Privilege of welcoming a friend of mind peter who has done Ground Breaking work in fighting challenge in the u. K. He has been directing for how long peter . Seven years. Seven years. Hes been one of the goto guys on all Things National security, terrorism, he has done phenomenal research. Last but not least delighted to welcome fernando who is from spain, hes done tons of policy related in terms not only foreign fighter phenomena in spain but also more generally speaking counterterrorism. Bottom line youre not going to get better scholar pra thank you very much, frank. Its a pleasure. Thank you. This is a wonderful turnout. We have reluctant to have an event on a friday morning. Almost august. Peter was more optimistic about the turnout. The star power from fernando helped us to have a wonderful turnout. Thank you very much for coming. The first that the program has had the pleasure to direct here and the center of Homeland Security here. On such an important topic wonderful colleagues and or personal friends. Its really important for us. Thank you for coming here. Were here to discuss the dynamic thats affecting every country. Resident going to syria iraq, at this point going to libya and other places to join isis. Frankly this is not a new phenomena, but the numbers are the big difference. If you look at it from comparative point, the numbers are arguably the first big difference between the two sides of the ocean. European numbers or foreign fighters, of course, the problems in really determining the numbers and finding finding the correct numberses try to go determine that but obviously it is extremely complicated efforts. Law enforcement agencies have a problem doing that. Europeance are much, much larger. If were looking at european setting, 1200 individuals. Even smaller countries like bell bell belgium. These are the numbers given from the government, fbi. 200 individuals traveled or attempted to travel to syria. Were talking about a much smaller number. People went and fought there. The 200 number should be reduced. Here in the u. S. Very legal tools and attitude from Law Enforcement which is for aggressive than in most European Countries. A lot of very effective tactics that the fbi uses and not really used in europe. I would probably suspect that if any european Law Enforcement agency were to use tactics the number of peoples they arrest would be completely different. Why are the numbers so different between europe and the u. S. . I dont think theres just one explanation. Its a combination of factors. First time is logistic difficulties. From europe its easy to reach turkey and syria. It takes 100 euros. It is slightly more complicated and more expensive from the United States. Theres a second reason, it has to do with the fact that in the u. S. We do not see recruiting Networks Like in europe. I think in europe we have significantly more accomplished and sophisticated structures of recruiting networks that do not exist in the United States and even though the internet, social media to some agree substitute. A lot of people would agree that it doesnt complete the facetoface interaction. It does happen in some cases. In the majority of cases you join isis because you have some personal connection to somebody that has personal connections there. Theres a third reason which is more on a macro level very Different Levels between european and american muslim communities. I do not want to overstate the problem, when we see analysis, environment, i think the analysis of the social situation in the Muslim Community and radicalization were exaggerated. There are problems in europe that are significantly higher than in the United States. We do not see in the United States the groups all these groups that have been instrumental in european setting in radicalizing, mobilizing a lot of people in syria. We do not see them in the United States. I would argue there are a lot of differences in terms of dynamics between the two sides of the ocean. In europe, im generalizing, i think we see a lot of clusters and a lot of peertopeer radicalization. The online propaganda has a huge role to play here. But the personal relations that people have are unquestionable. They leave for syria to iraq. If you look at maps where individuals go to syria and iraq from different European Countries come from, you can see that they are not eachly divided from any country. They come from certain towns and certain cities and certain cities in both cities. Generally a human factor there a connection, two or three guys will go first then they call friends, cousins class mates yes, they talk through them to social media. Its personal connection that predates the contact on social media. Its a different dynamic from the United States. You see more scattered individuals here and there less cluster. In the United States on one hand we do see quite case where individuals have no fiscal connection. They radicalize online. Some of the journalistic reports, excellent new york article about this girl in rural Washington State clearly no human, no personal interaction with any cluster but we do see in the United States several cases of small clusters, not on the size of what we see in europe but we see groups of people that radicalize together and mobilize together. Theres been attention as frank was saying, the problem dates back to 2006, 2007. But small clusters throughout the country have been dismantelled. Bosnia. Recently in the last few weeks a group of young individuals in the new york and jersey area and Smaller Group in boston area, group of asians. I think its a misconception to just see the American Foreign fighter seen as scattered individuals here and there. It is indeed more difficult to travel to syria and we do not see the clusters in the u. S. Thats one of the reason that is explains why in the states we are seeing compare today europe the proportion of alone actors, attacks. For example garland. But