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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Aug 06 2010 - 09:54:03 EDT
Briefing on the Release of Country Reports on Terrorism for 2009
Daniel Benjamin
Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Russ Travers, Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Washington, DC
August 6, 2010
Video: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2010/145734.htm
_____
MR. CROWLEY: Good afternoon and welcome to the Department of State. We're
going to do a two-part briefing today. First, I will brief you on the
congressionally mandated Country
<http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2009/index.htm> Reports on Terrorism for
2009. We'll take a filing break and then we'll come back with your regularly
scheduled programming. But to start off, we have two of the country's most
distinguished counterterrorism experts here to help understand the current
trends in global terrorism. Our coordinator of the office of
counterterrorism here at the Department of State, Ambassador Dan Benjamin
and the Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC,
Russ Travers. But we'll start with Dan Benjamin first.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Thank you very much P.J. and good afternoon. Thanks for
coming to this briefing. Beside filling a congressional mandate, Country
Reports on Terrorism 2009 gives us an opportunity to review counterterrorism
events worldwide. We hope the report will stimulate discussion and serve as
a useful tool for policy makers, the American public, and our international
partners.
Please do bear in mind that the report covers events that occurred from
January 1 to December 31st of 2009. As you know, this report was originally
scheduled to be released on April 30th. The delay was to ensure that the
report was accurate, comprehensible, and as readable as possible.
The first chapter of the report provides a strategic overview of the
terrorist threat to the United States and U.S. interests abroad, as well as
a description of the setbacks and advances of al-Qaida and its affiliates.
The report also includes a country-by-country discussion of foreign
government counterterrorism cooperation, as well as chapters on WMD
terrorism, state sponsors of terrorism, safe havens, and designated foreign
terrorist organizations.
Al-Qaida's core in Pakistan remained, during 2009, the most formidable
terrorist organization targeting the United States. It has proven to be an
adaptable and resilient terrorist group whose desire to attack the United
States and U.S. interests abroad remains strong. We assess that al-Qaida was
actively engaged in operational planning against the United States and
continued recruiting, training, and deploying operatives, including
individuals from Western Europe and North America.
That said, al-Qaida suffered some notable setbacks in 2009. The group
remained under great pressure in Pakistan due to Pakistani military
operations aimed at eliminating militant strongholds in the federally
administered tribal areas. Al-Qaida faced a number of significant leadership
losses, and as a result, found it more difficult to raise money, train
recruits, and plan attacks outside of the region. The group also continued
to suffer from widespread Muslim disaffection due to recent and past
indiscriminate targeting of Muslims by its operatives and allies in Algeria,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The number of
conservative clerics and former militants speaking out against the
organization has increased considerably.
Despite these setbacks to the core leadership, the broader al-Qaida threat
has become more dispersed and more geographically diversified, which served
partially at least to offset the losses suffered by the core group. We saw
this most dramatically with the attempted December 25th bombing of a U.S.
commercial airliner destined for Detroit. This incident demonstrated that at
least one affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has not just the
will but also the capability to launch a strike targeting the United States
at home.
We've learned something else important in the last year: The assumption that
Americans have some special immunity to al-Qaida's ideology was dispelled.
While our overall domestic radicalization problem remains significantly less
than in many Western nations, several high profile cases demonstrate that we
must remain vigilant. As you know, five Americans from nearby Virginia were
arrested, tried, and found guilty in Pakistan of terrorist-related offenses.
We have also seen Americans traveling to Somalia to join al-Shabaab and of
course, just today, we had the indictments of 14 more individuals in
terrorism-related cases as well as another one in Chicago yesterday.
We've also seen U.S. citizens rise to prominence as proponents of violent
extremism. The native Californian, Adam Gadahn, has become an al-Qaida
spokesman enabling the group to increasingly target its propaganda to
Western audiences. Omar Hammami, an American who grew up in Alabama has
become an important al-Shabaab voice on the internet. The most notable of
these, however, is Yemeni-American Anwar al-Aulaki, who has catalyzed a pool
of potential recruits that others had failed to reach. The most important of
these of course was Umar - not an American - but the most important person
whom he touched, shall we say, was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and was
involved in his attempted detonation of an incendiary device aboard
Northwest Airlines flight 253.
We should make no mistake about the nature of Aulaki - this is not just an
ideologue, but someone at the heart of a group plotting terrorist acts
against Americans. In mid-July, Aulaki was designated by the Treasury
Department under special - under executive order 13224 - and was added a few
days later to the UN 1267 Committee's consolidated list of individuals and
entities associated with al-Qaida or the Taliban. The UN 1267 Committee's
listing of Aulaki requires all UN member states to implement an asset
freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo against him, and highlighted the threat
he poses to the international community.
Other than al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, some of al-Qaida's other most
active allies were in Africa. In Somalia, several al-Shabaab leaders have
publicly proclaimed loyalty to al-Qaida and al-Shabaab has carried out
numerous violent acts inside Somalia and is responsible for the
assassination of a number of Somalia peace activists, international aid
workers, civil society figures, and journalists. The July 11 Kampala attack
for which al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility left 74 dead and 70 injured,
and appears to be the first terrorist operation that the group has carried
out outside of Somalia.
