to
declare recess of the committee at any point, and all members
will have 5 days to submit statements, extraneous materials,
and questions for the record, subject to the length and
limitation of the rules.
To insert something into the record, please have our staff
email the previously mentioned address or contact full
committee staff.
Please keep your video function on at all times, even when
you are not recognized by the chair. Members are responsible
for muting and unmuting themselves, so please remember to mute
yourself after you finish speaking. Consistent with House
Resolution 965 and the accompanying regulations, staff will
only mute members and witnesses as appropriate when they are
not under recognition to eliminate background noise.
I see that we have got a quorum. I now recognize myself for
opening remarks pursuant to this notice. We are holding a
hearing today entitled Transatlantic Cooperation on Countering
Global Terrorism and Violent Extremism. I will now recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
This month, on the 20th anniversary of September 11, I
attended a memorial service in my district to mourn the loss of
all those who died that day, including 206 Massachusetts
residents, and to honor the sacrifice made by others to prevent
such an atrocious attack on our country from ever happening
again.
During the service, I was struck by how quickly 20 years
can go by. It is truly remarkable how our global society is
fundamentally altered in so many years and ways responsible as
a result of this action which opened our eyes to the threat of
Global Terrorism and Violent Extremism. At the same time, I
realize how important our transatlantic alliance has been for
keeping us all safe and decided to hold a hearing to explore
what mechanism and what actions were taken to build in the year
since 9/11. As such, this hearing will cover the successes,
challenges, and opportunities of our transatlantic
collaboration to counterterrorism and violent extremism.
But before I make my opening statement, I would like to
offer my sincere thanks to Chairman Deutch for his leadership
and for holding this hearing. Your work highlighting
multilateral counterterrorism efforts through the subcommittee
on Middle East and North Africa, of which I have been a member,
is vitally important, and I hope we can continue to work
together to highlight transatlantic cooperation in this space.
Let me turn to the topic we are here to discuss today.
Since World War II, the United States and Europe has created
the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen.
Together, we have committed ourselves to our collective defense
and made a promise to show up when needed. With that promise in
place, after 9/11, our NATO partners did just that. With
article V triggered, they came to our defense, and since, our
allies have staunchly served alongside us in places like
Afghanistan and Iraq, often making the greatest of sacrifices,
just as our American soldiers have, to ensure the safety and
security of all our citizens.
Alongside our activities on the ground, the U.S.-EU
cooperation importantly has also expanded our ability to share
information and to share lessons learned. We built robust
mechanisms meant to counter terrorism and violent extremism
such as money laundering, trafficking in humans, drugs, nuclear
and radiological substances, terrorist financing, repatriation,
and judicial proceedings for foreign fighters, container
security, and irregular migration, just to name a few.
The EU and the U.S. have also simplified their extradition
procedures and promoted mutual legal assistance. As a result,
the U.S. is Europol's largest partner in terms of the number of
joint cases conducted, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
is the U.S. agency that contributes the highest volume of
information to the EU. Altogether, these agreements,
institutions, and rules are vital for us to continue to live in
relative piece, and achieve security and prosperity for all of
our citizens.
Now, in a time when we are reviewing the state of Global
Terrorism and Violent Extremism, it is more important than ever
to remember what we have created so far and recommit ourselves
to those mechanisms that ensure our way of life which is
grounded on the values of freedom, democracies, and human
rights.
The question now is how the United States and Europe can
maintain this transatlantic bond that served as a bulwark
against threats to our collective security.
To answer this critical question, my colleagues and I have
invited a group of incredibly knowledgeable experts with a
diverse range of professional experiences. They include Deputy
Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs at the European
Commission, Olivier Onidi, founder and CEO of Moonshot, Vidhya
Ramalingam. I hope I get that correctly. I apologize. I will
get it before this hearing is over. The Royal United Services
Institute, Raffaello Pantucci, and the Washington Institute's
Dr. Matthew Levitt.
As longstanding experts in the field of counterterrorism
and preventing the spread of global violent extremism, you will
be able to give concrete recommendations on the ways that the
United States and the European Union can bolster cooperation in
the areas such as data sharing, privacy, deradicalization and
radicalization prevention initiatives, terrorism financing and
sanctions, and irregular migration for foreign fighters. We
thank you for being here today.
President Biden highlighted the central lesson of the
September 11 attacks when he said, we saw something all too
rare, a true sense of national unity, unity and resilience, a
capacity to recover and repair in the face of trauma. It is at
our most vulnerable in the push and pull of all of this makes
us human, that unites us, that gives us our greatest strength.
I could not agree more with the sentiment and venture to
expand it to encompass transatlantic unity as one of the top
priorities of myself and our respective subcommittees. With
that, I welcome an honest assessment today, and we have been
here joining you at this critical time, a time when we need to
grow in our mutual quest to counter the threat of terrorism and
global violent extremism.
I now will turn to Ranking Member Wilson for his opening
statement.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you for calling this hearing today. With
the increasing invigoration, scope, and capability and funding
of international terrorist organizations, cooperation and
coordination with our friends and allies in Europe to combat
and prevent terrorism have never been more critical, especially
as Afghanistan has now become a safe haven for terrorist
training. I am particularly hopeful for the United States'
relationship with the EU and NATO partners to conduct
counterterrorism operations and share critical information.
Technology, sadly, has made recruiting and proliferation of
extremist content cheap and easy which means we must recommit
ourselves to solving this evolving problem. One area that we
must close the gap with EU is in regard to the designation of
terrorist groups who pose a threat to our mutual friend and
ally, Israel, and the United States and European Union
countries.
Iranian-backed Islamic extremist terrorist groups like
Hezbollah and Hamas pose an existential threat to Israeli
families and seek to destabilize regional and normalization
efforts, and yet, there is reluctance to name Hezbollah's
political wing as a terrorist group.
A week ago, it was reported that Hezbollah imported Iranian
fuel into Lebanon through Syria, welcomed by banners blatantly
reading, quote, thank you, Iran, thank you, Assad Syria, end of
quote. There is no question that the Iranian regime seeks to
export its draconian ideology as is evident by Hezbollah
presence in Latin America.
I was grateful to introduce a bipartisan bill this week in
Congress to address this issue and identify authoritarian
regimes working with the Iranian-backed terrorist groups in the
western hemisphere.
We appreciate our distinguished witnesses for their
expertise, and I look forward to hearing from each of you, and
I yield back.
Mr. Keating. I now recognize Ranking Member Fitzpatrick for
his opening statement.
Mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you, Chairman Keating, also to
Chairman Deutch and Ranking Member Wilson----
Mr. Keating. I believe you are muted.
Mr. Fitzpatrick. Can you hear me, Chairman?
Mr. Keating. I can hear you. I now recognize Ranking Member
Fitzpatrick for his opening statement.
Mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you, Chairman Keating, and also to
Chairman Deutch and Ranking Member Wilson for holding this
important hearing and to our esteemed panel of witnesses for
being with us here today.
Twenty years ago, our Nation was galvanized into action by
the horrific terror attacks on September 11 of 2001, and our
response was swift, and it was comprehensive. The United States
bolstered law enforcement and intelligence capabilities. We
created the Department of Homeland Security, coordinated
information sharing between agencies and our allies overseas,
and our military was operationalized.
In less than 24 hours after the attacks, the North Atlantic
Council invoked article V, collective defense clause, for the
first time in the alliance's history. We are forever grateful
for how our NATO allies joined us in our time of need,
sacrificing greatly alongside of our own Armed Forces.
And as was the case in 2001, we are stronger when we work
together. And for this reason, we continue to need our
transatlantic allies to share the burden of what is required in
the global play and the global war on terror. Therefore, it is
my hope today that our witnesses can discuss how the U.S. can
better coordinate our counterterrorist strategies with our
closest allies.
Today, the United States counterterrorism efforts have been
tactically successful. Major attacks have been foiled,
terrorist networks have been broken, and the United States
Government's data base of known or suspected terrorists has
grown substantially. While our capabilities have grown with
experience, the threat posed by terrorism is far from
eradicated.
Our campaign to eliminate Global Terrorism and Violent
Extremism has revealed ugly truths about the origins of this
phenomenon. Terrorism is fueled by local drivers and respects
no borders.
Therefore, to stop radicalization, attention to good
governance, support for the rule of law, economic stability,
and public health must all be tools used to address this
worldwide issue.
It is my hope today that Dr. Levitt can expand on the
points he made in his written testimony about utilizing soft
power solutions to bolster civilian counterterrorism capacity
and establishing preventive methods to get ahead of the
radicalization curve. Soft power developments offer
sustainable, long-term solutions to counterterrorism and must
be sync'd with the strategies of our allies.
As a former FBI special agent myself, I would also be
remiss not to mention that Dr. Levitt worked as a
counterintelligence analyst at the FBI in the wake of September
11. I would like to thank you, sir, for your service to our
country, and I look forward to hearing from you and our other
witnesses this afternoon. I yield back, Chairman.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative Fitzpatrick.
I would now like to recognize and turn the gavel over to
the chairman, Chairman Deutch, who will conduct the hearing,
and then I am sure introduce his opening statement. Chairman
Deutch.
Mr. Deutch. Thanks very much, Chairman Keating. I am so
glad to join you today for this really important and timely
hearing on transatlantic cooperation and countering violent
extremism. We are here--and I appreciate your leadership
bringing us together.
We are here today 20 years after the events of September 11
which profoundly changed the global approach to
counterterrorism. We are here after 20 years of war in
Afghanistan which our NATO partners stood side by side with our
troops, and we are here less than a month after that war now
has come to a close. What happens next is certainly a question
on everyone's mind. And there is no doubt that our withdrawal
from Afghanistan, while the right thing to do, gave some of our
transatlantic partners pause.
Twenty years ago, the collective belief was that violent
radical Islamic terrorism posed the greatest threat to our
homeland and our interests. In the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S.
and European partners worked together to track suspects,
funding streams, and collect intelligence in order to thwart
future attacks.
Certainly, even as Al Qaeda and Afghanistan was being
decimated, Al Qaeda affiliates in the Arabian peninsula, across
Africa, and elsewhere continued to pose dangerous threats. The
formation of ISIS and its affiliates changed the terror
landscape as Americans and Europeans were threatened,
kidnapped, and killed.
Since 2014, horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in France, the
UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium have forced the EU to grapple
with a new wave of terror and the political consequences of
balancing freedom and human rights with security. Although
ISIS' territory may be depleted, we know that its propaganda
machine continues to actively recruit and inspire new
followers.
