Call for a separate investigation into eric trumps foundation. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern wednesday morning, join the discussion. Counterterrorism coordinator was at the Washington Institute for a look at how western societies can counter violent extremism and radical ideologies to help prevent terrorism. It ran about an hour and a half. Good afternoon, everybody, welcome to the Washington Institute for news policy. Im matt left, i direct the steven program on counterterrorism and intelligence here at the institute. And im very pleased to welcome you all for the latest in our stein counterterrorism lecture series. Today islamic terrorism in the west and we have a fantastic panel for you. Well start with dick shoof, served for National Coordinator for security and counterterrorism in the netherlands since spring 2013, with responsibility for crisis management, cyber security, and related efforts. And he previously served as the director general of the police force and created the European Unions road map on information sharing. Were then going to have some comments, by myself, and by my two friends and colleagues, Mohamed Fraser Raheem and farrah pendant. Mohamed is the new executive director for north america for the londonbased counterextre counterextremism foundation. He spent several years in u. S. Government service including posts at the National Counterterrorism center and the department of Homeland Security. He is currently finalizing his ph. D. At Howard University focussing on muslim communities in the west and islamist intellectual history and if i may, congratulations on submitting the dissertation this morning. Been there, done that, thats a momentous thing. Thank you very much. [ applause ] farrah and i go back quite a ways. We were graduate students together. Second tell some stories about me, i need to behave. She is an author and policy strategist in the field of countering violent extreechlism. She was named the first ever special representative to muslim communities. Served at the state department in other capacities including working for dan freed on europe. Served at the state department in the george w. Bush administration. Im very, very pleased and honored to be sharing a podium with the three of you. Well start with the prepared remarks and ill moderate a question and answer session for the rest of the time. The podium is yours. Im sorry, also i forgot, i led by example and shut off my phone. If you could do the same, thatd be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have seen brutal texts in brussels, paris, london,stock home, manchester and again two weeks ago in london. The United States have seen attacks as well, new york, boston, san bernardino, florida, over the recent years and months. What we see is the moe tie op ran day differ. The number of casualties is different. The targets are different. And the terror is different. Some of the attacks are directed and organized from outside of our countries. Others are committed by home grown actors, youngsters from our own neighborhood inspired by the social media on the internet. Yet, the attack has one crucial factor in common. Fear. The attackers want to create fear. They want to intimidate ordinary people. To prevent people from florida from going to a nightclub. To prevent people from manchester from going to a concert. To prevent people from new york, amsterdam, for taking a subway or bus to work. In short, to prevent people from living their lives and by so doing, undermine or democratic and open society. A dutch researcher used the word theater as a metaphor to describe terrorism. Theater of fear she called it. Terrorists want the publics, the audience attention. Regardless of the time and place, creating fear is the main driver of the play. And i think shes right. She made the same, the play is different. To effectively intervene means having to know the communities they grew up in. It means we have to know the local organizations, and it means we have to know the website and social media thatll that are being used to influence youngsters. It also means understanding the ideology, that is a sectarian version of islam. A in short, we have to Work Together at the local level, at the national level, in cyber and in real life, and of course across the border. The question is often posted to me as a National Coordinator for security and counterterrorism these days is, why has the netherlands still not been hit by any attacker . Your Police Service are effective. Or your local Community Programs as successful . Ladies and gentlemen, yes, they are. But, the terrorist threat facing the netherlands reskinneds the threat facing the rest of us in europe. The chance of an attack in nether slands real, as real as in any other country in europe. And that is why we have set our threat level at substantial, four out of five, and the last one five, is critical, an attack is immediate. To say we have the most effective instruments, the smartest people, or the best intelligence and therefore we escaped an attack could be close to a pact with the devil. I would like to emphasize, an attack in the netherlands such has happened in the countries around us, in the uk, germany, belgium, in france, is very much conceived. Stopping terrorists is a key priority for the netherlands. We take a comprehensive approach, this includes prevention as well as repression. And connecting the local communities. The different approach invoking a potential terrorist passport or even his nationality. You are faced with a complex threat. It is more complex than a few years ago. More of an effort we go, we have to deal with different kinds of threats. Using several ways of communication, some well prepared, some using simple mop ran die. It is a key factor of the threat to the west. Be it through planned attacks or inspired files. But also