[SPEAKER_00]: M-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-A-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W-M-D-S-W [SPEAKER_03]: As we speak, there's a looming U.S. attack on Iran. [SPEAKER_03]: Some very unfinished business in Venezuela. [SPEAKER_03]: And then the disarray in NATO and EU due to President Trump's threat to seize Greenland. [SPEAKER_03]: You remember that?
[SPEAKER_03]: It was only a week or so ago. [SPEAKER_03]: All of these things like games history and now we have the director of national intelligence [SPEAKER_01]: totally extraordinary. [SPEAKER_01]: We learned on Wednesday that the FBI was executing a search of the election office. [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, where they have stored ballots from years past, including the 2020 election, which of course Trump has been obsessed about.
[SPEAKER_01]: from the beginning. [SPEAKER_01]: You recall the notorious phone call. [SPEAKER_01]: Find me the votes. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Brad Raffinsberger, the secretary state, find me the votes. [SPEAKER_01]: Raffinsberger told the president and no uncertain terms. [SPEAKER_01]: There was no fraud, no votes to be found. [SPEAKER_01]: So not in the normal way. [SPEAKER_01]: Trump, six years later, is that okay, Ravansburg, you don't think you can find the votes?
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have the FBI find the votes. [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, this is after multiple investigations from multiple in- [SPEAKER_01]: multiple administrations that there was no fraud. [SPEAKER_01]: But Gabbard's presence at this is it was was pretty startling. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she has no jurisdiction over law enforcement operations inside the United States. [SPEAKER_03]: And intelligence US intelligence foreign intelligence gathering agencies are prohibited.
[SPEAKER_03]: from operations in the nice house. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, um, we did ask, um, uh, her office. [SPEAKER_01]: Please explain. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I wish you there. [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, you know, basically they said she had every right to be there because she's in charge of election security. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a little bit of a, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly, uh, exactly what, what she said here, I'll read it to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's going to be news to a lot of people. [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, yeah, gathered at every right to be present because she has, quote, a pivotal role in election security, including operations, targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure, all of which are domestic operations, elections, this country hasn't even run by the federal government. [SPEAKER_01]: They're run by state and local people. [SPEAKER_03]: And she doesn't need to go to Georgia for any of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, there are multiple explanations for this, but probably the best one is she, her standing at the White House, was seemed to be sinking. [SPEAKER_01]: She was frozen out of all the planning and discussions for the Venezuelan operation. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, there were even jokes among White House staffers that, um, um, [SPEAKER_01]: D&I actually stood for, do not invite, which is pretty funny. [SPEAKER_03]: So she's anxious to get back in Trump's good graces.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and what better way to get back in Trump's graces than to play and flatter his clasp play. [SPEAKER_03]: Not a lecture for him. [SPEAKER_03]: So she got a cowboy hat and a camo and weapons to, I have not done it. [SPEAKER_01]: I've been cash fatale has absconded with all of those. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true. [SPEAKER_03]: That's true. [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, very quickly, uh, what do we know? [SPEAKER_03]: What do we think about Iran?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or are we going to attack Iran? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, just keep keeping shifting the news focus. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, if, uh, if things continue to go south on the ice, Minneapolis front, and there's domestic turmoil, what better way to distract. [SPEAKER_01]: the country, then to launch another military operation. [SPEAKER_03]: And I know you hate me to mention it, but there's the Epstein thing that goes well. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but under the saddle, of millions of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's way down on the priority. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, because he's starting, you know, we're attacking Venezuela, threatening to invade Greenland. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, keeps changing the subject. [SPEAKER_01]: But just one final point on this FBI raid that's kind of relevant to the discussion we're about to have on, [SPEAKER_01]: terrorism, but terrorism threats globally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is, there were as many as 25 FBI agents assigned to this [SPEAKER_01]: seemingly ridiculous search for six-year-old election ballots. [SPEAKER_01]: Those are FBI agents who are not Manning the counterterrorism front. [SPEAKER_01]: They're not Manning the White Call of Fraud front. [SPEAKER_01]: They're not Manning.