In recent years, we have also seen the global rise of
violent while nationalism and far right terrorism, and that
terrorism that disproportionately affected the United States
and many European Nations. In the U.S., our deadliest attacks,
be it the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, the
Charleston AME Church massacre, those were carried out by white
nationalists.
With the rise of social media and online propaganda, we
face a new challenging of lone wolf attackers, those
radicalized online and inspired to commit deadly acts without
the planning and backing of any specific terror group. We have
seen Iranian-backed terror threaten the U.S. and our interests
abroad, even launch attacks on European soil like the 2012
bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. So Hezbollah continues to actively
fund raise across Europe which is why many of us have worked
hard to encourage the EU to designate Hezbollah in its entirety
a terrorist organization.
As we sit here today with 20 years of the war on terror
behind us, and as we chart a new path of cooperation forward on
counterterrorism in Afghanistan, it is time to reassess our
counterterrorism strategy and our global partnerships. Our
alliances are what keep us strong in the great power
competition with China and Russia. We have some rebuilding to
do after the past several years, and I am aware that many of
our transatlantic partners need to see actionable assurances
from the United States that we remain committed to these vital
partnerships. That is why President Biden continues to reaffirm
the importance of alliances as he did just this week at the
U.N. General Assembly.
Today we will examine the mechanisms and frameworks in
place for the U.S. and our European partners to jointly counter
violent extremism. We will also look at what has worked and
what hasn't worked and how we can adjust our approaches for the
types of threats that we currently face. I am grateful to the
witnesses for appearing today and sharing their expertise.
I thank Chair Keating again, and I look forward to a
productive discussion and continuing to affirm our commitment
to the transatlantic partnership.
With that, Chairman Keating has introduced the witnesses,
so I will now recognize the witnesses for 5 minutes each.
Without objection, your prepared written statement will be made
part of the record.
Mr. Onidi, you are now recognized for your comments.
STATEMENT OF OLIVIER ONIDI, DEPUTY DIRECTOR-GENERAL,
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR MIGRATION AND HOME AFFAIRS, EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
Mr. Onidi. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chair, for this
invitation. Thank you also to the ranking members and all
honorable members, actually, of both of your subcommittees. It
is a great pleasure and honor to be with you in a position to
testify on the current, actually, efforts on both sides of the
Atlantic to continue in the quest of reinforcing the fight
against terrorism.
The subject is important. September 11, you said it, sent
shock waves, really, as to the dimension terrorism had taken.
But we have seen throughout years, 20 years now, how close both
the United States and the European Union and its member States
have actually come in setting in place the response to fight
global terrorism. We have joined forces abroad to defeat
international terrorism organizations, and we should continue
doing this with a renewed commitment of the United States to
remain active in the main parts at risk. For example, is a very
important testimony to this engagement to continue of having
our military forces engaged abroad for that cause.
We have learned also progressively to set up policy
responses that were mutually reinforcing. When we talk about
the fight against terrorism financing, there is no better
example than the terrorist financial tracking program that has
been instrumental in cutting the finance resources to organized
terrorism groupings.
Advance passenger information, passenger name records have
also been tools which we haven't only developed in our own
jurisdiction but which we are also developing across the world
in different countries. Information systems being used by our
border guards and also the information that is actively being
pushed in those systems is another, I guess, example of how
much we have done together.
We have brought our agencies, our operational entities to
actively work together. There is no better example than Europol
being the hub in Europe of cross border, transatlantic
cooperation with all relevant agencies being represented and
being closely associated to the work of Europol on our side in
terms of facilitating the exchange of information, providing
support to investigations, but also then looking at prosecution
and the judiciary angle of the cases.
How to best understand what actually leads an individual to
commit a terrorist act, sir, prevents this to happen. Also, we
rehabilitate individuals. This has become the prime focus of
our joint work because we have realized that most of the
attacks these days actually committed on our soil by homegrown
domestic residents of our countries, and we have done a lot of
progress in actually helping out in anticipation of such acts.
And I would be very happy to discuss in more details the type
of cooperations we set up on that.
And then, finally, the last point I wanted to highlight in
this introduction, the online world, which has also been a
recognition that most of the incitement, the recruitment of
individuals led to commit terrorist attacks is actually
happening online. In every attack over the last years in
Europe, there is an important factor of online radicalization.
This is where we have seen us shouldering our efforts
toward the internet world, pushing through the companies the
obligations to do more in order to identify and suppress
terrorism incitement material and also helping us in
identifying those groupings which were actually very active
online.
Afghanistan, you said it, is another reminder of how
important it is to continue this fight together and certainly
not lower our guards in this field.
Thank you very much for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Onidi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Deutch. Thank you very much, Mr. Onidi.
Ms. Ramalingam, you are now recognized for your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF VIDHYA RAMALINGAM, FOUNDER & CEO, MOONSHOT
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you. Chair Keating, Chair Deutch,
Ranking Member Fitzpatrick, Ranking Member Wilson, and members
of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak
with you today. I appreciate your leadership to ensure better
international cooperation on countering global violent
extremism.
Throughout my career, I have worked to design and deliver
terrorism prevention and deradicalization models globally. 10
years ago when a white supremacist terrorist murdered 77 people
in Norway, I led the EU's first intergovernmental initiative on
white nationalist terrorism and extremism.
I worked with hundreds of policymakers, practitioners,
social workers, and former extremists across ten EU countries
to gather evidence and design policy and programs on what
worked in prevention of this form of terrorism.
Today, I have taken this fight online as founder of
Moonshot, an organization working with U.S. and European
governments to build online prevention mechanisms fit for the
21st century. Our work has been delivered with partners such as
the U.S. Department of State across administrations and the
Global Coalition Against Daesh with which we worked across over
80 coalition partners on online efforts to degrade terrorist
recruitment.
The last 20 years have seen considerable investment across
Europe in terrorism prevention models, but what actually works?
Based on my research and what research shows, the following
components of various European prevention models have proven to
be effective: One. They involve behavioral health methods.
There is a vast evidence base demonstrating its efficacy,
particularly counseling, which helps to adequately address
underlying drivers and vulnerabilities and can facilitate
referrals to other services. This has become the cornerstone of
most European programs.
2. They are multi-disciplinary and involve multi-agency
systems which can achieve better case management, drawing on
expertise and preexisting capabilities across social services,
education, healthcare systems, and law enforcement.
3. They are locally established and run with substantive
involvement from communities where they are deployed.
4. They need not be ideology focused but, rather, span the
ideological spectrum. Licensed practitioners, including
psychologists, counselors, social workers, and others involved
in these programs do require training to engage ideology when
it arises, but ideology does not need to be addressed first and
foremost.
In fact, evidence shows sometimes this is
counterproductive. Many longstanding European prevention
programs engage individuals across the ideological spectrum at
risk of Salafi Jihadism, neo-Nazism, violent end cells, and
potential mass shooters alike.
5. They offer off ramps for those looking to leave violent
extremism. Off ramping and exit programs such as those in
Sweden, Finland, and Germany demonstrate high case loads and
low recidivism rates and have served as the model for life
after hate here in the United States.
And, finally, these programs tend to be more effective and
credible when they are independent of government but have
stable government funding. Accountability is critical, but a
bit of independence gives programs, especially exit programs,
greater authority with those who are looking to leave violent
extremism.
But perhaps the greatest challenge for these efforts is how
to bring these prevention models into the 21st century. Social
media creates new opportunities for perpetrators to reach
vulnerable audiences and has supercharged the spread of violent
extremist content. In 2021, every terrorism prevention model
needs a robust digital component. Moonshot has spent 6 years
working with governments to design and implement digital
complements to offline terrorism prevention infrastructures.
This must be done safely, ethically, and responsibly.
First, the entire suite of prevention services needs to be
adopted for online delivery, including risk assessment
frameworks and counseling services. Second, we need to
adequately signpost terrorism prevention services such as
hotlines, counseling, and exit offers online. Third, online
prevention frameworks must be designed with user privacy at its
heart.
Evidence shows us that this works. In Moonshot's recent
studies, audiences at risk of Jihadism were 47 percent more
likely than the general public to take up offers of
psychosocial support services online. Neo-Nazis were 48 percent
more likely.
And this year alone, Moonshot has channeled over 100
individuals at risk of violent extremism across the United
States into text messaging counseling sessions via online
engagement.
We need to acknowledge that the tech companies are not
doing enough in this fight. As we continue to hold these
companies to account, we do have an obligation to adopt our
terrorism prevention infrastructures to this new reality. We
must both learn from the past and look to the future in our
fight against global terrorism. Thank you for your time today.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ramalingam follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Ms. Ramalingam.
The chair recognizes Mr. Raffaello Pantucci for your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF RAFFAELLO PANTUCCI, SENIOR ASSOCIATE FELLOW, ROYAL
UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE (RUSI)
Mr. Pantucci. Thank you very much. Chairs Keating and
Deutch, Ranking Member Fitzpatrick and Wilson, distinguished
committee members, and fellow speakers, thank you for the
invitation to come and speak to you today.
A lot of what I am going to talk about has been touched on
already by some of the earlier speakers, and I am conscious
that this is a space where there is a lot of thinking and work
going on.
And I recognize I will repeat some points, but what I want
to do is I want to talk a little bit about two very specific
parts of the current terrorist threat that is faced by the
transatlantic alliance.
Counterterrorism, of course remains a major threat and in
many ways has become infinitely more complicated than it was 2
decades ago. There is a wide range of threats out there, and to
cover them all in the time available would be an exercise in
futility.
So I will focus on two slightly disparate areas that I
think merit particular priority attention at the moment, lone
actor terrorism and the fallout from Afghanistan, both issues
that I think we have already had speakers talking about
already.
The lone actor threat is repeatedly identified by senior
security officials in both Europe and North America as the
biggest and most complicated problem that they currently face.
The most recent annual Europol report highlighted these
becoming the most frequent and regular attacks that Europe was
facing, and they noted they were becoming ever harder to
detect.
This is all not to say that terrorist groups do not have
the desire and ambition to launch large scale terrorist plots,
but it is a testament to our successful security capabilities
that we have been able in essentially such a difficult
environment for them to try to launch the attacks that the only
ones that we are actually seeing able to get through are these
lone actor ones. But that does also emphasize why this is an
area that we really need to focus more attention on in trying
to respond.