also other acts which are difficult to characterize. Its difficult to find a clear footprint. Im thinking about chattanooga the attack in new york, beheading in oklahoma. Very strange cases, very difficult to categorize. One could argue that a lot of the individuals in europe would find it much easier to mobilize in syria or iraq. Here they do not find that outlet that easy and might basically let their anger radicalization out in a different way. The final point, im going to wrap it up here the most interesting part is the q. And a. Part here. On both sides particularly on the european side theres been a strengthening of the terrorism spectrum. I would argue in some European Countries major efforts have been made. So if the europeans tell they need to catch up or be harder in traditional counterterrorism side of things, on the u. S. Perspective where there is a Legal Framework that is generally speaking much tougher than in most European Countries what has been lacking on the u. S. Side is the cv part of things. The softer side of the spectrum. It is increasingly seen not just in europe and in the United States. We have been focusing on this aspect. We issued a report when we launched last june about status and counterviolence in america. Basically what we argue that the United States lack behind for a variety of reasons. Theres a strategy but poorly implemented, severely underfunded. And it is clear and this is something that was said in testimony before country by a variety of top Law Enforcement officials we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. And there are cases in which its very difficult to operate with a traditional Law Enforcement tools. In some cases are inadequate. Im thinking about the increasing number of minors that are involved for mobilizing. Theres a lack of evidence in many cases. Im thinking about all the cases of foreign fighters. This is a european fighter and also american fighters. Its clear from an intelligence point of view that that person went to syria and did not go there to do sightseeing. Its much more difficult. Weve seen cases request it was very difficult. One case was interesting. Went to fight in syria was with isis, but there was no evidence to charge him with. He came back to the United States. No evidence to charge him with. He was approached to the traditional fbi and convinced to join al qaeda. Somebody that was not arrested because of what he did fighting in syria but what he was planning on doing, which is going to pakistan to join al qaeda. In that case it worked out. The system in one way or the other worked. Its clear that in some cases theres a problem with evidence for returning foreign fighters. Its not the silver bullet. Its obviously something that in the United States it needs to be strengthen. Theres probably more tangible resources to be put there. Thank you, thank you lorenzo, one of the things peter and fernando, i hope you pick up on returning foreign fighter is an issue. Can you turn some of them around to be defectors and be part of the counternarrative . They should also be criminally prosecuted and if there are nay lessons the u. S. Can learn from that. Im very happy to be here. The reason im talking about this is that my team and i discovered two and a half years ago that brits were going to syria. Not only were they doing that they went there and maintained their online social media profiles, that he maintained instagram and became possible to follow them. We found them exciting and interesting. They were posting dairies from a battlefield. We started broadening that out. We do have a database containing 700 online social media profiles of fighters in syria iraq. We have communicated with hundred of them and done field work with syria. We have a pretty xrens comprehensive idea. On the number size, lorenzo is absolutely right. This is a phenomena that exceeds and surpasses what we have seen before n. The case of europe which represents about 20 of the overall foreign fighter population syria iraq, approximately 4 to 5,000 people. If you look at the distribution of foreign fighters across europe countries, of course, the largest European Countries are producing the greatest numbers. Its particularly the smaller countries that are affected, denmark, holland sweden. There are really three points that i want to talk about. The first is motivation, the second is the idea of online recruitment and thirdly i want to hit on what frank has asked me to talk about. First on the motivation. Its very important that theres no foorn theres a number of motivations. The people who went to syria and iraq in 2012, early 2013 were not necessary all committed extremists. They all had a very strong muslim identitity. They went there because they fared that what was going on in syria was essentially op population of syria carried out by con spir they were being told that if being muslim, you now have to come and defend brothers and sisters. We are on our own and we need you now. That was the print principial recruitment policy. You will see throughout history movements. The threat has been a great mobilizer. However, of course, in 201314 the narrative shifted. A second peak of recruit meant happened about a year ago in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State declared and military successes which motivated people. They were thinking it is coming now. It is real, we have to go there and be part of it. That second way of recruits arguably was more extreme in orientation. In addition to that what we have also seen that since last year, since about august, the start of the campaign, we have seen a reemerge of the west versus islam narrative that had not been that dominant even a year ago when we were doing field work. You almost had to remind them that they were also hating the United States and its western allies which was ironic experience for someone that has been interviewing these people for 1015 years. Also