[SPEAKER_01]: A whole lot of issues and threats that the country is concerned about because they're chasing Donald Trump's peculiar [SPEAKER_03]: Which takes us to the businesses hand today are distinguished guests. [SPEAKER_03]: It's Colin Clark, who is the executive director of the Sufons Center.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've heard us talk about that a lot and we've had Ali Sufons, the illustrious former FBI counterterrorism agent, who set up this independent non-profit organization based in New York City that's done a lot of work on security issues involving the Middle East, North Africa. [SPEAKER_03]: South Asia likewise, Colin Clark's research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security into U.P. [SPEAKER_03]: ethics.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is the author of three cutting-edge books on terrorism, including after the Caliphate, the Islamic State and the future terrorist diaspora, and he's got another book coming out in June, Moscow's mercenaries, the rise and fall of the Wagner group. [SPEAKER_03]: Without further ado, let's bring on Colin Clark. [SPEAKER_03]: We recorded this interview before the latest attack by the Islamic State outside of Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_03]: A coordinated strike on the airport and military base in Niyami, the capital of the African country of Niger, the latest example of the resilience of the Islamic State. [SPEAKER_03]: Colin Clark, welcome to Spide Talk, all friends. [SPEAKER_03]: It's great to have you here. [SPEAKER_03]: Today, we're going to talk about a new UN report on Afghanistan, the security landscape. [SPEAKER_03]: I would call it a hellscape.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are some eye-popping reports in there about the resilience of terrorist groups, a mid-D virtual anarchy of Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in 2021,
[SPEAKER_03]: UN report says these groups still pose a threat to the West and elsewhere, including Russia, where ISIS staged a terrorist attack at a concert all last year, and to Chinese interests in the region in the Islamic State, suicide bomber attacked the Chinese restaurant in Kabul last week, killing more than half a dozen people.
[SPEAKER_03]: But for our immediate interest to any of these groups, pose an immediate and massive threat to the United States, could any of them mount a 911 style attack on the US again? [SPEAKER_02]: It's a great question. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a sobering question. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm largely of the mind that a 911 style attack [SPEAKER_02]: on that scale that magnitude is going to be very close to impossible to pull off, but what could we see?
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned in the introduction, ISIS case attack in Moscow in March 2024, and I think we could see that kind of attack. [SPEAKER_02]: So that was modeled roughly on the [SPEAKER_02]: I think that that would be the holy grail for terrorist groups. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm not in the business of giving bad people good ideas, but I've done a lot of red teaming in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we often talk about this is a conversation that Bruce Hoffman and I have on and off over the years. [SPEAKER_02]: that too many people, too many policymakers, too many analysts, downplay the psychological aspect of terrorism. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've become so fixated on body counts. [SPEAKER_02]: And if it bleeds, it bleeds, but we tend to, I think, underestimate the psychological impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's say you had a bottom-class, soil attacker in the United States on US soil. [SPEAKER_02]: a week before Christmas, three coordinated attackers go in with long guns and to shopping malls. [SPEAKER_02]: The devastation, I mean, we'd be talking about that for years, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not difficult to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at the plot, the the ISIS plot here in the United States that was disrupted over Halloween, that was essentially the goal of these individuals. [SPEAKER_02]: And you had people in Washington State, Michigan, and New Jersey that were planning to, [SPEAKER_02]: you know, their model essentially was the bottom line where you have multiple attackers doing different things in and around the city.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I'm not talking about anything too complex or sophisticated talking about small arms, essentially, and maybe some some IEDs or explosives.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Colin, you know, I think for most Americans, the Islamic State, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: ago or so when it had its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, we pretty much, you know, it states and a coalition pretty much disrupted that, but what is what kind of left out at me at this UN report and other [SPEAKER_01]: reports that have come out over in recent months is just how resilient the Islamic state in particular has been the in a rack for instance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was a report this the other day that [SPEAKER_01]: estimates of the number of Islamic state fighters has jumped from 2000 to 10,000, that's a pretty startling growth. [SPEAKER_01]: If true, but what really struck me in this UN report is they particularly highlight the Islamic state as being adept and at the forefront among terrorist groups of using artificial intelligence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about that, what we know about that, how they have used it, and what it ends up to. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is something prior to the report that myself and several colleagues have been study and closely and talking about and debating and that includes folks like Adam Hadley from Tech Against Terrorism, Lucas Weber, who's a senior fellow with us and a co-founder of militant wire, and then my Sioux Fun Center colleague, Clara Brokart, who's really kind of one of the
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... sitting at the intersection of terrorism and technology and she's looked at this very very closely that she even briefed uh... the the coalition to defeat dyesh at a very high level as a keynote speaker on the topic i says he's a big talk about some of the uses of a i [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I certainly will.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, you know, Michael's right and that ISIS can protect theirs at the forefront of experimenting with AI in terms of a violent novelistic actor, a terrorist group. [SPEAKER_02]: They've passed on manuals of how to construct and provide explosive devices, how to use 3D printed.