And, second, Afghanistan I want to highlight in particular
as that particular threat has, of course, come to our attention
once again. It is not particularly a new problem or threat, but
it has, of course, been brought into sharper focus due to
recent events, and it has shifted the dial on the particular
problem and requires us to think a little bit more carefully
about how to manage some of the consequences and problems that
might emanate from it.
And I want to offer three specific areas for potential
cooperation going forward on these two broad areas of
terrorism.
To start with the lone actor side of the threat, as has
been already discussed, the lone actor threat really is
becoming the sharp end of the threat picture that we see, but
it is becoming increasingly confusing, and we see that the
ideologies that individuals who are committing lone actor
terrorist attacks are becoming increasingly idiosyncratic. They
are becoming an odd mix of left, right Islamists, all getting
muddled up into individual cases. And, increasingly, these
ideologies are getting muddledback and forth across the
Atlantic, generated sometimes in our very own communities in
the United States or in Europe, in part, an extension of the
very polarized political conversation that we increasingly see
in our respective countries.
This makes them very difficult to manage because when you
look at some of these threats and the ideologies that are
supporting them, you are looking at things that are sitting on
the edge of the mainstream political discourse which makes it
very hard to try to craft a specific response to crack down on
these and to get legislation that will deal with this
effectively, the problem being, of course, that we have
different perspectives on where the law should lie with
particular ideologies.
But I think greater coordination is clearly needed and a
greater conversation to try and understand where we both see
these threats lie and understanding how different, you know,
hyper ideologies in one--in Europe or North America will have a
very direct impact on the threat picture on the other side, and
particularly on the lone actor side of the threat.
The second one is on the tactical side. A lot of this
problem is happening online, as has been highlighted by
previous speakers. And, clearly, the United States has a far
superior capability in many ways of conducting preventive
actions and very aggressive counterterrorism activity in the
online space.
Greater coordination and cooperation within the space
clearly is going to be essential, but ensuring that these tools
are being used in a proportionate amount, and ensuring, as the
previous speaker mentioned, the social media companies are
being particularly focused on in trying to ensure that they are
addressing their side of the equation.
And then, finally, on the preventive side. As was also
already highlighted, on the preventive side of the coin, you
are looking at an issue which is becoming very individualized,
and you are looking at trying to respond to lone actor threats
that are being dealt with by a wide range of different actors
from social services through to hard security actors.
Ensuring that these people are communicating and sharing
best practices across the Atlantic I think will be critical
because I think it is no longer going to be the case that a
single answer to this problem exists. It never really did
anyway, but I think that is becoming even more realistic. So
learning from each other's experience within the space will be
increasingly critical.
To look very briefly at Afghanistan, conscious that I am
coming up against time, I want to talk about three specific
aspects. First, we are talking about this an awful lot within
the context of how the threats from Afghanistan may come home,
and yet, the real problems are more likely happening in
Afghanistan's neighborhoods.
Understanding how the transatlantic alliance can manage the
threats that are most likely to spawn, most likely to appear in
Afghanistan or in Pakistan or in central Asia is, I think,
where we should be really focusing our attention in the short
to medium term.
Second, geopolitics. The transatlantic alliance was clearly
pulled by the issues that we saw, but I think we need to be
careful not to overstate this. And I think, instead, we need to
start to think about focusing where it is that actually, the
United States and European allies can focus their attention.
The U.K., for example, has a deep experience in Pakistan,
focusing attention there for the U.K. Or in central Asia,
Germany has a very strong relationship with Uzbekistan. France
has a particular relationship with Tajikistan. Establishing
these new sort of alliances to deal with the over the horizon
threats that we may see emanating from Afghanistan I think will
be a critical thing to focus on going forwards.
And then absolutely finally, I think we really need to try
to find ways of extricating Afghanistan from the great power
conflict lens that it is increasingly being seen within. In
focusing on Afghanistan through this lens, we are going to do
ourselves a disservice and potentially find stymied our ability
to respond to the very real potential terrorist threats that
are likely to emerge, and I will cede the floor there.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to your comments
and questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pantucci follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Pantucci. And now the chair
recognizes Dr. Matthew Levitt for 5 minutes for your opening
remarks.
STATEMENT OF DR. MATTHEW LEVITT, FROMER-WEXLER FELLOW,
DIRECTOR, JEANETTE AND ELI REINHARD PROGRAM ON COUNTERTERRORISM
AND INTELLIGENCE, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
Dr. Levitt. Thank you very much, Chairs and Ranking
Members. It is a pleasure to be here. I thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today, and I have to say, it
is a real pleasure to appear alongside Vidhya, Raf, and
Olivier, each of whom is a friend and an exceptional analyst.
Over the past 2 decades, the United States built a
counterterrorism bureaucracy to manage, resource, and
operationalize the Nation's response to the threat posed by Al
Qaeda in particular and terrorism more broadly. This
counterterrorism enterprise has been remarkably successful from
a tactical perspective, foiling attacks and disrupting
terrorist networks. Terrorists today are far less likely to be
able to carry out a spectacular attack like 9/11.
But from a strategic vantage point, our 20-year struggle
against terrorism has been far less successful. Many more
people today are radicalized to violent extremism than in 2001,
representing a more ideologically diversified and globally
dispersed terrorist threat. Consider the 2 decades after 9/11,
the U.S. Government's data base of known or suspected
terrorists has grown by almost a factor of 20. Turning the
corner on this larger problem set, getting ahead of the
radicalization curve demands two interrelated changes to the
now 2-decade old U.S. approach to countering terrorism.
First, we must invest in our own and our allies' civilian
counterterrorism capabilities and ways that to date we have
only done in the realm of kinetic military counterterrorism
tool sets. This should involve a particular focus and
investment in extremism prevention which, at its core, is not a
mission for counterterrorism agencies but is rather the product
of good governance, of rule of law, equitable and well-
functioning societies, and healthy communities.
To get ahead of the terrorism problem will require seeing
clinical social workers and local government as frontline
responders to address violent extremism. Violent extremism is a
global problem that has at its core very local drivers which
require local responses. Therefore, as underscored in the 2020
strategy to prevent conflict and promote stability, U.S.
interagency plans submitted to Congress as required under the
Global Fragility Act of 2019, military force should be only one
and an increasingly small part of the solution.
While generating support for preventive or crisis
management efforts can be difficult, such initiatives are
especially important to break the cycle of fragility and should
be prioritized in areas where today's strategic investment can
mitigate tomorrow's overwhelming crisis. Small amounts of
financial support today can mean significant and meaningful
security and justice sector reform, enhanced provision of
essential services, reduce corruption, enfranchise disengaged
sectors of society such as women, children, and minorities and
make a difference.
Second, we must recognize that we cannot do everything on
our own, nor should we be expected to shoulder the bulk of the
cost in blood or in treasure for countering violent extremism
around the world on our own. As the Biden administration's
interim national security strategic guidance States, recent
events show all too clearly that many of the biggest threats we
face respect no borders or walls and must be met with
collective action.
While critical, this will be no easy lift. U.S.
counterterrorism agencies have developed very close working
relationships with their counterparts for broadening U.S.
efforts to work by, with, and through allies and local partners
around the world on military missions and even on diplomatic
missions will be easier said than done given America's recent
track record of abandoning allies and local partners on short
notice.
More broadly, convincing partner Nations to form burden
sharing alliances with the United States to address threats
closer to their borders than ours will be possible only once
the United States has taken tangible action to restore its
credibility as a reliable long-term partner and does more to
tackle domestic violence extremism within its own borders.
At the end of the day, one European official explained to
me all Europeans want a strong security partnership with the
U.S. The question is whether this cooperation will be limited
to the core missions, identifying and sharing information about
terrorist networks, for example, or if we can move beyond this
and together address the breeding grounds of terrorism and
stabilization missions in places like Syria, Iraq, and the
Sahel.
The key to making the latter development more likely may
come down to the U.S. revisiting its traditional reluctance to
share decisionmaking with its European partners. We need to be
better listeners, and European partners revisiting their
traditional discomfort over burden sharing.
Two final but important points. Ideological fluidity and
blending of ideologies is what we see over and over here in the
U.S. and in Europe. Typically, we see people wanting a sense of
purpose, of community, of belonging. These are the key
motivators to radicalization, not ideology. Ideology comes in
later as the factor that then mobilizes people to action. This
means that countering global violent extremism cannot focus on
any one type of ideology. Islamist extremism still poses
terrorist threats that we will have to take seriously, no
doubt, but here in the United States, domestic violent
extremists, white supremacists, anti-government, Neo-Nazis, and
more present an even greater threat.
Second, there will always be areas of disagreement in the
transatlantic relationship, and these will need to be navigated
carefully. Some examples include Europe will have to do better
in repatriation of foreign terrorist fighter nationals. The
situations in camps like Al-Hawl in Syria is simply untenable.
America is going to have to come to terms with the dangers
posed by the spread of hate speech, disinformation, and
terrorist content online and find ways to address this
challenge within our First Amendment limits. We are going to
have to find ways to think about the threat level and the
appropriate response to extremist actors such as Lebanese
Hezbollah, Iraq, and other Shia militants. And to do that, we
are going to need creative solutions.
So while, for example, pressing the European Union to
designate all of Hezbollah as important and should continue,
Congress could do a lot of good in this regard by working with
national level parliaments in Europe, many of which are
animated on this subject as well.
I thank you again for the opportunity to testify before
you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Levitt follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Keating. I would like to thank all our witnesses for
their statements, both the comprehensive nature of dealing just
with the tactical issues and the strategic issues that are
involved, and I am sure they will be parts of the questions
that go forward.
I am going to recognize members sometimes out of order of
seniority given the fact that we are in the midst of so many
roll calls and because of that virtual format. I will do it in
a basis of Democrat, then Republican, alternating back and
forth when that is possible, and we will continue doing this
hopefully to the conclusion of the hearing without
interruption.
Each member, if you miss your turn, let our staff know. We
will circle back to you, and if you seek recognition, you have
got to unmute your microphone and address the chair verbally
for those that might be wandering into this room, the few that
they may be.
So I would like to now recognize Representative Kathy
Manning for 5 minutes.
Ms. Manning. Thank you, Chairman Keating. Can you hear me
okay? All right.
I am proud to co-lead H.Res. 359, a bipartisan resolution I
introduced with my colleague, Chairman Ted Deutch, urging the
European Union to fully designate Hezbollah in its entirety as
a terrorist organization.