both capable and has intent to commit terrorist attacks in the west and against western targets abroad. Domestically, partfully reaction to deal with the threat, we see an increased right of extremism and partly in response of that again, attention in our societys growing. As i mentioned before, the threat level for the netherlands remains substantial. Meaning that we considered for the attack to be real, there are no specific and the astack being prepared. The attacks in brussels, paris, berlin, manchester, and london once again show us that the work of terrorist does not stop at national borders. Terrorists ignore borders. They travel from one country to the other, often by plane, bus, train, or by car. Influence by Jihadi Networks and individual fighters, residing in other countries or regions. To give you a number, in europe, we are talk of an estimated 4,000 terrorist fighters in a population of 750 million people. But we also see home grown terrorists. Those who did not travel to the isis territory, but stayed and planned or carried out terrorist attacks. Another development is one of the biggest paradoxes facing us. While isis is losing territory, and importantly this will does not diminish the threat of attacks against the west also the threat is sustainable. Because of the setbacks on the battlefield, its level is even increasing. Now that isis is losing ground, there is a significant chance that more jihadist will return home or move to the conflict areas. The numbers will differ from each member but for the netherlands, a few dozen seems like a realistic scenario. They wont return at once, but over an extended period. The threat is also constantly e vovling, getting even more complex because isis is renewing itself, modernizing continuity, but theyre using drones as syria and iraq. And theyre getting more professional online. Making it harder for us to detect and easier for adults and children to fall prey. Facing these, how do we in the netherlands counterterrorism and extremism . A number of Strategic Principles that together form the main pillars of our strategy. Our approach is threatbased and comprehensive. Internationally and domestic strength. It is aimed at that. By comprehensiveness, focus on preventive and repressive measures. Countering violent extremisextr. The key point of the departure is that no one is born a terrorist. People, youngsters, become terrorists under the influence of others. Be it through internet or your own neighborhoods. Early identification, and intervention are key to preventing and combatting radicalization. In order to do so, local and National Authorities and other organizations involved work closely together. Simple Society Organizations say communities are important partners. I read a recent policy note by the Washington Institute that agreed with us. That in order to defeat ideology, inspired violent extremism and the involvement of local community is key, if im quoting correctly. Indications to the netherlands and one of the organizations were local workers picks up a signal for potential radicalization, he or she is discussing a socalled Case Management team. In these teams, police, members of local government and the Office Shared information of person of concern, both those in the netherlands and those who join terrorist organizations since its isis abroad. Depending on that, members of the child care and protection board of Mental Health or to Rehabilitation Services may join the system. We have implemented a set of matches to effectively combat terrorism. Recently free laws to expand to combat terrorism. In an interest, in the interest of national security, it is for example possible to revoke some of the citizenship in case of dual nationality. Another measure is impose a periodic duty to report or exclusion restraining order for certain high risk locations. For example, international airports. This can be enforced by ankle bracelet. And also returning foreign terrorist fighters we have set measures we can take. Those who returned are immediately arrested. They were questioned and possibly persecuted on the basis of a criminal investigation. At the same time, we make an assessment of the threat that is posed by either. What is the reason by someone returned . Will he continue his or her fight from the west or within. Is he or she likely to plan an attack . It is decided which interventions are best suited to minimize the potential threat. Some measures have pretrial retention or incarceration of for example, mentioned her reporting duty, restraining order and inclusion. When we prosecute but someone can still pose a threat, the authorities will keep a check on someone. Let me make one more point, the importance of communication. We believe that an open and Effective Communication about gun threat that new development from the public is extremely important. We believe that by sharing our threat analysis four times a year, we make the public more aware and more able to create a right mindset about the threat. We think that it could be more capable of dealing with the news and the horrifying pictures we see on the internet. We are aware of course that this opened way of communication might raise some questions. I recently gave the Free University in amsterdam, a 20yearold asked me why my organization had warned about a sign, socalled sign relating to terrorism regarding it in amsterdam. And she told me about the sign she had been relaxed and ready to a great day with her friends, but she felt concerned. Would she still be able to enjoy the authorities a the home for security reasons. My answer to her question about why we warned was the National Coordinator on security and counterterrorism. I give the honest assessment, i want to be as open as possible about this. Not to create fear. In order to create a mindset to help people and something does happen, now