In the Sahel in North Africa, operatives from al-Qaida in the Islamic
Maghreb kidnapped foreigners, sometimes working with individual local
tribesmen and nomads. Its operations along under-governed borders has posed
a challenge to coordinated state responses. And I would like to note that it
is not only in the Sahel that we have seen a move toward kidnapping for
ransom, we've also seen that in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and
Yemen. We are urging our partners around the world to adopt a no-concessions
policy towards hostage takers so that we can diminish this alternative
funding stream in these different regions.
Compounding the threat of terrorist organizations is the active or tacit
support of states. Iran has long been the foremost state sponsor of
terrorism, supporting Hezbollah as well as Hamas and other Palestinian
rejectionist groups. Iran's financial, material, and logistic support for
terrorist and militant groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia
has had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace. It has
threatened the economic stability in the Gulf and has jeopardized the
tenuous peace in Southern Lebanon, and undermined the growth of democracy.
Syria has also provided political and military support to Hezbollah in
Lebanon and allowed Iran to resupply this organization with weapons. It has
provided safe haven as well as political and other support to a number of
designated Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General
Command.
In our counterterrorism efforts, defense is, of course, an essential part of
the equation. But another equally vital part of the equation is engaging
with other countries that are being used as platforms by terrorists and
working with them to contain, reduce, and eliminate these threats. Given
what we have seen over the last few years, Pakistan and Yemen are today the
countries of greatest concern, so let me speak to you briefly about our
efforts with these countries.
Pakistan, we must all remember, is a front line counterterrorism partner.
More al-Qaida operatives have been killed or captured in Pakistan than
anywhere else. The people of Pakistan, from political leaders to soldiers to
ordinary citizens, have been targets of Pakistani terrorists. We respect the
sacrifices that Pakistan has made in combating terrorists and in its resolve
to combat those who undermine the stability of the country and seek to block
its progress. We provide a spectrum of assistance to Pakistani
counterterrorism campaigns, which range from police training to anti-money
laundering efforts.
Over the past year, the U.S. Government has seen very encouraging signs that
Pakistan not only recognizes the severity of the threat from violent
extremists, but is actively working to counter and constrain it. Pakistani
military operations in Swat and Waziristan have eliminated militant
strongholds and damaged the operational abilities of extremist groups.
Moreover, we are seeing increasing cross-border cooperation with Afghanistan
and ISAF forces, which is instrumental for reducing key militant safe
havens. In the wake of the Pakistan military's operations in Swat, we've
seen public opinion turn more decisively against the militants.
In late March, with the beginning of the Strategic Dialogue with Pakistan,
we started a new phase in our partnership. In the initial meeting of the
Strategic Dialogue with Secretary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister
Qureshi, the Secretary underscored the commitment of the United States to
stand with Pakistan as it confronts its challenges and, along with Foreign
Minister Qureshi, she reaffirmed our support for the people and the
Government of Afghanistan.
While our partnership with Pakistan extends well beyond security issues, the
discussions in the Strategic Dialogue generated new momentum and mutual
trust to jointly tackle the extremist groups who threaten both Pakistan's
security and American security.
And I should mention that I recently returned from co-chairing the Law
Enforcement and Counterterrorism Working Group of the Strategic Dialogue.
This working group, which included representatives from FBI, the Department
of Justice, Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security, focused on
three main issues: establishing a cooperative law enforcement framework,
illicit finance, and border security.
Let me turn to Yemen. We recognize that al-Qaida has taken advantage of
insecurity in various regions of Yemen that have been worsened by internal
conflicts. We also know that Yemen is grappling with serious poverty and is
the poorest country in the Arab world. The lack of resources inhibits good
governance, the delivery of services and the effectiveness of the security
provision that is needed to deal with terrorism. So to have any chance of
success, U.S. counterterrorism policy has to be conceived in strategic and
not merely tactical terms. That's why the Administration has adopted a
two-pronged strategy for Yemen: helping the government confront the
immediate security concern of al-Qaida and mitigating the serious political,
economic, and governance issues that the country faces over the long term.
What we are doing in Yemen, what we are doing in Pakistan, and what we are
doing in many other countries around the world is building capacity.
Consistent diplomatic engagement among counterparts and senior leaders helps
to build a common agenda for counterterrorism objectives. We must recognize
that one of the central challenges to our security is that weak states serve
as breeding grounds for terrorism and instability. And when there is a
recognition that these gaps exist, we can help with specific
capacity-building programs.
We are committed to addressing these state shortcomings that allow
terrorists to operate freely by promoting effective civilian law
enforcement, good governance, and the rule of law, as well as the delivery
of the public's - public services to the general population.
Capacity-building also includes counterterrorist finance training. It
represents a whole-of-government approach to this problem. You can read more
about our multilateral and capacity-building efforts in Chapter 5 of the
report.