Mr. Levitt, you are an expert on the terrorist group
Hezbollah. Do you believe any distinction can or should be made
by any of our European allies between the so-called political
and military wings of a terrorist group like Hezbollah?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you for your question. The simple way to
answer it is not to ask me but to ask Hezbollah leaders
themselves who have been very, very clear in the fact that
there is no distinction to be made between the various wings of
their organization. Even Europol's latest terrorism situation
and threat report makes this clear, that the distinction that
was made in 2013 undermines their ability to carry out
investigations.
There is a political issue going on here that is primarily
driven by France, but that does not mean on the one hand that
while we continue to pursue this issue with our colleagues that
we cannot do other things. There has been some significant
progress at national levels with different European countries
doing different things. Some have passed designation
authorities.
Some that do not have them have used immigration
authorities or authorities that enabled them to ban certain
symbols, and in each of these instances, what has driven these
domestic actions has been, in part, actions within their
parliaments.
And I think therefore, that U.S. Congress engagement not
only at the EU level but at national European parliamentary
levels could be very effective in this regard.
Ms. Manning. Thank you.
Mr. Pantucci, there are many ways for us to work with our
European allies and partners to exchange best practices to
counter violent extremism and white supremacy. Can you talk to
us about which has proven to be the most effective forum for us
to cooperate to counter the global threat of white supremacy?
Mr. Pantucci. Thank you for the question. I think at the
moment, the problem of white supremacy is one--or the extreme
right wing is one that I think we are still trying to work out
exactly where the best forums to deal with this are, in part
because we are still trying to understand the exact parameters
of the problem.
I think traditionally, it has been something that has been
the respite, the remit of police forces. And I think police
forces have traditionally been the ones on the front line
dealing with this. Increasingly, we have seen intelligence
agencies moving into this space as well, and that, you know,
enhanced cooperation at that level is probably quite effective.
But if I think about these groups and how they play out on
the ground, I think trying to engage, frankly, at a policing
level is probably a very good place to start because they are
really--you know, these groups are quite diffuse. They are very
much within our communities. They haven't necessarily got the
same sort of international links that you get from, you know,
groups or other ones. They also are developing some online
communications, but it really is something that I think police
forces seem to be the ones who are dealing with most
effectively so far. That is my sense. Thank you.
Ms. Manning. Thank you. Okay.
Mr. Onidi, the transatlantic alliance has faced significant
challenges in recent years and more recently than that.
However, our countries share a common challenge when it comes
to combating misinformation online, especially social media.
How can we work better together to counter the rapid spread of
online extremist propaganda?
Mr. Onidi. Thank you. I would argue that a lot of progress
has actually been achieved on this very aspect. We concentrated
a few years ago on our differences. The fact that we had, you
know, different constitution model, different approach, we
would in the EU rather pursue a path toward hard legislation,
and the U.S., rather voluntary efforts, but all this was the
past.
What I have seen over the last months, I believe, is a
very, very strong recognition of the absolute and vitally
importance of requesting more from the different online
platform and us as well being able to develop better tools to
support them, to better understand also the type of ideological
that was online and also have better channels of information
with them in order to notify of terrorist-related material, but
also, as Vidhya said, not only identifying material that should
be withdrawn but work with the actors in order to identify
people behind this sort of content and also work more with them
in order to promote counter messaging, to promote actual
material that would help individuals to see things in more
objective ways.
So I think we are on a good path, slightly different
approach, and still we have hard legislation on this, but we
see that together, we speak with a very strong voice toward the
platforms.
Ms. Manning. Thank you, and thank you to all of our
witnesses. And thank you to our chairman for holding such an
important hearing, and I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Representative manning.
The chair now recognizes Vice Ranking Member Joe Wilson
from South Carolina for 5 minutes.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to
thank the witnesses. And, Chairman, thank you for your
leadership. Bill Keating does a good job trying to keep us in
line.
And so, Dr. Levitt, last week, the CIA deputy director
acknowledged early reports of foreign fighters traveling to
join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Are we at risk of another outflow
of foreign terrorist fighters from Europe? How can we work with
our European partners to address this threat?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you, sir, for the question. I think it is
important to note that while I am very, very concerned about
the situation in Afghanistan, the withdrawal, how the
withdrawal happened, I think we need to recognize that
Afghanistan in 2021 is not Afghanistan in 2001 and that the
counterterrorism measures that our European colleagues have put
in place, border security, biometrics, et cetera, today are
infinitely better than they were back then.
I do not anticipate Afghanistan being a significant draw
for western foreign fighters, in part, because there are
already more attractive places to go in Syria and Iraq and
other places. But we are going to have to keep a close eye,
maybe not on huge numbers but on small numbers, and we are
going to have to be worried about terrorist groups not limited
to Al Qaeda being able to enjoy safe haven.
There are two issues in Afghanistan. One is the groups like
Al Qaeda and the Haqqani network that will be able to operate
in areas under Taliban control because they are close to the
Taliban. But the vacuum created by the withdrawal is larger
than the Taliban can fill, and therefore, groups like Islamic
State khorasan ISK will be able to operate in those areas that
are beyond Taliban control. So we are going to have a new
problem set different than the one we have had before in
Afghanistan, and we won't have the luxury of having the type of
intelligence collection that we have relied on in Afghanistan
for the past 20 years.
Mr. Wilson. And, Dr. Levitt, also on--sadly, with the
reopening of training schools in Afghanistan for rogue suicide
bombers, is the U.S. at risk of an attack of equal impact to 9/
11, whether at homeland or abroad, and if so, what type of
attack would you anticipate?
Dr. Levitt. I think the likelihood of a terrorist
spectacular attack like we saw for 9/11 is much, much smaller
now, again, in part because of all of the different systems we
have put in place. The counterterrorism infrastructure we have
today is just so much different and better than it was 20 years
ago and also because we have put in place the ability to
collect information to be able to forecast and anticipate.
We cannot do that quite as well as we want to yet in
Afghanistan because we are not on the ground, but I think that
the most immediate threats will be in Afghanistan and in the
region around Afghanistan before it will come to our shores or
to our interests abroad. Over the medium to long term, there is
that possibility, but we have time to mitigate that threat.
Mr. Wilson. And with your expertise and background on
Hezbollah, what is the current threat that Hezbollah poses to
Europe?
Dr. Levitt. Hezbollah primarily poses a logistics and
financing threat in Europe. But as the State Department
revealed just a few months ago, Hezbollah has been moving
ammonium nitrate material to be used to put together explosives
through several European countries over the past few years. And
as you saw in Burgas, Bulgaria, the successful attack, and in
Cyprus, two thwarted attacks, Hezbollah is not shy about
operating in Europe when it suits its interests.
To the extent that we recognize that ideology is not the
issue we should be dealing with primarily, we should be dealing
with extremism across ideologies, that means we should not be
limited to Sunni extremism. We should be covering Shia
extremism. We should not be limiting ourselves to Islamic
extremism. We certainly need to be focusing on white
supremacists and other types of domestic violence extremism.
Mr. Wilson. And I really am back again on a risk at home. I
am very, very concerned about a rogue suicide bomber coming to,
say, a football stadium and the panic that would occur where
they do not have to kill that many people, but the panic would
be incredibly horrific. And then, sadly, to me, the development
of drones as we saw with the swarm of drones that Iran provided
against the oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. It is so easy to
purchase at a convenience store drones. How do we address that,
attacking public buildings, legislative buildings within the
United States?
Dr. Levitt. These are both excellent questions. I think
that the issue of suicide attacks in the United States is
increasingly one, like other types of attacks, that is more
likely to happen by homegrown violent extremists, including
people who are not even foreign directed.
The issue of drones is beyond my expertise right here and
now. Leave it--suffice it to say that the issue of dealing with
terrorist acts, just the simple technologies that they are able
to exploit to tremendous benefit is of real concern to many
different parts of the U.S. Government, though most of the
drones that can be bought at Walmart are not the type that can
cause significant damage, for example, to Congress. It is a
huge problem.
Mr. Wilson. Well, thank you very much for all of your
participation. I am honored again to be here with Chairman
Keating. Thank you.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative.
The chair now recognizes Representative Dean Phillips of
Minnesota for 5 minutes.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Greetings to our
witnesses and gratitude for being with us.
I think it is fair to say that the United States and
European nations take different approaches to protected speech
and to regulating online content, but we clearly are all facing
the challenge of hate, disinformation, and misinformation
spread online.
So, Ms. Ramalingam, if you could start by sharing with us
how you would characterize the most urgent needs for
transatlantic cooperation relative to countering the spread of
propaganda and radicalizing messages and content online.
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you for your question, Congressman.
And, you know, as an organization that operates both in
Europe and in the United States, we obviously firmly believe in
and safeguard First Amendment protections, but, of course, the
regulations in Europe are different and, you know, the tech
companies' obligations to moderate content are very different
based on the country that you are in.
As an organization that operates across that Transatlantic
divide, our approach is not necessarily focused on removal of
content but ensuring that there are safer alternatives online.
So this is not about cooperation and accountability for the
tech companies. It is not just about that. It is about ensuring
that we are using these digital platforms to their full
advantage to assign posts to individuals who are at risk for
demonstrating their vulnerabilities online that there are there
options for them to exit.
There is a raft of evidence that has been growing over the
last several years demonstrating that if you engage these
individuals online, if you start conversations with them, if
you seek to channel them into support programs, they are
actually disproportionately likely to engage with those offers
as compared to the general public.
So there is more work that we need to do to take the
offline terrorist prevention infrastructures that we have built
and ensure that those same practitioners have the digital
literacy and the capability to begin to engage online, and that
means everything from, you know, ensuring that we can assess
risk online and that we translate the way that we assess
vulnerability offline into the online space, but also ensuring
that we can kind of manage that channelling of individuals from
the online space into offline support programs.
Mr. Phillips. So it is your argument and belief that that
is the mechanism that we should be looking to and you are
convinced that it will work and is working?
Ms. Ramalingam. I am convinced that in the 2lst century
there cannot be any offline terrorism prevention program that
does not have that engagement online. There is no longer a
divide between the offline and online space. We all live our
lives in both worlds, and so if we are going to be effective in
our fight against terrorism, we have to be reaching out to
those communities online. It cannot just be about removing
content. You remove the post, you remove the account, but that
person still exists and still poses a threat to our
communities.
Mr. Phillips. So good old fashion intervention. I
understand.
Mr. Levitt, similar question to you. How can governments on
both sides of the Atlantic play a more intentional and
energetic role for defeating the appetite for radicalization
and extremist messages?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you for the question.