in what lorenzo said that specially for europeance geographical makes it easier to travel. It has been very easy for them to cross the border from turkey into syria. I can tell you, we were going field work there in april 2014 in border towns every taxi driver could tell you where the foreign fighters were staying praying. There are three to four uniform shops. They ask you what group youre with. You say isis, he gives you isis uniform. All this was happening in the open. They were not wanting to crack down out of fare that there maybe a retaliation against them. I hope something is changing about this now. My fare is that the infrastructure of these group is so embedded within that sanctuary that it becomes very, very hard for the turks to really do something about this in a substantive way. My second point is object online recruitment. Online recruitment is something that has featured. We know they have a massive soirr social media. Really the online recruitment aspect is not the most important one. Whats new about what isis is doing online . Well, its not the slick videos. We had videos for many, many years. Its not the beheadings. We had beheadings ten years ago. What is news is, in fact, something thats not directly orchestrated. Its something thats more organic and comes from the bottom up. What is new and that is a fact that is often neglected and forgotten, its possible for wannabe fighters to talk to actual fighters on the ground in the battle zone. Thats in our experience and observation the most powerful aspect of social media. That guy from alabama who was going to somalia and had joined. I think four or five years there was excitement. He would tweet back to you. That was a complete novelty at the time. Right now 600 700 800 talking to people in paris landon everyday. It is their output that gets people most excited. Its easy to see why. The bottom line is that the personal communications from isis make it personal for the wannabe recruits. On the one hand, they create identification. Imagine you are a 20yearold muslim in a deprived suburb of paris and you know that you dont really have lots of opportunities in french societies. You look at the pictures of fighters with guns amongst the brothers heros in that new society. You look at the picture and what do you see, you see yourself someone like yourself, you see someone who is now a hero in that society who is incredibly successful and admired yet who six months ago was someone exactly like you with no prospects in European Society with no hope and probably a life of petty crimes ahead of himself, and that is an incredibly powerful moment when people see pictures and start identifying and communicate with these people. It makes it personal because it creates personal ties. It requires a lot of personal ties. The more risky t the more dangerous, the more ties developed to get the commitment loyalty and create social obligation. Speaking to a fighter enables exactly that. If you speak to a fighter almost everyday, you develop trust he makes time for you you feel honored that he makes so much time for you. Now you have to come over. Its completely different from watching a video from a unanimous person saying, i want you to come over. They extend, for example what lorenzo said. If it was all about the internet, that wouldnt make sense at all because the internet is everywhere. If it was all about the internet the distribution of cases would be equal. In fact, we do see recruitment from small towns. Thats not because of the internet, you have groups of people who went to school together. You have one or two of them going over staying in touch with the people who are still back home and bringing over the rest. That is being replicated everywhere in europe you find the same pattern. It is not the internet for american viewers not football. The actual football. [laughs] my final point thats really important that we get this right. When i gave you the numbers at the beginning i should say, you know, these are not numbers for people currently on the ground. These are figures for everyone that has gone for the past three and a half years. 10 of the people are dead. They have died in battled. 2540 of the numbers that i talked about 2540 depending on the country have already returned to their european home countries. So the current foreignfighter population of britain is not 700. 700 is for the last three and a half years on the ground in syria and iran. Are probably right now 200250. 250 have already returned to the country. The question is, of course, what to do with them. In our observation again, this is informed by our research on this issue, there are three print principial groups. I call them the 3ds. Have been brut brutalize in syria. They may pose a risk even if they are not necessarily part. Then there are the socalled dangerous. Those are the people who are coming back established with military training, International Networks and motivation to carry out attacks in the west. The percentage for that will be 25 . The third group are the so called disillusions. It is important to keep in mind what i said in the beginning. A lot of people, specially at the beginning thought they were joining a different kind of conflict. A lot of people have become disillusioned of how the conflict has turned out. A lot of people also went there long before the islamic faith was established and these people right now are probably dominating amongst the people who are have returned to European Countries. There need to be options other than going to prison for 20, 30, 40 years. My colleague has been forthright in pushing reintegration groups for people who believe they made a mistake and have not committed major crimes. It is something that can be very tough but it actually allows for reintegration. You have three gowms. Groups. Right now the large group undecided. A lot of people have returned. It is unclear what they will do in longte