The global nature of the common challenge we face is clear: Citizens from
dozens of countries around the world, the vast majority of them not from the
United States, are being victimized by terrorism. As President Obama and his
fellow G-8 leaders reiterated during the recent Muskoka Summit, we are also
working to deepen and broaden the multilateral counterterrorism umbrella and
to meet the President's charge to innovate and improve the international
architecture for the threats of the 21st century.
Well, there's much more that we could say about what we are doing on
counterterrorism, but at this time, I'd like to turn the lectern over to the
National Counterterrorism Center's Russ Travers to talk about the
statistical annex. And I look forward to your questions after his
explanation of the numbers.
MR. TRAVERS: Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon. Each year, NCTC compiles
statistics in support of country reports, and what I'm going to do is go
through a series of charts to give you a very broad overview of our
conclusions. The charts will be available, I think, at the end so that you
can - don't really have to take notes on the PowerPoint themselves.
Two methodological points: First, we use the statutory definition of
terrorism, so that's premeditated, politically motivated violence directed
against non-combatants. It's a very broad definition. And as a result, we
count things like insurgencies directed against civilians. We've used this
methodology now for five years. Other important point - you don't count
things like attacks in Iraq against U.S. and military. So as a result,
Afghanistan and military attacks directed in its military don't count.
It can be a little arcane. The methodology itself is explained in great
detail at our nctc.gov website. All the numbers, all the PowerPoint, all the
actual incidents - there's a mapping routine. It's a very user-friendly
website - encourage if you want to parse the numbers in a different way -
there's a great deal of data on the website.
Okay, next please. Global totals, 2005-2009, the blue incidents - red the
fatalities. Take a look. We're roughly 11,000 total incidents, roughly
15,000 total fatalities. In both cases the numbers are down a few percentage
points from last year. We've emphasized for several years now that global
totals are not a particularly useful way of measuring success against
terrorists. Why? We've got roughly 250 groups catalogued last year in 83
different countries - different agenda, different locations. Adding them up
just doesn't mean very much. So we feel that you really have to start
disaggregating by region and country. So I'm going to peel the onion back a
little bit. Next.
Here you've got a regional breakout - six regions across the x-axis, the
incidents on the y-axis. The color codes for the bars are the last five
years of data. Take away two different things: First, most of the activity,
as has been the case for the last several years, has been in the Near East
and South Asia. This past year it was about 75 percent.
Another point to make, if you notice in the Middle East, what we've seen
over the last three or four years is a pretty substantial decline in total
number of incidents. And in South Asia, incident totals have crept up, so
that for the first year, last year since we've been doing this at least,
South Asia has proven to be more violent than the Middle East; the rest of
the world basically flat.
Now, within the total global totals, three countries drive the numbers -
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan account for about 60 percent of total
attacks and fatalities. So what I'll do is burrow down a little bit more.
Next, please.
Here, Iraq continues to be the country with the most attacks and most
fatalities. We were looking last year at about 2,500 attacks, about 3,600
deaths. But focus on the five-year graph that you see in the middle. What
we've seen are very substantial increases in 2005-2006, and equally
substantial declines in '07, to a lesser degree 2008 and 2009. And then, as
you can see in the chart, we're looking at about a 60 percent decline in
attacks since 2007, and fatalities themselves down about 75 percent.
There has been some reporting in the press over the last few weeks that
we're seeing a substantial increase in 2010; that's simply not the case. Our
data is out on the website for the first quarter of 2010 and you certainly
see no increase, and even in the - we're quality controlling this past three
months, but you don't see any particular increase.
I'll be happy to answer questions about that if you've got - at the end.
And the heat map on the right-hand side gives you a sense of where the
attacks have been located. For the most part, it's Baghdad up to the Nineveh
province and that area in between. And that's been largely the case over the
last few years.
Next please.
Afghanistan and Pakistan, they account together for about a third of the
total global attacks, and here again the heat map. The region immediately
adjacent to the Af-Pak border has been where most of the attacks have
occurred. In the case of Afghanistan, we've looked at a pretty substantial
increase this past year: 21,000 attacks, almost 7,000 casualties, that is
fatalities and people that are wounded, IEDs very much the weapon of choice.
Something like a three-quarters increase in IED attacks this past year.
And we're also seeing substantial increasingly sophisticated tactical
operations so that we may see a great deal of the literature now focusing on
the Mumbai attacks from a couple of years ago in India and a lot of
terrorist discussion about how to go about conducting those kinds of attacks
so that we would see things like multiple targets, the use of diversionary
attacks. Perhaps in the case of Afghanistan, the individuals in ANA uniform,
Afghan National Army uniforms, the use of ambulances to evade individuals
being watched. They'll try to breach the defensive compound, get inside a
building, use small arms and explosives, maybe attack quick reaction forces
and then have suicide bombs to evade capture. So a gradual increase in the
level of tactical sophistication.