I think that the way to deal with this, the only way to
deal with this is to be very local and to recognize that to
stop people from having a cognitive opening to dangerous ideas
means to make sure that they are a part of a functioning
society, and I do not mean on a huge--I mean, in a
neighborhood. I mean in their community. Can they access
services? Do they feel like they belong to something? Do they
feel that they are contributing to something?
Ultimately, some of the most important, some of the most
critical things that we can do to reduce extremism are not
going to be part of the security realm and shouldn't be
securitized, to borrow a phrase that our European allies have
been using for a long time. We should be doing those things for
the right reason because good governance is really important,
because rule of law is really important, because anticorruption
is really important, and we should realize doing those will
have tremendous security benefits.
But that means that when we step back and say how much do
we stop the terrorist threat, a lot of our dollars should be
going into clinical social workers, community programs because
that will, not today, not tomorrow, and it will be difficult,
therefore, for your metrics and valuation programs, but they
will over time contribute to a healthier society that is not as
amenable to, is not looking for more radical answers to
complicated questions.
Mr. Phillips. Are there some examples of governments
already collaborating to that end?
Dr. Levitt. There are many examples. There are many
examples where governments have started programs like this and
then politicians got wind of them and shut them down because
politicians tend to want to know how is the money I am
investing going to be spent to show me it is going to work. And
I have to tell you, we in the United States do not have much of
a culture of trial and error.
That is seen as political risk. And I give our European
colleagues, even when they have failed, tremendous credit for
trying and failing. People tend to put----
Mr. Phillips. Thank you.
Dr. Levitt. I will stop there. Thank you.
Mr. Phillips. Yes, I am sorry. My time has expired, and I
want to afford it to my colleagues.
Thank you, Mr. Levitt, Dr. Levitt, and to all of our
witnesses. I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. I thank Mr. Phillips.
Mr. Pfluger, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Mr.
Chairman, thanks for organizing this.
Everything I learned about counterterrorism I learned from
Dr. Matthew Levitt as a former colleague at the Washington
Institute. I will focus my questions on a couple of things that
you mentioned. And thank you to all the--the entire panel for
talking about this important issue.
But, Matt, when it comes to the relationships, you kind of
mentioned some of the fallout from the relationships that we
have transatlantic partnerships and relationships to prevent
terrorism. I mean, if you could name, you know, two or three
that we really should focus on, where do you think the impact
of the Afghanistan withdrawal is going to hurt us the most?
Which relationships should we focus on the most in the short
term that have the biggest impact on counterterrorism?
Dr. Levitt. First of all, I cannot tell you how much
pleasure it gives me to refer to you, sir, as Congressman
Pfluger. It was a real honor to have you here as a military
fellow at the Washington Institute before you took a turn to
politics. Great to see you. I, however, take no responsibility
for whatever you know about terrorism.
I think the Afghanistan bit has to be divided into two
baskets that both come down to renewing our reliability as a
partner, and when I think of partnerships, I think of
partnerships with allies, so alliances, EU, European member
States and others around, and I think of partnerships, the way
we had partners on the ground in Afghanistan, the way we have
partners on the ground in Iraq, the way we have partners on the
ground in Syria.
If I were a U.S. partner on the ground, say, in the Kurdish
areas of Iraq or in northeast Syria, I would be really worried
today about the staying power of the United States. I would be
worried about whether I needed to have some type of backup
plan.
And whether you are in favor of the U.S. having withdrawn
from Afghanistan or not, whether you think the way it was done
was good or not, I think this is something we can all agree on:
The reality is those types of partners are raising eyebrows,
and I have had conversations with people like that. This is
happening.
And the second one is with our allies. It wasn't just the
United States that found itself struggling to get its people
and its allies out, and U.S. military and intelligence agencies
did herculean efforts getting people out in a small amount of
space, but we left our allies in the exact same position, very
suddenly, and it wasn't the first time.
I was in the European capital that December when President
Trump first Tweeted out, We are out of Syria. And they were
really worried and really scared. They had people deployed with
Syria, forward deployed with us based on the ability to rely on
our presence, and they got no forewarning, and we need to do
better in terms of communicating with our allies. As a former
U.S. official, I know we tend to walk into a room and tell
people how it is and how we want it to be. We need to start
walking into a room and start asking, How do you see the
threat? How do you see the problem? And we will get to how we
see it and trying to bridge those gaps where they exist, but I
think we need to be better listeners.
Mr. Pfluger. Well, thank you for that.
Let me switch gears just a little bit and ask you a
question about one of the things that I believe I learned in my
fellowship, which was kind of the way that the Iranian
government, whether it is IRGD Quds Force, or other aspects of
it, will react.
When it comes to Qasem Soleimani, what sort of retaliation
should we be expecting? Has that threat increased? Where--I
mean, if you had the crystal ball, you know, where should we be
looking and how should we be focusing our attentions to prevent
some sort of really bad retaliatory attack?
Dr. Levitt. I lack that crystal ball, but I will say this.
I do think that, while very aggressive, taking out Qasem
Soleimani ultimately led to greater international security. I
think that it is telling that the Shi extremists, Iranian
operatives, and Iran's proxies haven't responded in a massive
international terrorist attack. By the way, of course, they
shot rockets at our soldiers, which is no small matter, but
they also have a very long memory, and I think they are
patient.
The primary thing they want more than anything else as a
legacy of Qasem Soleimani is to kick us out of the region, out
of Iraq in particular. But I do think that we have to be very,
very careful. The same way Lebanese Hezbollah has not forgotten
the operation that took out arch terrorist Imad Mughniyeh in
2008, the Iranians are not going to soon forget the loss of
Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, his Iraqi deputy.
And so I think it is safe to say that the U.S. intelligence
security communities have been focused on it for quite some
time.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you.
I think my time has expired. Please pass my very best to
the entire Washington Institute. Thank you for your time here
and all the panelists.
I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. I thank Mr. Pfluger.
Mr. Schneider, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to all of the
witnesses, thank you for sharing your perspectives here.
Like Mr. Pfluger, I will echo that much of what I learned,
if not all of what I have learned, is from Matt Levitt and in
support of the Washington Institute as well.
But, Dr. Levitt, I want to turn to you with--I have a
couple of questions. The first one deals with Hezbollah. We
have talked a lot. In your written testimony, you talk about
Hezbollah offering a kit in point and navigating complicated
matters across borders. Seven years ago we worked together in
drafting the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act.
It has had great effect in limiting Hezbollah's reach, but they
have been working to get around it.
What would you suggest as specific actions we might take
alone in the U.S., in connection with our partners, to update,
to do more to block Hezbollah and their efforts?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you for the question.
And tremendous pressure, everybody is saying, putting it
all on me. But, look, HIFPA did a lot of things that a lot of
people do not understand. The Lebanese Central Bank issued a
circular after the Hizballah International Financing Prevention
Act was passed instructing banks that they had to follow these
regulations. It had a real impact on Hezbollah's ability to
bank. Hezbollah started storing money, more of the money that
he used to store in Lebanon elsewhere, but it didn't change
Hezbollah's overall financial position in Lebanon. And, in
fact, while Hezbollah is not solely to blame by any stretch of
the imagination for the financial and political implosion in
Lebanon, it is one responsible actor. And one of the issues is
the illicit financial activities that Hezbollah was engaged in
through the banks.
My colleague, Penian Radaurd, just wrote a piece that was
published yesterday arguing that one of the things we need to
do is work more closely with the private sector and the NGO
sector in Lebanon. As the political business and finance
sectors are collapsing in Lebanon, we cannot allow the one last
standing actor by default because it gets so much money from
Iran to be Hezbollah at a time when ironically Hezbollah's
political standing is actually falling.
So Lebanon presents a very, very difficult problem; but I
think one of the areas where we and the Europeans disagree is
would a designation mean that Europeans wouldn't be able to of
have political influence and sway in Lebanon. And I think the
fact that United States has designated all of Hezbollah for a
long time and we clearly have a lot of influence and sway in
Lebanon means that you can.
Mr. Schneider. Great. Thank you for that. I agree we have
to do more, and we will.
Shifting gears a little bit, also in your written testimony
you say, finally, America must address its domestic terrorism
problem, which the FBI director was on the Hill this week
talking about the significant growth we have seen in that. We
have legislation that I have introduced with colleagues, the
Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act that would speak to that.
But I was hoping you could touch on the importance of
bolstering our domestic efforts, law enforcement intelligence,
et cetera, but also coordinating with our international allies
and working with them to ensure that the U.S. isn't a net
exporter of domestic terrorism, like White supremacist
ideologists.
Dr. Levitt. I think we first need to recognize from many of
our allies abroad, they really do feel we have become an
exporter of violent White supremacist extremism, and we need to
get on top of that.
There are lots of ways to do that, and I do not have a
particular this is exactly how to do it. I do think that we
need to have some type of legislation that makes it clear to
everybody that Neo-Nazi or White supremacists or antigovernment
militia, when they carry out acts that are the definition of
terrorism, that is terrorism. So that, for example, Muslim
Americans do not say, well, when someone from our community
does this act, it is terrorism; but when someone from another
community does the exact same act, it is not. We need to fix
that.
But if you even just want to use kind of State or existing
Federal regulations, we have lots of regulations to deal with
almost all types of terrorist activity, with the glaring,
glaring exception of mass shooter attacks, which cannot be, for
technical legal reasons, described as an act of terrorism right
now. And I do think that we need to do a lot more within Second
Amendment protections to address the fact that guns make
terrorism more dangerous in this country.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you. You make an important point. We
do have the statutes on the books to tackle terrorism on the
one hand, but I believe we need to, as the DTPA, Domestic
Terrorism Prevention Act, does, enhance our law enforcement
working with, in this case, the Department of Justice, FBI, and
Department of Homeland Security.
And with that, I am running out of time, so I will yield
back. Thank you all again. This is an issue we have to address
with urgency but also across borders working with our allies. I
thank the witnesses.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative Schneider.
The chair now recognizes Representative Meijer from
Michigan for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
panelists who are here today.
I think this is a really important topic for us to be
discussing, and so I really appreciate that we are taking time
to better understand that transatlantic component on our global
terrorism and just global security mindset here.
So I guess, Mr. Levitt, I have a question for you. You
know, you mentioned that the way in which the U.S. has been
disengaging from our conflicts--and we have seen this in
Afghanistan--how that is really offering opportunities for
global jihadist elements to seize upon the propaganda victory
and boost their own morale.
As we look to rebalance and focus more on great power
conflicts away from the post 9/11 conflicts, how in your mind
do we end those engagements in ways that do not offer a strong
upside for Jihada settlements?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you, sir, for the question.