my message we cannot guarantee that an attack will not happen. We will do everything that we will to prevent them and we actually will do. We do not want people to be paranoid, we do want people to be not to be naive either. We do not want to create fear, but we do want people to be alert. Let me be politically correct, i started by telling about the text both our continents have had to endure. We share a number of the same problems. It might be inspired through the internet or influence. The institute indicates, we knew to get, we need to get ahead of the curve. And countering terrorism and extremists and lets Work Together. Thats a change best practices from our own experience and let us be alert, but not alarmed. Thank you very much. [ applause ] we have faif minutes. So first and foremost, i want to thank the Washington Institute for the policy and particularly matt who is a good friend as it relates to the complex issues that were all trying to make sense of. And i also wanted to highlight the role, particularly if you arent familiar with us, we are not in north america, and i am the new north America Executive director. And our work is directing counterextremism. I would say that extremists are adapting and learning more than ever as a veteran ct analyst and advisor, ive seen the evolution from a large scale spectacular attacks to low technology, high impact terrorism. And also weve seen the evolution of groups themselves that are carried out extreme religious to now the emergence of based on open source reporting that drugs are painkiller used by isis fighters to increase the battlefield resilience is used more so. In addition i think its important to look at research and literature on the impact that these groups have had on the west itself, Something Worthy to continue to provide Evidence Based Research in this field in particular, according to to the pew research center, it found that 45 of the Muslim American community earns less than 35,000 a year. This is close to the legal poverty line. The numbers demystify to Muslim Americans, one, the fact that 45 are either poor or working class, it conflicts that the conflicts with the Muslim Community is solely a wealthy community and that though sometimes muslims labeled as terrorists that Muslim Americans are muslimen minority compared to them in europe. What does this mean . What populations are being radicalized if any, and does extremism correlate to poverty or are there other factors to be involved . Ill leave that open, but something to consider as well. First and foremost based on the title of todays briefing is terrorism in the west. We dont want to con flat violent extremism with musz limb beliefs. As a practicing muslim myself who is observing ramadan who was trained in academic institutions in the u. S. And islamic theological centers throughout the middle east and syria and i can speak firsthand, we must be precise in when we describe the threat that we are talking about in the first place. For definitional purposes, and from our optic islam is a world view. Its a value system, its a belief system practiced by 1. 5 billion muslims, it is a believed practice by muslims who were the first one who practiced the muslim faith and right in georgetown, washington, d. C. , we have 1752 who arrived in georgetown and his picture is now in the american portrait gallery. So there is a legacy and experience from being here in the beginning. Islamists or islamism is a supporting a interpretation of islam that is narrow, rigid, that is strict, that is mostly legalistic. This has modern manifestations throughout the world. There are outward manifestations and groups vary. Some of these groups are gateway types, groups to larger and more brutal do groups like aq, al qaeda, and isis. Lastly the ideology is again this is sort of the optic point and everyone may have different viewpoints on it. Islamists ideology combined with theology creates the modern manifestation of jihadism. This intellectual, social, and Practical Movement now has preachers and emerging body of islamic literature and movement to justify their legitimate interpretation of islam that should. Practiced in some instances as an emerging school of islamic thought or juris prudence. Now, what does this mean . Lets be clear, theres a clear distinction between conservatism and ultra conservatism and solid jihadism. In many circles, theres a difficulty to distinguish what is in fact conservatism if you allow me, we are finishing up a report and parse out this nuance. The center of the agenda is their beliefs. And which despite pushback is rooted in strong theological grounds. So we have to be very clear that there are basis for individuals, rational in their thinking too as well. I wont bore you on that, but we can all agree that there is some core believes that they all agree, whether youre jihadism or jihadist going down this path of violence. Just one of two Core Principles and i mentioned this specifically as we relate to this conversation, which sought to purify the islamic theism of muslims which was interpretations, et cetera and this is a concept is the idea of returning to the way which removes islam according to mohamed and his companions into the way which led to the emergence of schools of thought. The last category that the regardless if they are jihadies or not, but including south of jihadism have forgotten is this concept of spare chore, ethical components, it rests on the works like a wellknown narrater. And other individuals as well. And unfortunately, weve seen sort of this pushback in light of this dichotomy between somivism. I say all of this to say without parsing out the nuance in the west that we are missing out on an opportunity to engage perhaps a population as recruiters seek to promote islam and the broader muslim world. Islamists create a muslim state and pan Islamic State idea