[SPEAKER_02]: 3D printers to make weapons components, they've used it to tremendous effect to translate propaganda into multiple languages and then disseminate that propaganda so reach and resonance which are two of the biggest variables when it comes to radicalization and recruitment. [SPEAKER_02]: And I would go all the way back to something that Jake Shapiro wrote back in the day called the terrorist dilemma.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, this is before anyone was talking about AI at all. [SPEAKER_02]: But one of the things that technology in general allows terrorists to do is to regain their time. [SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean by that is, you know, if you were spending a lot of [SPEAKER_02]: intensive men hours, putting together a propaganda, which is thinking through the themes, the narratives, the tactical part of composing this, putting this out, making sure it reaches the right people.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've just now saved yourself a lot of time by offloading this task to artificial intelligence, [SPEAKER_02]: to plot plan and to dream up different types of attacks. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, if groups like ISIS K are able to bring in a house, a lot of these capabilities it used to be very labor intensive. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's not good for attack planning. [SPEAKER_02]: That's not good for operational tempo, operational security, trade craft.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're gonna improve in those areas and I think it makes them more dangerous in a while. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about one specific attack using AI, the Moscow attack, they created these fake television anchor, TV news anchor, personalities, broadcasting, you know, wild reports about their attack and Moscow. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, who, who, where do they find people who can do this kind of manipulation? [SPEAKER_03]: Are they in Afghanistan?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are they in Cairo and London? [SPEAKER_03]: Where do they recruit people like this? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, over the world. [SPEAKER_02]: To be honest with you, this isn't really hard to do these days. [SPEAKER_02]: So anybody that's a digital native, right, these Gen Z folks that have grown up on technology? [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, [SPEAKER_02]: I have a seven year old daughter and it's amazing what she does on an iPad and she's already. [SPEAKER_02]: She's like dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I use chat GPT? [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a seven year old. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so if you have somebody that is moderately adept at, you know, technology, they're going to be able to to harness some of these tools to great effect. [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that's what we're seeing. [SPEAKER_02]: Go back to the early days of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote a piece, I think we wrote it in maybe Warren the Rocks myself and Charlie Winter, where we talked about this deliberate recruitment strategy that ISIS had, where it was putting out specific calls, almost like a head hunting agency. [SPEAKER_02]: That's probably not a good analogy for ISIS, if not an accurate one, but in a different sense ahead hunting agency, that's looking to bring in specific talent, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they would put out a call for people that had worked in graphic design or publication or had these web-based skills, and it showed because we saw a market jumping improvement between Al Qaeda or kind of like [SPEAKER_02]: you know, Jihadi prop again to 1.0 and what the Islamic State was able to put out, which was highly compelling. [SPEAKER_02]: It was slick. [SPEAKER_02]: It, you know, aesthetically, it looked very nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it looked, it had this professional polished feel and that matters, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And so the same thing they're going to go through the same trial and error with AI and ultimately they're going to use this to great effect. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, you know, in many ways, it's a force multiplier for the group. [SPEAKER_01]: What at this point is the appeal of the Islamic State globally?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, so I would say it's nowhere near the, you know, it was at its apex where the Islamic State seemed ubiquitous and I'll nip it in at one point where I had, you know, Baghdad he had ascended to the pulpit in Mosul and, you know, there was this real sense that it was a juggernaut. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not the case anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, just this week, Clara Brokart and I had a piece in foreign policy where we talk about the highly decentralized nature of the group, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's now not this kind of physical caliphate in the Middle East. [SPEAKER_02]: It's much more this global network of affiliates, franchise groups and branches. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what's the appeal? [SPEAKER_02]: It depends where you're looking. [SPEAKER_02]: The grievances of Mozambique are going to be very different than the grievances in South Asia.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's going to look different than a father and son in Australia that want to attack a Hanukkah celebration on a Sydney beach, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So they were motivated by Islamic State. [SPEAKER_02]: We know that, in fact, the sun was on a watch list, on an Australian watch list for having associations with ISIS. [SPEAKER_02]: There may be more to that story that comes out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I suspect we're gonna find out more about how closely those individuals were in touch with actual card carrying ISIS members in the Middle East. [SPEAKER_03]: So in one form or another, it's a way to get back at the man, whether it's Mozambique. [SPEAKER_03]: Afghanistan, Egypt, wherever, you know, reminds me of a show I was on with Terrorism experts, not long after 9-11.