A lot of it has to do with the how, not the what. And I
think we need to recognize that, by the way, it is not just
Sunni extremists, it is Shi extremists, and it is not just
Islamic extremists, it is White supremacists that are looking
at--if you follow them online, looking at the way things went
down in Afghanistan and saying, look, maybe America is a paper
tiger and you just got to wait them out and we can do this. And
this has been a boon, a shot in the arm for the wide array of
ideologies.
I think the most important thing, which is the core of this
hearing, is how we go about working with allies to do this.
When our allies are deployed with us, when they are at risk,
when they are putting themselves at risk, we need to keep them
completely in the loop, maybe even ask their opinions on how to
go about doing it rather than leave them in a situation where
they are kind of left holding the hot potato. And we have done
this now several times over at least, let's say, two
administrations. If we are going to ask our allies to step up
and put themselves in harm's way, then we have to treat them as
full partners when it comes to making big decisions that are
going to affect their security.
Mr. Meijer. And speaking of that, and I know there has
obviously been a recent rift with France over some procurement
in the Australia, U.K., U.S. alliance that was formed. But also
recently President Macron had mentioned concerns about the ease
of access that especially Middle Eastern based terrorists
moving into the Shenzhen zone and France very much being a
magnet for many of those attacks for a variety of reasons; but
he expressed that concern and that the European Union and
members of the Shenzhen zone may need to undertake and bolster
their border monitoring and other components.
Do you see the U.S. as having a role in that type of
monitoring in those transnational flows, speaking on the
alliance front? And in general, I am curious your thoughts on
how you see our European allies trying to better bolster their
own domestic security?
Dr. Levitt. Well, sir, I am going to be the last, quote/
unquote, expert in Washington to tell you where his expertise
ends, and my ends at submarines, so I won't comment on the
current flare-up between the U.S. and France.
But I do think that one area where the U.S. and our
European allies, partners have had tremendous cooperation. And
Olivier can speak to this firsthand. This is--one of his many
areas of expertise is on this very issue, whether it is
biometrics or information sharing, whether it is pairing up FBI
not only with Interpol but specifically with Europol, the
things that they have been able to do together and specific
investigations of all different types and in shoring up the
borders has been really tremendous. I do think they are going
to have to find ways to backfill behind the types of
intelligence we used to have coming out of Afghanistan that we
are not going to have anymore.
We are not going to go dark. We are going to go dark gray,
and they will find ways to fill that in. But I think that is
something actually that is a success story and that will
continue.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you. I appreciate those responses.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative.
The chair now recognizes Representative Cicilline from
Rhode Island for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chairman Deutch and Chairman
Keating and our ranking members, Wilson and Fitzpatrick for
this really important hearing. And thank you to our witnesses
for your testimony.
As you all know, less than 2 weeks ago we commemorated the
anniversary of September 11, and it is a reminder of our
ongoing responsibility to protect our country from acts of
terrorism.
And I think, you know we have learned a lot. I think we all
recognize that terrorism continues to present itself in
increasingly complicated ways and in new places, and the
digital in particular has allowed us all to be more
interconnected than ever, but also led to great global
cooperation and economic relationships, but it has also in many
ways tested our counterterrorism capabilities as we have seen
that misinformation can quickly lead to radicalization online.
And so, Ms. Ramalingam, you mentioned five or six
components of various European models in combating
radicalization extremism. I assume that there is no reason to
conclude that these same elements ought to be present in models
that we create here in the United States? And in addition to
that, are there any other lessons that we should take from
those examples?
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you, Congressman.
I do believe that all of those points apply here in the
United States. In particular, our terrorism prevention
mechanisms need to be locally driven, and this is the case
whether we are talking about the Jihadist threat or whether we
are talking about White nationalism. It needs to be locally
driven, locally based. It needs to have Federal support but
also local government support.
And, in particular, we need to draw on the existing suite
of practitioners, licensed practitioners who have the
capabilities to have conversations with people at risk.
This is not necessarily about setting up dedicated programs
to counter Jihadism or to counter White supremacy. We need to
be building on those existing State frameworks and resources.
There is going to be some training, some capacity building that
needs to be done for those practitioners to get comfortable
with dealing with cases, you know, with individuals who are
presenting these kinds of ideologies.
But as I have mentioned and others on the panel have
mentioned, this isn't necessarily an ideological battle. This
is fundamentally about dealing with those underlying drivers,
and the solution is going to be local.
So if there is one takeaway from those messages that I
shared in my earlier testimony, it is about supporting at the
local level the development of these kinds of prevention
infrastructures.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
And with respect to the role of the social media platforms,
which we see, you know, kind of what has changed, how quickly,
you know, millions of people can be reached with completely
false information that can assist in accelerating
radicalization, are there specific actions that social media
platforms can or should take to counteract those issue online?
What are those? And then, second, are there specific actions we
should take as the government to help regulate the spread of
misinformation on radicalization on social media platforms,
like Facebook and Twitter?
And if you could start, Ms. Ramalingam, and then I would
like to hear from Mr. Onidi, could he also respond to that.
Ms. Ramalingam. Sure. Happy to start.
So we know that deplatforming works. There is a huge amount
of evidence to show that. An example, Jihadists operating
online have really struggled to rebuild their networks after
the 2019 telegram takedown. There is many other cases here. So
deplatforming works, and the tech companies need to be doing
more of that.
But in order to effectively deal with terrorist abuse on
these platforms and abuse by disinformation actors, we need to
accept that there will always be content that falls into the
gray zone and will not be liable for removal, and there will
always be some spaces on these platforms that are not liable
for moderation.
So with these cases, in addition to moderation efforts--and
I cannot emphasize enough that tech companies need to do better
on moderation, but in addition to that, the tech companies are
in a unique position to offer safer alternatives to users who
might be at risk of getting involved. This is a model that
those companies regularly adopt in the suicide prevention
space, in the child sexual exploitation space. They should be
adopting similar safeguarding measures with audiences at risk
of violent extremism and disinformation.
And I will hand over to Olivier.
Mr. Onidi. Thank you very much.
Consistent with this analysis, I think the first important
point was for all of us, American actors and European actors,
to actually get all of these platforms to recognize that there
was a problem, to recognize that they had a responsibility in
this problem, and also to recognize that some of the choices
they make, some of their commercial choices, but also some of
the technical choices, those actually sometimes lead to
dreadful negative effect.
I take a few examples. The first one, this quest for
introducing systematic and to end encryption. This is very
challenging. Of course, we want to protect the privacy of
private communications; but if encryption does lead for law
enforcement's end or others to be blind in the actual
communications that is being spread across networks, this is
the limit of what can be accepted, and then this is a major
challenge we are now dealing with in the European Union.
The second example is the type of commercially oriented
algorithms that are being used. There is also there quite a
number of dreadful negative effects in the way those algorithms
amplify the quest and the access to negative and dreadful
material. And these are some of the work that we are conducting
with them in order for them to be better at self-correcting
some of the mistakes they are doing.
And then, finally, I think ultimately it is also for us
public authorities to progressively set obligations on the
platforms, obligations to be good citizens, obligations to
recognize that because of the very negative effect some
contents can have, they should also be part of providing some
corrective measures.
Thank you.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you so much.
My time has expired. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative.
The chair now recognizes Representative Wild from
Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is for Mr. Onidi. And specifically, following
the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, where I am right now,
all of us are, and we know that an individual in France
transferred something like $500,000 in Bitcoin to one of the
extremists who was involved in the insurrection before then
dying by suicide, the person who transferred the Bitcoin.
Has there been any investigation by the EU into that
transfer? And can you tell us about it?
Mr. Onidi. I do not know about this case in particular, but
I can tell you that what happened came as a shock to all of us.
It did also confirm very much that work we had initiated across
the Atlantic to actually broaden the kind of understanding of
different motivations, different forms of ideologies being
spread in order to insight violent extremism behavior was
actually the right way to pursue.
And given the very intrinsic cooperation between
investigators on both sides, I am sure that if this transfer
has been monitored, that this is being examined now by the
relevant law enforcement agencies on both sides.
Ms. Wild. But you do not know any details about that?
Mr. Onidi. This particular case, no. I really apologize.
Ms. Wild. Okay. No. That is quite all right.
But following up on what you just said, what can you tell
us about the parallels or the interconnectedness between the
White supremacists, the Neo-Nazis, other extreme organizations
on both sides of the Atlantic and how we can work together to
best combat it?
Mr. Onidi. This is at the heart of what we are working on
for the moment. We are trying--the difficulty with these
individuals are that they do not necessarily--they are not
necessarily very outspoken as to the type of organizations they
are members of. They use also extremely sophisticated ways of
communication.
So the first endeavor we are confronted with is to try to
identify beyond the individuals the type of networks, the type
of organizations they are members of and from that try to see
to what extent those organizations have actually international
connections. In a number of cases, we have seen the physical
travel pattern, communication patterns between the different
organizations known under different names as well, which,
again, incites us to work even more on this because what we
would like to be able to do is, as we have done with known
terrorism groupings ultimately, is to identify those
organizations, designate those organizations as terrorist
organizations in order then to be able to also apply all of the
sanctions that are associated and that are at our disposal from
our legislative framework, so access to violence, deny access
to violence and deny access to traveling, and so on.
It is challenging because those are really new forms of
working together, but it is really at the heart of what they
are doing for the moment.
Ms. Wild. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot see the clock. I assume I am out of
time.
Mr. Keating. Another minute if you would like.
Ms. Wild. All right. Well, then I will followup, Mr. Onidi.
You know, one of the concerns that I have about what is
happening here in the United States is and actually there is a
parallel in Europe as well, and that is increasing public
discourse by elected officials that I believe feeds into this
kind of domestic terrorism, whether it is here in the United
States or in the EU.
Can you comment on that and what the role is of these kinds
of public statements by people who should be leading by example
but are not?
Mr. Onidi. Well, I mean, we are very attached also to
freedom of speech on these facts, so I think we have somewhat
of the same very strong values in terms of protecting freedom
of expressions. What we are trying to do is try to demonstrate
what kind of behavior, what kind of incitement coming from
whoever, is it from a political individual, is it in the
context of other individuals, so that we can actually take
action because we have ways, also criminal ways to pursue when
we have evidence of incitement for hatred, and so on.
It is a very, very difficult field. But, again, it is a lot
of research trying to understand where this incitement comes
from, whether it is from an organization, from the public, also
opinion leaders. Many opinion leaders are also inciting to
conduct a number of arrests, so in spite of the work, we are
doing in order to better understand the different factors and
manifestations of this.