In the case of Pakistan on the right, the growth of attacks relatively
small, but we did see almost a 30 percent growth in the number of
casualties. It frankly could have been far worse. As Dan suggested, the
number - the amount of Pakistani pressure on the militants substantially
lowered our estimate where we were in kind of mid-2009. We were on par for a
substantially worse year, but the militants were very much under pressure as
a result of the Pak military operations.
Still for the first time, Pakistan slightly surpassed Iraq in terms of the
large-scale attacks; that is attacks in which more than 10 people were
killed, and also surpassed Iraq in terms of number of suicide bombings. As
in Afghanistan, we saw numerous large-scale attacks coordinated: the Pearl
Continental Hotel, the Sri Lankan cricket team, ISI buildings, police
(inaudible). So a substantial number of combined attacks by militants in
Pakistan. And we also saw and continue to see a growth in the attacks in the
settled areas. So that in 2005 in what was - used to be called the
North-West Frontier Province, we had 16 attacks. Last year we had 940 -
increase by a factor of 50 over the last several years.
Next please.
Okay, so Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan were 60 percent of the total. Here's
the rest of the world. The other 40 percent, as Dan suggested, the U.S., the
main story here has to be the growth in Islamic extremist attacks
culminating in the failed attack on Christmas Day. In total, 25 Americans
either in the United States or abroad in the non-combatant status lost their
lives. In South America, the story is largely the FARC. Here an organization
under intense pressure. We see substantial numbers of people just leaving,
melding back into the population. They're under great pressure, but they
were able to conduct an increased number of attacks last year.
Africa - Dan already talked to Shabaab a little bit in Somalia, the
organization that conducted the Uganda attacks. They were second only to the
Taliban last year in terms of the number of attacks claimed. The other major
organization in Africa was a Christian extremist organization, the Lord's
Resistance Army that conducted heinous attacks in Uganda, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, and Southern Sudan. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in
the Middle East operating out of Yemen conducted attacks not only in Yemen,
but also an attempted attack against the Saudi royal family and certainly
inspired attacks in the United States. And the other important organization
in the Middle East in the Maghreb, al-Qaida and the Islamic Maghreb - here
under tremendous pressure in Algeria proper, we saw the fewest number of
attacks during the month of Ramadan that we'd seen in 10 years. Algerian
security forces have done a very good job in Algeria proper and as a result
AQIM is pushing to the south in the Sahel - Mauritania, Niger, Mali, an
increasing number of attacks there.
Case of Russia, the story is largely about the Caucasus Emirate. Doku
Umarov, the head of the organization, indicated that he was going to
reestablish the suicide brigade last year, and he did. They had 15 suicide
attacks conducted by the Caucasus Emirate, far, far more than we had seen in
the last several number of years combined. He also said that he was going to
carry attacks to the Russian heartland and he did that with the Nevsky
Express train attack last fall.
And lastly in Asia, mixed picture. We saw the first substantial attacks in
Indonesia against the two hotels, the Ritz Carlton and the Marriott were
really the first attacks in several years followed by some pretty
substantial counterterrorism operations in Indonesia. India witnessed growth
in the numbers. However, they were largely Naxalite, Maoist attacks. We
didn't see anything like the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba or any Mujahedin attacks that
we had seen in 2008. And in Sri Lanka and Philippines, both countries'
attacks were down substantially. Though, the Maguindanao Massacre in which,
I think, 34 press members lost their lives; by far the most significant
attack on the press that we've ever seen, at least that we've ever
cataloged.
Next please.
And lastly, let me take a quick functional look at attack methods. The upper
left-hand corner, you see the graph that tracks suicide attacks. They peaked
to something over 500 in 2007, 2008 down 25 percent to 400, and last year
down to right around 300. As I suggested earlier, both Afghanistan and
Pakistan had more suicide attacks than did Iraq last year. The focus is
often on suicide attacks, but frankly, the armed attacks and bombings
predominate around the world and always have.
In terms of the largest attacks, those in which more than 50 people were
killed, that's the graph you see on the lower left-hand side, those numbers
have come down largely because the numbers in Iraq going down. And here we
see a tremendous range in sophistication; some sort of reflecting the
attributes of globalization, I think, as I might have said last year. We see
YouTube to collect money and we see high impressive communications and we
see the use of Google Earth and so forth. And on the other hand, we see
people getting absolutely hacked to death in brutal attacks. Kidnappings for
ransom also up last year; organizations like al-Qaida and (inaudible) the
Maghreb, the Pakistani Taliban, Shabaab received tens of millions of dollars
as a result of kidnappings for ransom.
And finally, the human toll is actually very close to what it was in 2008.
We're looking right around 50,000 people either killed or wounded. Well over
half of them are Muslim. And the vast majority of them were killed by
Islamic extremists. Of the 15,000 people that we had killed last year,
something over 9,000 of them were killed by Islamic extremists. So that's a
very high-level overview. I would say again that you can parse the data a
lot of different ways. And I would encourage you to take a look at the
website and you can slice and dice it pretty much any way you'd like.
Thanks.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Okay.