[SPEAKER_03]: And which one of the experts was talking about the men who hold up the wall, that was the phrase she used. [SPEAKER_03]: In other words, unemployed, pretty well educated, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: But they're back in Cairo, and they don't have a future because they don't have connections to the regime. [SPEAKER_03]: They can't date in these Islamic societies. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no going out to the movies on the date. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how to finger at the time. [SPEAKER_03]: Me. [SPEAKER_03]: And so what you're saying is this is metastasized to a degree that we're not talking about just in China, Arab, [SPEAKER_03]: or South Asian use. [SPEAKER_03]: We're talking about the alienated guy in his parents' basement to use the cliche could be anywhere, could be in London, could be in Alabama. [SPEAKER_03]: Is that what we're talking about here?
[SPEAKER_03]: A diffusion of the threat so it's so much harder to anticipate. [SPEAKER_02]: Defusion of the threat, a lowering of the barrier to entry, to play in the space, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So you spend a couple of weeks on a telegram channel, and you learn the terminology, and you learn the colloquialisms, and now you can be part of the club too, right? [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so many, look, if there was one silver bullet or typology for who becomes a terrorist.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would make all of our lives a lot easier. [SPEAKER_02]: That's not the case. [SPEAKER_02]: People have different motivations. [SPEAKER_02]: They have different crises or pressure points in life that push them to take certain decisions. [SPEAKER_02]: But we do know that a Islamic State propaganda continues to resonate. [SPEAKER_02]: The continues to resonate with individuals in the West, sometimes we call them homegrown violent extremists.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's various kind of levels to this, right? [SPEAKER_02]: There's the inspired attack where, you know, the aforementioned loser in his basement, [SPEAKER_02]: who hates his life is seduced by this and thinks he can gain some level of power by committing an attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then there is directive or guided attacks where somebody's actually in touch with an ISIS operative who's telling them, take this weapon, go after this target, and then there's the most lethal which is directed attacks. [SPEAKER_02]: where you have individuals, I mentioned the bottom line earlier, this is an example of a directed attack where individuals are trained directly by the Islamic State and deployed or dispatched to go carry out an attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the hardest to do, right, because so much has to go right for the terrorists, but it's also very often when you look at the data, the most lethal, the most psychologically impactful, etc. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm struck by you mentioned before that there are in particular countries and regions, there are particular [SPEAKER_01]: grievances that the Islamic state has been able to capitalize on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I suppose a perfect example of that would be that recent attack on the Kabul restaurant that Jeff mentioned, which was a Chinese restaurant in the Islamic state has been going after Chinese interest because of the Chinese treatment of the Wigers inside China. [SPEAKER_02]: not not only that, so it's I'm glad you brought this up because Lucas Weber and I have just finished working on a long draft of an article looking at you how to prop again to target in China.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say we were Lucas and I and a scholar named Ricardo Valet about a year before the Moscow attack we wrote a piece [SPEAKER_02]: And when the attack happened, we had people reach out and say, you predicted this, how did you know? [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say the same thing for China. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sitting here, predicting anything. [SPEAKER_02]: We just read what they're saying. [SPEAKER_02]: And they're very open and very honest about who their targets are on why.