Ms. Wild. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Keating. Thank you for your questions.
The chair recognizes Representative Ted Lieu from
California for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Chairman Keating. I want to thank
Chairman Deutch as well for holding this important joint
hearing, and I want to thank all of the witnesses.
I have a question for Mr. Levitt first about governmental
programs you thought could help with terrorism. Now, I am a
Democrat. I support governmental programs--[inaudible] Come out
of Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Mr. Keating. I think we lost him for a second.
Mr. Lieu. We have got lots of Latinos and African
Americans. It is not like you are seeing a surge of terrorists
coming from the--[inaudible]
Mr. Keating. Representative Lieu, I think we are having
some technical problems. Let's pause, and you can take back
some of your time. See if they correct themselves, otherwise we
can come back. Let's give it another try.
Representative Lieu.
We will come back to Mr. Lieu and work out the technical
problems.
In the meantime, the chair recognizes for 5 minutes the
chair of the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue,
Representative Jim Costa from California.
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
an important subcommittee hearing on issues that are affecting
all of us both in the United States and Europe.
I would like to address my first question to Mr. Pantucci.
The European Commissioner Breton said yesterday that there is a
growing feeling in Europe that something is broken in our
transatlantic relations. As the chair of the Transatlantic
Legislators' Dialogue, I work with Chairman Keating and many
other members.
We meet regularly between ourselves and the European Union,
and we are concerned. Obviously, it has been a tough last 4
years when the President came to Europe in June and said we
are. The recent U.S., U.K. Australia agreement known as AUKUS
has obviously been very disturbing to our longtime ally France,
a critical transatlantic partner.
What effect, if any, do we expect this agreement will have
on our joint U.S.-EU ability to counter new and rising
counterterrorism? Is this something that we can--I know there
was a conversation with President Macron and President Biden
yesterday, but I would like your assessment of it.
Mr. Pantucci?
Mr. Pantucci. Okay. Yes. I thought it was directed to me. I
wasn't sure. Thank you for that question, Chair.
I think my response would be that I think we are seeing a
moment in transatlantic relations wherein, particularly in
France, you have had a lot of anger in response to the
agreement between Australia, the U.S., and the U.K. It was a
very big deal from that perspective.
The announcement of this agreement landed the day before
the European Commission was launching its own Indo-Pacific
strategy. So it landed at a particularly bad moment for
Brussels, and it landed at a particularly bad moment for France
in particular who was ultimately the sort of the biggest loser
from this particular engagement.
Mr. Costa. So what do we need to do to repair things? I
have said--and, you know, the partnership goes back post World
War II is now, I think, a reflection, this relationship, of the
longest peace time in Europe in over 1,000 years. You know,
trust takes awhile to develop. I think we have developed it.
But certainly in the last 4 years, there has been a lot of my
European friends are wondering, you know, can we still count on
America.
Mr. Pantucci. I think, as was pointed out by other
speakers, the key is the United States needs to telegraph its
messaging a little bit more clearly. I think maybe in
Washington this was felt to be understood, but, obviously, it
wasn't understood in Europe. I think at the end of the day,
rebuilding the relationship is saying will just take
communication and time. I think fundamentally the Transatlantic
Alliance remains for both sides and is sort of the bedrock of
their strategic security outlooks.
Mr. Costa. I agree.
Mr. Pantucci. And in time it will come together.
Mr. Costa. All right. I would like Ms. Ramalingam--I do not
know that I have pronounced that properly, but your copy on
Moonshot I was interested in. You have done a lot in terms of
intergovernmental project on far right terrorism in Europe.
Recently we have seen a situation in a number of European
countries, including Portugal, where the Chega party won nearly
12 percent of the vote in 2021.
How does the U.S. and the EU work together to counteract
right wing terrorism, social media, and all the impacts that
are undermining, I think, our basic western democracies or
attempting to undermine them?
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you, Congressman. And your
pronunciation was just fine. Thank you.
The U.S. has a lot to learn actually from our European
partners around prevention of right wing terrorism, White
nationalist terrorism. This is a threat and a problem set that
European governments have been dealing with since prior to 9/
11. And so many of the infrastructures that were developed deal
with White supremacy in Europe have now well over 20 years of
an evidence base around methods of prevention that are going to
be most effective.
Mr. Costa. In Germany and Denmark and a number of
countries, yes.
Ms. Ramalingam. Absolutely, yes. Germany and Sweden in
particular had some of the largest volumes of Neo-Nazis dating
back to the 1990's, and so there is evidence around programs
that were set up by both law enforcement, governments and by
NGO's which we can build on in our own terrorism prevention
mechanism.
So I think one of our main priorities here needs to be
learning, listening to, you know, what has been effective in
Europe and looking at how those models might apply here in the
United States.
Mr. Costa. Do you believe that is being done now?
Ms. Ramalingam. I believe that is being started. I believe
we have just started listening and we have started that process
of recognition that we can learn, that America can learn and
does not necessarily need to be trialing new methods but
learning from the past. I think that recognition is there, but
there is far more that needs to be done.
Mr. Costa. Well, my time has expired. But, Mr. Chairman, in
our next TLD meeting in December, we should maybe make this
part of the agenda, and I am hoping we are going to be able to
work our schedules so we can make that work.
But thank you again, thank the witnesses, and thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for this important hearing.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Costa.
Mr. Lieu, you are recognized if the technology permits.
Mr. Lieu. Chairman Deutch, can you are hear me?
Mr. Deutch. Yes, we can.
Mr. Lieu. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Deutch and Chairman Keating, for
holding this important hearing.
I have a question first for Mr. Levitt. You earlier had
mentioned about governmental programs that could help connect
people to their community and help reduce the threat of
terrorism. I am a Democrat. I support governmental programs.
But what I see is, you know, we have, for example, Skid Row, a
lot of poor homeless folks, but we do not see a surge of
terrorism from folks coming out of Skid Row. We also have high
poverty rates across America particularly among Latino African
Americans, but we are not seeing a surge of terrorists who are
African American Latinos.
I am just curious, what governmental programs are you
referring to? And have they been shown to work?
Dr. Levitt. Thank you for the question, Congressman Lieu.
You are absolutely right, we should take a step back and
note that this is not a problem that is affecting the vast
majority of society. Terrorism is an outsized problem because
very, very few cases of radicalization can lead to very, very
outsized outcomes. And it is not the case that you will have
everything is fine in one community, but there are problems in
another. Every community will have people, because we are all
individuals, we are all human, who even in the same
circumstances, very parallel circumstances will respond
differently.
What we need to do, I believe, is make sure that everybody
in that community is able to access the things we need to get
by, not only food and education and housing, but purpose and
belonging, and that is going to be different for every
different person. I think, for example, now that there are
going to be some significant military drawdowns as we rethink
the U.S. counterterrorism posture, specifically the military
posture, we should anticipate that we are going to have lots of
servicemen, lots of servicewomen coming home. The vast majority
are going to reintegrate into society fairly easily, some are
going to need some help, and some are going to be looking for
that camaraderie and that purpose, and they are going to find
it with an extremist milieu.
So the type of programs I am talking about, I cannot point
you to a specific program. I think it has to be local
government. It should not be a Federal effort. federally we
need to come up with moneys to be able to empower programs at a
local level to make sure that they are not communities that are
disenfranchised.
In Minneapolis we realized that at some point within
segments, not the whole, but within segments of the Somali-
American community, there were pockets of extremism because
they lack these types of belonging and purpose. When we had
three different pilot projects in Minneapolis and L.A. And
Boston, they found very, very different phenomena in each of
those locations around the United States.
So we need to be very locally driven.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
And then my next question is for the panel. I am curious
what you think about the impact of race on terrorism. When you
look at January 6, the folks there, based on a Washington Post
study, showed that they were there--the greatest predictor was
based on the rate of change in their county, if it was
declining in the White population. And if that was happening,
then they would more likely show up on January 6. And I am just
very of curious what folks see in terms of is race playing a
bigger role now than it used to be in terms of terrorism?
Mr. Pantucci. I think it was suggested to the whole panel,
so maybe I will offer my 2 cents.
I think race is clearly a major driver of the kind of
extreme right threat that we see that has become more prominent
recently. But I would say is there has always been an issue
actually on both sides of the coin. And if I think back to the
United Kingdom, if you think about questions of race and you
look at some of the early individuals who were joining al-Qaeda
and who were going to training camps in Afghanistan--and this
was in the 1990's and early 2000's--a lot of them were reports
and experience, you know, the South Asian Britains living in
the United Kingdom, race was an issue that was sort of
aggravating them and making them feel disenfranchised to their
community and making them look to some sort of vexation, some
sort of group that would give them a sense of membership that
then would lead them ultimately to in some cases join al-Qaeda.
So I think the question of race is many times constant, in
many ways a crossover. It is really about people feeling
alienated from their environment, and that is something which
clearly generates problems.
So, yes, it is really about social fabric and social
tensions. And if social tensions are very high, then the fabric
of society gets very aggravated and torn, and that is what
ultimately leads people to look for some extremist groups to
help them understand the world and then to get them to train to
react to it within.
So I think it is really about the social fabric intentions
that really--you know, that race is clearly one of the major
issues that they get picked at.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
And I cannot actually see the time. Do I have any time
left?
Mr. Keating. Well, I think you--why do not you take another
20 or 30 seconds, Representative, because I was so slow with
the switch.
Mr. Lieu. Okay. So thank you.
Again, for the panel, I just want to push back a little bit
on folks who said our allies are surprised by what the U.S.
did. I just have to say the former President campaigned on
getting us out of endless wars, on getting us out of Syria,
getting us out of Afghanistan. No one should be surprised.
Biden also campaigned on that. So I do not know why our allies
were surprised. Joe Biden was simply executing the withdrawal
agreement that Trump signed last year. Trump reduced our troops
from a high of over 15,000 down to 2,500. Biden completed the
withdrawal. None of our allies should be surprised. The U.S. is
simply not going to go engage in 20 years and fight a war
merely for the purpose of trying to eliminate some terrorism.
We are not going to do that anymore. No one should be surprised
by that.
I yield back.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Representative Lieu.
I will now recognize Chairman Deutch who has been terrific,
who somehow pulled this off, if he could coordinate some of our
strategies as well as he overcame some of the challenges of
this hearing, we would be in great shape. But thank you again
for your leadership and for chairing this with our
subcommittee.
And I now recognize Chairman Ted Deutch.