QUESTION: Can I ask two very brief - one just on the delay. Three months is
a long time to be rewriting so something is more readable. And the NCTC
annex was actually available at the end of April. So I'm just curious, what
kind of editing did this require that took three months, particularly when
there is a congressional deadline for it in March?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I'm afraid that's my story and I'm sticking with it as
a former member of the fourth estate I've had - I was picky about how it
came out.
QUESTION: Well, it just leaves the questions about whether there were any
changes in substance.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There were no changes in substance whatsoever. The big
change in the report this year is that there is material that had hitherto
been included in it - and I think it's called 72-01?
STAFF: 71-20.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: 71-20. I transposed the numbers. That is now being
filed separately having to do with economic issues and broadcasting, and
that's not included anymore.
QUESTION: All right. And then just my other question, and I'm not looking
for a long explanation of - the long policy explanation on this. But in the
report it talks about Iran being again, the most active state sponsor of
terrorism. The others remain unchanged. I realize this isn't the vehicle for
changing those state sponsor designations. But if you look, the NCTC data,
not one of your state sponsors is mentioned as being a sponsor of any
attack. And in fact, the only time Iran is mentioned is this, in that global
overview when it talks about attacks against the Iranian Government. So I'm
just curious as to what the - most active supporter or most active state
sponsor means what? Just money is going into some - going into groups that
don't actually conduct any attacks?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, I wouldn't say that. I mean, we've had continued
terrorist activity from Hamas, Hezbollah --
QUESTION: Fair enough. But they don't make the lists.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, maybe Russ wants to address the breakout.
MR. TRAVERS: Yeah. With respect to numbers, you will certainly see within
Iraqi - the numbers of people killed in Iraq - I have no doubt that there's
people that have been killed as a result of Iranian munitions that have made
it into Iraq and so forth. Within an open source context, I will rarely get
the kind of information that would allow you to ascribe specific countries
conducting attacks. In the case of Cuba or North Korea, I don't have data
within my incident database, I don't believe, that suggests that they
conducted any attacks. So I'm focusing primarily -
QUESTION: Well, hopefully, it's not important anymore, so that's -
MR. TRAVERS: -- on who conducted attacks.
QUESTION: But - now, I'm not suggesting that they actually conducted the
attacks. I mean, it says that it's the most active - Iran is the most active
state sponsor, and yet that doesn't seem to translate into - at least
according to your highlights - it doesn't seem to translate into a huge
number. It doesn't seem to translate into much of anything unless I'm just
missing it.
MR. TRAVERS: Facilitation would not make it into our data at all. So that
Syrian support to Hamas is not going to be reflected in any of the data that
I've presented on these charts.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I think, as Russ just said, there were a lot of
incidents in Iraq that ultimately can be traced back to Iranian support. So,
I don't think your conclusion is a correct one.
Hi, Elise.
QUESTION: Hi. Just to follow up, but I have another question. I mean, he
does have a good point, though. I mean, you continue to say that Iran is the
biggest sponsor of terrorism, but areas that you're looking at as the main
areas of terrorist activity don't seem to be - I mean - and Iraq
notwithstanding - I mean, Pakistan, Afghanistan, although there's been some
incidental information about Iranian involvement, those support for the
major areas don't necessarily seem to be coming from Iran. So, out of all
the state sponsors on your list, maybe Iran is the most active, but that
doesn't make them very active. Does it?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, a few points. It has been true for a long time
that the predominant actors, the predominant instigators of violence in the
world today are the - are not state sponsors but rather the groups like
al-Qaida and their affiliates. Okay? So that has just been true since
al-Qaida really came on the screen and practiced the kind of indiscriminate
violence that was completely at variance with the practice of state
sponsorship of terror, which had usually involved calibrated violence in
rather smaller numbers of casualties.
But the other thing that you need to calculate in here is that when it does
happen, it can happen on a rather large scale. And you just need to think
back of the conflict a few years ago instigated by Hezbollah with Israel and
how much destruction and regional instability that caused. So -
QUESTION: But that wasn't from this report last year. But, anyway -
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: But I'm saying, that when it does happen, it happened -
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: It also wasn't a terrorist attack.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, it began with a terrorist act.
QUESTION: Right. But, I mean, then the Israelis invaded. So, it's -
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Yeah. But also firing missiles into Northern Israel is
a terrorist attack. So -
QUESTION: Okay.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, anyway, my question is about Aulaki. You seem to spend
a lot of time in your remarks about him. And I'm wondering if - and you've
said that he's not just like a kind of instigator of anti-American or anti -
of extremism. But you seem to see he's an operational guy, and I'm wondering
if you think that in terms of priorities and rising importance, he's rising
to the level of bin Ladin and whether some of them consider the next bin
Ladin.
And I'm just wondering if you're thinking of capturing or killing him in
that vein. And then also, you mention Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as now they're kind
of looking towards America and presenting more of a threat to American
interests. What do you attribute for these groups that primarily have been
regionally based, focusing their attacks, like the TTP, on regional actors
and now they're looking towards the United States and threatening U.S.
interests? What do you attribute for that type of shift?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: A lot of questions. On the second one -
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and TTP and the others - look, groups that espouse in some
way or another an ideology that is either identical with or a variant of the
al-Qaida ideology, have always had this choice of going after the near enemy
or their foreign enemy. And according to the circumstances in which they're
operating, they may find it more advantageous to choose one over the over.