[SPEAKER_02]: China's fascinating, because it's long been on the periphery of Jihadi propaganda. [SPEAKER_02]: Very recently, it's kind of a move main stage. [SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned the mistreatment of the wiggers, Mike, and I think that's certainly a huge grievance for them. [SPEAKER_02]: They talk about it, they swear revenge on the Chinese Communist Party, but there's another aspect of it, too, that has parallels to the way the United States came into the crossroads of these groups.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a rising power, right? [SPEAKER_02]: As China rises, [SPEAKER_02]: had expanse its influence, both physically and otherwise. [SPEAKER_02]: It's now in a lot of the places where these Jihadi groups are through its built and road initiative, through businessmen, through diplomats and embassies. [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's something about, you know, a lot of the Jihadi gripe is this power asymmetry, right? [SPEAKER_02]: They see themselves as David to another Goliath.
[SPEAKER_02]: They constantly boast bin Laden used to boast about taking down the Soviet Empire and [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I've news for you. [SPEAKER_02]: China wants to be the top dog. [SPEAKER_02]: They're eventually going to, you know, come into the crosshairs of these groups. [SPEAKER_02]: They have already, I'll cut in the Arabian Peninsula recently, you know, targeted the group in their propaganda, and then we see the ISIS K attack. [SPEAKER_02]: in Kabul.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've seen other groups, uh, bluish sand liberation army, attack Chinese interests throughout South Asia. [SPEAKER_02]: So this is going to be something that Chinese have to give a lot of thought to. [SPEAKER_02]: And they have to figure out, are they going to, you know, put together a more muscular counterterrorism strategy to deal with this? [SPEAKER_02]: And that and, uh, in and of itself can be somewhat of a self-fulfilling problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any sign of that that they've ratcheted up their own counterterrorism, um, efforts and, and perhaps even, [SPEAKER_01]: Targeting Leaslamic State. [SPEAKER_02]: Not yet, but we could very well see that. [SPEAKER_02]: I have a book coming out on the Wagner group with two other scholars with Chris Faulkner and Rolf Hill parents. [SPEAKER_02]: And our concluding chapter, we kind of talk about the future of private military companies.
[SPEAKER_02]: What lesson do other countries learn from the rise and fall of the Wagner group? [SPEAKER_02]: And I think China, as it seeks to protect its personnel, its investments, and its property throughout the Belt and Road Initiative, may go this route.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did they bring out, [SPEAKER_02]: private military contractor is a Chinese version of the Wagner group and does that in turn, in gender, friction, and, you know, attacks from a range of militant groups throughout the global stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: So even through very rough periods with the Russians, we have maintained counter-terrorism cooperation, and [SPEAKER_03]: kind of a ironic kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we have any kind of relationship with the Chinese to join forces on counterterrorism against a mutual enemy like ISIS K or? [SPEAKER_02]: you know beyond a rhetorical level probably not I don't think that there's any kind of exchange of information going on there. [SPEAKER_02]: The United States as you pointed out does it here to duty to inform however and we saw that in the case of the ISIS K attack.
[SPEAKER_02]: at Croco City Hall in Moscow, we even saw two months prior to that in January 2024 prior to the Cermon attack. [SPEAKER_02]: US reached out to the Iranians and said, hey, you know, we we didn't tell them the time and place, but we told them something was going on and they either dismissed it or they were too inept to figure it out. [SPEAKER_02]: Look, with both the Russians and the Iranians, and I think this is the lesson for the United States, frankly.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're so busy using your internal security forces to harass your own citizens, sometimes you miss things. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a lesson that I think the Iranians learned hard, that the Russians learned hard, and I hope we don't have to learn that the hard way. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, on that note, let's talk a bit about U.S. counterterrorism efforts. [SPEAKER_01]: these days under the Trump administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because certainly, they've given lots of other tasks to the agencies such as the FBI that we have relied on, having them involved in immigration enforcement, and yesterday we saw what I [SPEAKER_01]: I'm told as many as 25 FBI agents are searching through ballots at the Fulton County election office from 2020. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a terrible waste of resources. [SPEAKER_03]: And all the layoffs at forced retirement at FBI and low morale and everything that comes with.
