exist. yemen is a tactical battleground syria is a tactical battleground and they hold high importance. why we have allowed this to slip away is just an example of how little of a war plan we have. so do you, bob to you, i mean we ve seen saudi arabia s now leading the coalition of nine middle east nations, right? there s arab power coming from saudi arabia uea, kuwait qatar, morocco, and sudan and egypt. do you agree we have have let this happen let yemen slip through the cracks? i mean, we this is a hideous diplomatic failure in the sense that we ve been unable to put together a coalition that involves turkey saudi arabia the gulf states and as much as i hate to say it iran. if everybody s supporting one of the groups and effectively, pushing for a greatup of countries like yemen, syria, and
policing what s going on. if they have people starting to be radicalized, they are the ones who are going to be what do you mean that the fbi has been pulling out? different surveillance units, like you take the intelligence unit in nypd. they are a part of the jttf. the relationship that you have with local police departments when they have a surveillance unit that works inside these mosques and then they are pulled out, that s a huge loss of human intelligence. so when they pull out, that creates a vacuum or a void where we can t see. the islamic community has to then step in and actually police themselves and watch if they don t want to have law enforcement in there, they need to start stepping up to the plate. we know a lot of good leaders have been doing that. there s another troubling part that says an unintended consequence of e defeating isis in syria and iraq would be the
shia leadership in baghdad that will suppress sunnis. that s the end game here. the prime minister of iraq telling an interviewer that look they cannot succeed if isis keeps getting all of these foreigners coming in to help them. foreigners from the west europe other middle eastern countries. now you re hearing it from the top leader in iraq. again, we don t have a strategic battle plan for countering the recruitment process. just here in the united states we have females now that are trying to carry out efforts here in the united states. we also have people that are from all over the place, france all different ages trying to go over there and fight, so i agree there needs to be at the same time we have a strategic battle plan to actually fight in these different tactical areas like syria, tikrit or yemen, there
order as well as step up the antiterrorism campaign. at the end of the day, if you have an open sore like somalia, where you got the shabab armed and trained and getting combat experience you can never entirely protect yourself from attacks like these. what s your assessment of this? they have looked at al shabab as being weakened, try bing to compete with the likes of isis and aqap, for example, the attack 147 killed what s your assessment of the strength of the terrorist organization? the strength is the scariest thing seen so far with the terrorist organization since al qaeda. they have figured out the critical times and the critical areas of these soft targets, and, you know in syria, you have isis that s cutting the heads off a lot of people. here they are literally going to a mall they are going to a college campus. those are attacks that you could easily come over and do in the united states or anywhere on the
saying if isis continues to recruit fighters from all over the world then no army in the middle east will be able to stop or even contain them. on that subject, a new security council report is out on the startling rise of foreign fighters who have joined isis. take a look at these numbers. they are around 22,000 in syria and iraq alone. add to that 6500 in afghanistan and hundreds in yemen and somalia. s that 71% increase in just about a year s time u. this report also warning of the risks of these diverse foreign fighters linking up through social network, social media to exchange ideas, plan future attacks, let s talk about it with fbi agent jonathan gill yan. this was an incredibly important report out of the united nations looking at just how dire the situation is and who robust the recruitment of isis has been. i want to read this quote from the u.n. report. it says, quote, those who eat