I don't think I said that LET was -
QUESTION: It says it in the report.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: It says what?
QUESTION: That increasingly it's a very capable organization and
increasingly threatening American interest.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, that is true. You said targeting America, and we
haven't said that it is directly targeting America. But it is certainly true
that the - LET's recent targets, particularly in Mumbai, was out of the
al-Qaida playbook. And of course six Americans were killed there and there
were international targets, and there clearly was a desire to kill
Westerners, Israelis, the usual kinds of targets.
As for Aulaki, I think it is important that people understand that this is
not just a rabble-rouser or a preacher of particular gifts, but that he is
indeed also involved quite centrally, quite directly, in terrorist
activities. I don't think it is useful to have a kind of hall of fame
listing for terrorists, but there's no question that this is a particularly
dangerous individual who is sophisticated not only in his rhetoric, but also
in his tactical capabilities.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: On al-Shabaab, you mentioned it earlier, but do you think that
(inaudible) on Ethiopia that accusing Eritrea on a state sponsor for
al-Shabaab? And what do you say on that? For Ethiopia is it that Eritrea
supporting al-Shabaab and surrounding area, and also the IGAD?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Okay. We have expressed our concerns about Eritrean
behavior in the region to the Eritreans directly on numerous occasions. We
strongly support the Djibouti peace process and see it as the best hope for
settling the conflict - the long-running conflict - in Somalia. And as for
al-Shabaab, well obviously, the Kampala attack, which they have claimed
credit for, is an unwelcome event and we hope it is not a harbinger of more,
so to say, out-of-area attacks for them that is outside of Somalia's
borders. But we're looking at it very carefully. There certainly have been
plenty of indications that they would like to - like the other groups we
talked about - diversify their portfolio of attacks.
QUESTION: Coming back to Matt's point about Iran, the most active state in
sponsoring terrorism. You mentioned Hamas - their support for Hamas. Do you
take - have you had any evidence of Hamas as being involved internationally
in terrorism or do you account only the Israeli civilians that have been
targeted by Hamas? And is this the only kind of statistics that you're going
by?
And my other question is about al-Qaida. You said that al-Qaida remains the
major threat currently. But you talk about al-Qaida itself as we know it or
are we talking about the affiliates? Because most of the attacks that you
have mentioned, again, is carried by the affiliates whether in Yemen or in
Iraq or elsewhere or in Somalia. So can we make the different clarification?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: You are right that we are sometimes imprecise in our
speech and when we talk about al-Qaida we can either - we should say either
al-Qaida senior leadership or the core in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or the
broader network of affiliates - those that have taken the al-Qaida name and
others that are acting in league with them. And certainly, our concern is
the broader one, although the core remains in probably the most capable unit
within that entire network.
On the issue of Hamas, Hamas has been responsible for the killings of
Americans, although those are some years back. Of course, Hamas right now is
actually observing something of a ceasefire. Most of the recent victims have
been Israeli, but Hamas does have American blood on its hands as well.
QUESTION: In your report, you mentioned that in Pakistan the safe havens are
(inaudible), Balujistan, and Southern Punjab. So that leaves only Northern
Punjab and Sindh province. So do you see expansion of safe havens inside of
Pakistan? And secondly, in the context of WikiLeaks, what is the relation
between ISI and these terrorist outfits inside Pakistan?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There - let me put it this way. We are concerned about
any indications of the spread of radicalism in Pakistan. Many of these areas
that are identified as safe havens have actually had pockets of militants in
them, radicals, terrorists, (inaudible), for some time. We have seen some
areas that have been more worrisome than before. Pakistani Interior Minister
recently spoke about Southern Punjab, so there are plenty of areas of
concern. And - I'm sorry, the second part of your question? Oh --
QUESTION: The links with ISI.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Yeah. The WikiLeaks story, and I want to reiterate our
- that we deplore this wholesale release of classified material - we have
been forging a much better, more trusting relationship with Pakistan and the
WikiLeaks story. The WikiLeaks documents ran up only through December 2009.
The President had unrolled a new policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan at that
time. We feel that with the Strategic Dialogue, with the new policy in
Afghanistan, we are building a much better relationship, a more wide-ranging
relationship, and one that is bringing our countries together to confront
the common threats we face. And we continue, as part of that broader
relationship, to encourage Pakistan's continuing strategic shift to take on
terror. And I think that that's probably where we best leave it.
QUESTION: A couple of questions about domestic radicalization. A couple of
years ago we sort of received wisdom in the counterterrorism community that
the U.S. Muslim population, for that matter, non-Muslim population wasn't as
susceptible to radicalization as the European immigrant Muslim population.
What happened? I mean, what changed?