[SPEAKER_01]: So give us your sense of where we're at on the counterterrorism. [SPEAKER_02]: Look, I'm [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very concerned on a number of levels. [SPEAKER_02]: One, intelligence is becoming politicized. [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at some of the statements made by the president after the Charlie Kirk assassination, [SPEAKER_02]: Well, let me take a step back. [SPEAKER_02]: It's clear we have a problem with political violence in this country.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not a problem from just the left or just the right. [SPEAKER_02]: But when you hear the president speak, he talks about all of these things against the right, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So the Steve Cuskley shooting, the Charlie Kirk shooting. [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a plenty of terrorism and political violence perpetrated by the right.
[SPEAKER_02]: As the president, he should care about all Americans, not just Americans that belong to his own party, so I worry about the politicization of intelligence. [SPEAKER_02]: I also worry about what I call leaving the cupboard bare. [SPEAKER_02]: This is more anecdotal, although I think there's probably pockets of data that would attest to this, but every time I go to Washington now, [SPEAKER_02]: There's fewer and fewer people working counterterrorism.
[SPEAKER_02]: People that have experience have been moved to other portfolios. [SPEAKER_02]: China, Russia, Great Power Competition, Ukraine, AI, you name it. [SPEAKER_02]: Other people have retired. [SPEAKER_02]: Other people have left because they disagree fundamentally with some of the decisions that the current administration is making. [SPEAKER_02]: And so what we're left with is a very thin bench. [SPEAKER_02]: And who is there? [SPEAKER_02]: And this is to no fault of their own.
[SPEAKER_02]: in experienced kids, fresh out of a master's degree at Georgetown. [SPEAKER_02]: Again, very smart, hard charging, but that institutional knowledge that we've built. [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the positive residue of the G-Watt, right, which was kind of the gray beard, battlehardened analyst that spent 20 plus years looking at al-Qaeda, Islamic state and other salvagey hottest. [SPEAKER_02]: Where are those people now?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're [SPEAKER_02]: that that's a glaring vulnerability, and then I also worry about some kind of, you know, we're talking about terrorism and technology and we've talked about AI. [SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, it's only a matter of time before we experience a drone attack here in the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, it may not be incredibly lethal, but I think we'll have crossed a psychological, [SPEAKER_03]: But drone technology, that's one of the things that the U.N. report picks up on is the use of the AI. [SPEAKER_03]: There were adaption of the AI for drone attacks. [SPEAKER_03]: So again, my mind sort of boggles at the idea of ISIS K or similar group. [SPEAKER_03]: marshalling a multi, you know, swarm of drones in New Jersey. [SPEAKER_03]: But we don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, you can take a mile of drone in a box. [SPEAKER_03]: You can take it out and fly it. [SPEAKER_03]: A couple more things, so about this UN report that popped out at me, and I'm not sure, still that I read this correctly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did it not say that 80% of the heroin supply and the world is coming from Afghanistan, [SPEAKER_02]: those numbers track honestly you know the heroin that comes into this country largely comes from Columbia and Mexico so it's we're not getting afghan heroin but the rest of the world is euro Russia and elsewhere but it also talked about the Taliban clamping down [SPEAKER_02]: on the growth of opium, which is something they've done on and off over the years.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's some of speculated, you know, it was a deliberate ploy to drive out prices, right, to reduce production. [SPEAKER_02]: In any case, the report gets into a number of interesting, you know, lays out a number of interesting findings about the Taliban, about ISIS K, about Al Qaeda, and about the Pakistani Taliban, which is now using Afghan soil, [SPEAKER_02]: to organize and launch attacks across the border back into Pakistan.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the ISI that had long cultivated the Afghan Taliban is now getting a little taste of its own medicine. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what's your sense of the strength of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan right now? [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's really so hard to tell. [SPEAKER_02]: It's intelligence and data black hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: wrote a piece for the CTC Sentinel on the state of El Qaeda 24 years after 9-11 this past September and so I urge listeners to go and read that you know the numbers are low um you know some some say as low as dozens um others speculate a couple of hundred you also have el Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent which is an al Qaeda affiliate or branch that also is co-lake located in Afghanistan