Mr. Deutch. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, Ms. Ramalingam, the transatlantic relationship, the
alliance has experienced significant challenges, and we have
talked a lot about that. Though many members are currently, and
common throughout so many of the members is the experience of
internal struggles related to hate and extremism and the social
media misinformation that fuels it. How, from a transatlantic
perspective, how would you characterize the most urgent needs
for transatlantic cooperation to counter the rapid spread of
online radicalization and extremist propaganda?
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you, Chairman.
There is a lot of work ongoing, international cooperation,
which I would call really soft diplomacy efforts, to try and
nudge the tech companies in the right direction. So the best
example of that is the global internet forum to
counterterrorism, and a lot of the initiatives following
Christchurch.
That sail, from my experience, the tech companies are most
willing to respond in, you know, being very frank, in moments
of tragic. So we saw, you know, after Christchurch and after
January 6 that the tech companies will launch a knee-jerk
reaction or they are willing to respond when governments impose
legal and commercial imperatives to act. Essentially these type
of knee-jerk reactions, inconsistent application of rules and
regulations is very reactive rather than proactive.
I do think that there is hope for America to look to what
has been done internationally in terms of European governments
placing restrictions on the tech companies and looking at the
efficacy of that when it comes to, in fact, fund terrorism
prevention and modernization efforts. You know, I look forward
to seeing the impacts of the soft diplomacy efforts, but, you
know, bearing in mind my own understanding of how the tech
companies are, when the tech companies are most compelled to
act, it tends to be when those legal and commercial imperatives
take precedence.
Mr. Deutch. Okay. So let me followup. If they are good at
responding in the aftermath of tragedy and they respond to
pressure, what is the right way to get them to pay attention to
this before there is another tragedy?
Ms. Ramalingam. So while I am not an expert on big tech,
you know, big tech regulation efforts, from my experience, you
know, governmental pressure does have an impact. You know, the
tech companies are looking at, for example, the designation
lists by the U.S. Government. They look at the FTO lists. They
look at the STGT lists. They are looking at government
regulations, and we can use those kinds of mechanisms to push
the tech companies in the right direction and to ensure that
there is consistent application of their modernization efforts
across different forms of extremism. This is where one of the
greatest gaps has emerged in the last several years. Obviously,
the efforts to designate White supremacist organizations have
really only just been given the attention that they deserve,
but there are some efforts that I think government can take to
push companies in the right direction using those kinds of
levers.
Mr. Deutch. I appreciate that.
Let me just put a question out to the panel. When we are
looking at the current threat landscape, as we try to address
the ways to counter it, where are we seeing the greatest
similarities between the threats facing the U.S. and the
threats facing Europe? And how do we--and can we confirm that
there are, in fact, those shared threats and prioritize them
accordingly?
I will open that up to anyone on the panel.
Mr. Onidi perhaps?
Mr. Onidi. Well, thank you very much.
I think the closest in terms of the manifestation of what
is going on both in the U.S. and in the European Union is the
fact that we do have an increased number of individuals
radicalizing and being led to commit violent acts, and this for
very different idealogical reasons.
And then I think it was extremely well explained by all of
the members of the panel that at the end of the day, the
idealogical thought was just the excuse so to say, the
packaging of why the individual would actually do and commit
such a violent act; but intrinsically the motivations behind
the reasons, the real reasons behind an individual being led to
commit such dreadful acts are exactly the same on both sides.
We are also trying to deploy similar responses, local
responses, responses that use a multitude of expertise, from
the medical side to the actual police side as well. They are
all important in order to better detect and better prevent such
phenomenon. But this is really the essence of what we both are
trying to find merely because these are the most recent and
also the most numerous attacks we have been facing over the
last years.
Mr. Deutch. Okay. I appreciate it. Thanks to all the
witnesses for your participation today.
And thanks again to you, Chairman Keating, and I yield
back.
Mr. Keating. Thank you again, Chairman, for extraordinary
flexibility in coordinating this, and I want to thank our
witnesses again.
Usually I am in a position where I would be the first to
ask questions, but I now realize, you know, it is always a
difficult task ending things up as well. But, you know, the
title of today's hearing is ``Transatlantic Cooperation on
Countering Global Terrorism and Violent Extremism.'' And as we
have heard through this hearing and the testimony of the
witnesses, this is--you know, it is not a homogenous, you know,
type of discussion because it is very distinctive and dynamic
in many ways.
The types of challenges we face are diverse, and the
threats posed are similarly diverse. There is domestic
terrorism. There is individuals and groups engaged in
grievance-based violence. There are those that are inspired.
They are online or through activities within groups to get
involved and engage in this activity. And then around the world
there are so many different types of terrorist organizations. I
mean, you cannot name them all. We are focused so much now on
Islamic States, but we are not looking, you know,
comprehensively sometimes on the challenges we have. There is
Boca Hiram in Africa, Gaza Strip, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
You know, I could go on and on with the number of different
groups.
So my question is to the panel as a whole, but I would like
particularly Ms. Ramalingam to deal with this because part of
it is preventative and deradicalizing people. But how can we
tailor, you know, the kind of actions? And to the whole group
as well, you know, in terms of our resources, in terms of
curbing the violence and deterring, but also in programs of
deradicalization, how can we tailor that or how much can we
tailor that to specific groups and, importantly, by engaging
specific groups in, you know, trying to thwart this activity?
Ms. Ramalingam. Thank you, Chairman. I am happy to start
off and then hand over to the rest of the panel.
My firm belief and based on my experience delivering this
work across Europe is that we do not necessarily need programs
focused on any one particular form of extremism. Yes, there are
going to be cases that arise where idealogy does need to be
addressed, but actually the underlying skills which are
required to deliver this work haven'thing to do with the
idealogy itself.
That said, the most effective programs do pair individuals
at risk with someone who is likely to be credible and trusted
with them. Oftentimes many of the European programs that
operate in the space use former extremists in that space
because, you know, they will have credibility with those
individuals. So that is the area in which those sorts of
programs need to be tailored, and offering that credibility,
credibility will obviously look very different for a White
supremacist than it will be for someone who is at risk for
Jihadism. But, broadly speaking, the underlying skills required
by those practitioners are really behavioral health
methodologies, you know, the skill sets that are required
within the behavioral health field, whether that is psychology,
counseling, social work, or youth work. And fundamentally that
is going to be the basis for any effective program even here in
the United States.
Mr. Keating. Yes. There are some studies, I believe, that
actually mention the value and the multiplier effect and the
effectiveness, the efficacy of issues of this nature more in
the hands in the involvement of women, particularly mothers.
They are often the first educators of their children. They are
often the first people who can spot some of the signs of
radicalization themselves.
How important is it to engage women particularly and
empower women in this effort?
Ms. Ramalingam. Is your question directed at me, Chairman?
Mr. Keating. It would be.
Ms. Ramalingam. I can take it if----
Mr. Keating. But others can chime in, but particularly you,
yes.
Ms. Ramalingam. Great. Great. I am happy to start.
You are absolutely right that family members in particular,
they play a crucial role here, and many of the programs that
were set up in Europe and which are now starting to develop in
the U.S. are actually family counseling programs. These are
programs for, you know, the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers
of people who are at risk who are likely to be the first ones
to spot the signs. So those are very important nodes which can
help us pull people back who are at risk.
Women play an important role in that. I would also want to
mention that we tend to focus our prevention efforts on men. I
think there is an assumption here that men are the ones that
are at greatest risk. We have increasing evidence to show that
women are also involved in these movements, sometimes at high
volumes. In particular, some of Moonshot's research has found
that in the United States 25 percent of people who are engaged
in White supremacy content online are women, who self-identify
as women. So, you know, we cannot ignore women in our
prevention programs, and we do need to ensure we are building
programs that are fit to serve women. And I just want to make
that point as well.
Mr. Keating. Okay. One last thought and then we will
conclude. You know, the European Union and India discussed
multiple ways to evaluate security and strategic partnerships
recently. They included sanctions as a part of this as well.
Just any quick comments from our panel regarding how the U.S.
or the U.S. and our transatlantic allies together can engage
more regional partners outside our own coalition, and what
financial tools do we have to try and thwart this?
Dr. Levitt. I will just jump in as the former Treasury
official on the panel to say we have great financial tools at
our disposal. My concern is that they tend to be seen as a
panacea. And the past few years, they have been used on their
own when they were always meant to be used in tandem with other
tools.
Diplomatic counterterrorism is a real thing, and we need to
be doing a lot more of it. If we do more of it, we will be able
to bring in more regional allies, and we will be able to work
with them and our other allies, including the Europeans, on
issues including, but not limited to the use of sanctions and
other financial tools.
The only other thing I would like to say answering the
previous question is, you know, the panel hears about
countering global violent extremism. Throughout the panel, we
have basically broken it down, but we haven't made it clear.
There is CVE at home, and then there is addressing the
conflicts driving extremism abroad.
I am reminded, and I just looked it up. In 2017, the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence wrote one its global
trends reports. And what it was talking about, what would
significantly impact the future direction of the terrorist
threat, it said, the resolution or continuation of the many
intra and interState conflicts currently underway, most
importantly, the Syrian war, but also the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Sahel, Somalia, Yemen, and
elsewhere will determine the intensity and geography of future
violence.
Our transatlantic cooperation and helping each other
counter violent extremism within one another's borders is that
really good. It is not so great, and it needs improvement on
working together to solve big problems abroad.
Mr. Keating. Thank you. On that note, I think it just
underscores one of the fundamental lessons we learned today
through this hearing is that this is a dynamic problem, and it
requires a dynamic approach.
Merely, as you mentioned, throwing sanctions at the issue,
it could be one tool in the toolbox, but it is certainly not
something to accomplish the goals that we want.
Prevention, involvement, understanding, how this happens,
the fact that this is ideological in so many instances, and we
have to be aware of that, and be aware of how to effectively
deal with that are all things you brought up in your testimony
today as well as the overarching theme that we have a
tremendous advantage here in the U.S. of having a coalition, an
historic coalition, particularly with our European allies and
our trans1rpatlantic partners to deal with this.
So thank you for your participation. I think it was
extraordinarily important, and the perspective was correct, so
I appreciate your involvement here today.
I will advise the members they have 5 days to submit
statements and extraneous material and questions for the record
subject to the length limitations on the rules.
I want to thank the members who participated during such a
difficult time of having concurrent votes for their interest
and their questions. And with that, I call this hearing
adjourned. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 4:09 p.m., the subcommittees were
adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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