And secondly, on Aulaki, to the extent you can, what's the evidence that
he's involved operationally in terrorism? It's an important question since
he's apparently under a death threat from his own government.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, this is the State Department so I'm a little
reluctant to offer too many opinions on what has happened domestically. But
I think that the fundamental points are probably that in any population of a
certain size you're statistically bound, it is inevitable that you're going
to find more people over time turning up as radicals. I don't think that the
fundamental assessment of the differences between the American community and
communities in other countries is wrong. I just think that it was at some
point bound to happen that we would see greater radicalization.
One could also say that an important component of that has to do with the
reaction after the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia which caused a great deal
of anger. And that - it's been noted that we've seen a number of Americans
of Somalian ancestry going to East Africa, and that probably is a
considerable part of it.
Is there anything you wanted to add? No. Okay. Oh, you had the Aulaki - what
was the -
QUESTION: To the extent you can in a public forum, what's the evidence that
he's involved operationally?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There is a considerable body of it and I can't talk
about most of it here. Sorry.
QUESTION: On Venezuela. The report says that you have information about the
relationship between the Venezuelan Government and the FARC, but you are not
sure about the kind of relationship it is. Can you elaborate on that?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I can only say that we have heard the charges from
Bogota and we are looking at these reports very carefully, and that we urge
all countries to observe their responsibilities under international law not
to host terrorist groups.
QUESTION: But that - follow-up on that. But that means that the U.S.
Government is clear that there is a relationship between the Venezuelan
Government and the FARC? Is that (inaudible)?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I didn't say that. I said we were looking at those
reports and trying to ascertain the truth of them.
QUESTION: Another follow-up on that. There is a difference - could you
please explain what is the difference between not cooperating in the efforts
in the fight against terrorism and sponsoring terrorism, because there were
some outspoken voices here trying to include Venezuela in the list of
terrorist sponsoring countries? So could you please explain the difference?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There are two different statutory processes that have
different criteria. We do these evaluations about whether other countries
are being cooperative in counterterrorism efforts; that is one thing.
Another thing is whether or not they are actually actively sponsoring
terrorism abroad, and so we have a number of countries that are not
cooperating but that have not been listed as state sponsors - Venezuela
being one, Eritrea being another.
QUESTION: But Venezuela has been included since 2006. What will change this
time? What will be the --
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Cooperation.
QUESTION: Do you expect that something will change with the Venezuelan
Government?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, I think the political relationship speaks for
itself. We would very much like to see Venezuela cooperate, and the door is
open to that cooperation.
QUESTION: But Venezuela -
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: In the forward of the report it says that there is questions that
you're asking - that the government is asking about what causes terrorism.
And one of the questions is: Are our actions going to result in the creation
of more terrorists? I wonder if you could expand on what actions you're
talking about and how we would alter them.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I do think that that is something that is very much at
the center of our policy making and our deliberations. It very much affects
our thoughts regarding our presence in particular parts of the world, where
we may not be wanted as much as we might think or might like. It will
certainly condition how we view any use of force, any kinetic action,
because I think we have a more precise understanding about the relationship.
And I won't claim that we have fully cracked the code on this, but we have a
better understanding of the relationship between the use of force and the
radicalization of those watching it. I mean, it's not --
QUESTION: But with any country that's harboring terrorists or helping
terrorists, would they ever want our presence if we're here talking about
how there's terrorists in these different places? And certainly, we wouldn't
want to just avoid them.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: There are plenty of safe havens that are in countries
that would not - that would like not to have them, and at the same time,
that doesn't mean we should use force there. There's a wide range of
different circumstances in which we find terrorists. But the question is:
What's the appropriate way to deal with them? What threat do they pose to
us? What are the long-term implications for our security, but also for our
ability to work with countries in that region?
Just to give you an example, we've heard an awful lot about terrorist
attacks in the Maghreb and the Sahel, so it's obvious that using force there
is a solution for us, given what our interests are and given all the other
means at our disposal to deal with the problem in a region like that where
we have some capable partners, we can build capacity, they can deal with
their regional problems themselves. You really just have to ask the
question: What's the best way forward and how do we minimize the likelihood
that we're going to see more terrorists down the line?
Yes.
QUESTION: Me?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Yes.
QUESTION: Wonderful. Back to Iran sponsoring -
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: You'll have to speak up, though.
QUESTION: Okay. So, I was wondering if you could give me the names of the
Iraqi Shia militants group that Iran is apparently continuing to provide
legal support, including weapons, training and funding and guidance to these
groups, and also where I can find the evidence that Iran's Al Quds forces
have been providing training to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
MR. TRAVERS: (Inaudible.)
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Russ was not speaking up. We have no unclassified
information that we can provide on that in this setting, I'm afraid.
QUESTION: So we should just take this for word that -
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, I'm afraid there are a lot of --
QUESTION: We don't know the names?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: We should just take these militant groups for word in this - the
report, not needing the names or anything? I'm just trying to find the names
to these Shia groups, because you've mentioned them in the report the past
couple of years.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: We haven't mentioned any of them by name? No?