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, still like the old coach of terrorism, you know, yeah, you know, these days, but still being still most suspect that it's sci-fi a lot of, he's been around quite a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: He's been around for a while. [SPEAKER_02]: There's lots of evening living in Iran under the protection of the Iranian regime. [SPEAKER_02]: He has actually put out an open call saying calling out kind of members to migrate back to Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's definitely, the old guard is definitely windowed down. [SPEAKER_02]: We know this is kind of, [SPEAKER_02]: I hear people pushing back saying, oh, well, there's no relationship between Al Qaeda and the Connie network or Al Qaeda in the teleband. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if that's the case, why was I haven't also Audrey killed in a Connie guest house in Kabul in July 2022? [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so much going on that we don't know about.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it depends, you know, who you want to listen to. [SPEAKER_02]: If you listen to the Taliban, no, no, there's no Al-Qaeda here, no problems. [SPEAKER_02]: The UN report comes flat out and says, they don't believe that, right? [SPEAKER_02]: That no, there's Al-Qaeda. [SPEAKER_02]: Al-Qaeda is present there. [SPEAKER_02]: you know, their service provider, the UN report calls them a force multiplier.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you read the long war journal, and some of the work that my friend Bo Rojo has done, there's multiple training camps in Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, which traps that makes sense, why wouldn't there be? [SPEAKER_02]: They once again have safe haven and sanctuary under the protection of the Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I will remember when Biden made the decision to pull out of Afghanistan, [SPEAKER_01]: And questions about what that would mean for our monitoring of terrorist groups in Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_01]: The response was, and there was congressional testimony this fact. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, over the horizon, you know, satellites, we can keep track that way. [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing to worry about. [SPEAKER_01]: I gather, given your reference to that intelligence black hole.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, look, I think we're broadcasted signals intelligence in second and over the horizon. [SPEAKER_02]: No one can do it as efficiently as we can, but the data points are few. [SPEAKER_02]: They're not many. [SPEAKER_02]: And more over what about human intelligence and human, which, you know, we've long, you know, sought particularly an Afghanistan to understand the lay of the land, the militant ecosystem. [SPEAKER_03]: We weren't very good at that. [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We weren't when we had a presence there. [SPEAKER_02]: Now when we don't have a presence there, what don't we know? [SPEAKER_02]: What signals are we missing and what relationships do we not understand? [SPEAKER_02]: What assumptions are we adhering to that are wildly outdated? [SPEAKER_03]: And I can't believe that it would be very popular subject area for people trying to get ahead at CIA. [SPEAKER_03]: So devoting their lives to Afghanistan now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I noted and poking around today that a Texas Congressman who shares the House Homeland Security Committee sub-panel on counterterrorism and intelligence introduced to Bill last November. [SPEAKER_03]: to go after AI technology use by terrorist groups. [SPEAKER_03]: It requires the DHS to conduct annual assessments on terrorist threats in connection with AI. [SPEAKER_02]: Is that a group representative that is?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know what's happened or if that's in the current funding bill.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... and maybe uh... may swirled down the drain uh... because of uh... democratic uh... opposition to funding at least some dhs program so i don't know where that's going but uh... the horses left the barn here on a i quite a while ago by your account and and you went so on so um... [SPEAKER_03]: What do you think about the feds actually getting on top of this and being able to do something about it? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it seems as hard to control as a swarm of drones.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for full transparency, I spoke to the committee that committee. [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't end up testifying but I did speak to some of the individuals on it about my concerns. [SPEAKER_02]: As usual, governments [SPEAKER_02]: problem with today's technology is that two or three steps behind can quickly become not our 10 steps, right? [SPEAKER_02]: If you're moving up, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, frankly, when you watch some of these congressional hearings where tech titans come in our questions, by, you know, frankly, people that don't [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it seems to me that some of the older members of Congress aren't familiar with these technologies that they're actually questioning people on. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's put it that way. [SPEAKER_02]: That's being kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems forceful and so, you know, is this something that we're doing that serious? [SPEAKER_02]: Do we understand a, the landscape and what the threat looks like, B had to mitigate that threat and are we putting our money where our mouth is in terms of backing that up with resources necessary to combat what the threat is.