MR. TRAVERS: I haven't, no.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: We'll see if we can back to you on that one.
QUESTION: Okay. And evidence that Iran's Al Quds forces have been providing
training to the Taliban?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, that's certainly only in the classified
(inaudible), I'm afraid.
QUESTION: But you provide a lot of information here - I'm wondering where I
can find that.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I don't believe that we have declassified any of that
intelligence, I'm sorry. We'll look into it.
QUESTION: And I have one more question. One more question on what designates
a terrorist organization. Do they have to commit acts of, I guess, killing
people and bomb attacks, to be designated a terrorist organization or do
they just have to not cooperate with the U.S. and would that designate them
a terrorist group, too?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: No, no. For organizations, they have to be foreign.
They have to carry out terrorist attacks or intend to carry out terrorist
attacks. So theoretically, if we saw a group in formation that was going to
carry out an attack, we could designate them in practice. However, there are
so many groups out there, I don't think we've designated any before they
carried out attacks.
QUESTION: And one last question on Cuba.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I'm sorry, come on, you can't ask all the questions.
QUESTION: Okay.
QUESTION: Israel's foreign minister said that 35 tons of weapons seized in
Bangkok in December were headed to Hamas and Hezbollah through Syria, and
WikiLeaks also said North Korea is involved in the provision of weapons to
the Taliban in Afghanistan. So do you see any sign of North Korea to
supporting militant groups?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Let me be clear about North Korea. We've seen those
reports. We are looking into them. The Secretary and others in the
Administration have been clear that if we find that Korea is indeed
sponsoring terrorism, obviously, we will revisit the issue of the listing as
a state sponsor. But Korea was delisted in accordance with U.S. law in 2008,
and it was at that time certified that Korea had not - North Korea had not
supported any terrorism in the previous six months.
But you raise interesting and important points, and we are looking at that.
QUESTION: Well, wait a minute, wasn't that a document that was - I mean,
you're looking into a report about your document. You said you're looking
into the reports. But wasn't it -
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: No, those were press reports.
QUESTION: A follow-up, if I may, on North Korea. There have been other
elements - I understand the Cheonan would not meet - the attack on the
vessel would not meet your statutory definition of terrorism. There was an
assassination attempt against an exiled senior North Korean leader in South
Korea and now, of course, these arms sales. How long does this process take?
I mean, the designation process or the review of the designation?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: It's a fairly laborious process and involves asking all
kinds of questions regarding what are or are not terrorist acts. We did -
our parties (inaudible) as to what is going on or not. It's a very
complicated process, but it has to be waterproof. It has to be - stand all
kinds of different tests. And it's not something that we do overnight. So we
are taking - I'm fully aware of that issue and we are looking at it quite
carefully.
MR. CROWLEY: We'll take one or two more.
QUESTION: Perhaps I missed something, but could you explain why you say that
it was bound to happen, that there would be a radicalization of sub
population - domestic - sub populations and the question of homegrown
terrorism?
And secondly, you mentioned the 14 indictments today, are those all new
cases or are they related to cases that we knew of previously - the Somali
American community?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: Well, on the new indictments, I have to refer you to
DOJ because, quite frankly, I just don't have the - I don't have them handy.
They - we heard they were coming and then they were there at noon or
something. So I have not - I don't know the exact circumstances.
Bound to happen probably sounds a bit more deterministic than I would like
to sound, but the -I'm just suggesting that in any large population there is
a probability that some small fraction of people will ultimately be
attracted to any particular ideology over time. I mean, we have seen this in
lots of different contexts, whether it was the Christian Identity movement
and Timothy McVeigh. The point is it's a large, globalized world. There are
lots of rather nasty ideologies going around. And at some point, someone,
for whatever complex reason having to do with both their personality and
their social circumstances and the like, is going to be attracted to it. So
I think that - I don't think that there's anything either genetic or
culturally determined about this. It's just probabilities over time. And
that, I think, is something that we have to live with, and I think that it's
probably a cautionary note. And we've been fortunate that we have not seen
greater radicalization. We think that there are good reasons why we haven't
seen that in terms of the structure of our society and its openness and the
integration of immigrant communities.
But we nonetheless have to recognize that this has happened in the last year
or two.
MR. CROWLEY: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: I'm just curious whether Jundallah, the group in Iran that - to
the extent that they attack Iranian civilians - I know they often attack the
military, but to the extent that they attack civilians, are those included
in here? I know Jundallah had not been designated a terrorist organization.
MR. TRAVERS: There are probably four or five Jundallah attacks, the
large-scale ones that occurred, yes.
QUESTION: So they're in the statistics?
MR. TRAVERS: They're in our statistics, yes.
QUESTION: Even though it's not designated a terrorist group?
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: I think the statistics do not only cover designated --
QUESTION: Okay.
AMBASSADOR BENJAMIN: -- groups, because there are many more groups out there
than we've been able to designate.
MR. TRAVERS: Like I said, we've got 250-odd groups that we catalog.
MR. CROWLEY: Okay. Thank you very much.
PRN: 2010/1067
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