[SPEAKER_02]: My guess is probably not, and we're going to end up being reactive like we almost always are, where [SPEAKER_02]: Some terrorist attack is going to happen. [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to recognize that AI played a role in either the planning or the implementation. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be asked to come on TV for the next week to talk about why we missed this. [SPEAKER_02]: And then we're going to rinse and repeat, right? [SPEAKER_02]: We'll probably have the fourth stage.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm not. [SPEAKER_01]: It's moving. [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to have those? [SPEAKER_01]: TV appearances reference this podcast to listen to it. [SPEAKER_01]: Look, I just to wrap up here, if we, if we made you the counterterrorism Tsar and got rid of Sebastian Gorka inside the White House, so you would not have to deal with him. [SPEAKER_01]: What would you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What would be your top three actions you would [SPEAKER_02]: One of the first things I would do would be to call in people that I trust in this field and there's a very long list of them, a lot of them are in what I would call the Sioux von Universe, the Chris Costas of the World, John Miller, obviously my boss, Holly Sioux von, people that have dedicated their lives to counterterrorism and hear what they think the major threats and issues are.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that because I talked them about this all the time anyway, but having them [SPEAKER_02]: having some of the sharpest minds on this problem would be something I do right away. [SPEAKER_02]: On the technical piece, same thing, I'd engage tech against terrorism and other non-profits and entities that are actually, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: on the more tactical side of this. [SPEAKER_02]: They're actually in there watching what these terrors are doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They know what they're saying. [SPEAKER_02]: They're not a tech company, right? [SPEAKER_02]: That have their own kind of vested interests. [SPEAKER_02]: Because I think oftentimes tech companies pay lip service to the terrors use of their platforms. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, that's a great problem. [SPEAKER_02]: But they're profit-minded. [SPEAKER_02]: So they're only going to do as much as they're forced to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so bringing the heads of X and Meta and all these other places [SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't make a lot of sense. [SPEAKER_02]: And then lastly, I would restore funding and personnel to some of these agencies that have been gutted. [SPEAKER_02]: The State Department Counterterrorism Bureau, various aspects of NCTC and elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would try to recruit and hire people to have a good understanding of what the threats are today, but also what the threats are gonna look like in the future. [SPEAKER_03]: I have a roof on Mike's question. [SPEAKER_03]: My version of it is, [SPEAKER_03]: to recall the famous CIA warning in August, 2001. [SPEAKER_02]: Red and London Department to its red lights are blinking. [SPEAKER_03]: Are we at that stage of terrorist threat via AI and other techniques they use?
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I don't want to be hyperbolic about what AI can and can't do. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not this magic technology. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it runs through other technologies and enhances them. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a bit of a kind of shiny object right now. [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't want to overplay the threat of AI because AI can be helpful for counter-terrorism. [SPEAKER_02]: But frankly, [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think we risk ignoring, so you've heard about black swans, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Which are these high impact, but difficult to predict events. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a journalist name of show, Luke, or who talks about the gray rhino. [SPEAKER_02]: They're these threats that we see coming, yet we still ignore them. [SPEAKER_02]: For me, that's like the prison and detention centers in Northeast Syria in our whole. [SPEAKER_02]: We've been hammering about these four years, [SPEAKER_02]: And we still, there's very little action, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kicking the can down the road. [SPEAKER_02]: So I do worry about that with AI that people put together these committees, they discuss these ideas. [SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, they're too difficult. [SPEAKER_02]: We can't get bipartisan agreement or we're in a government shutdown. [SPEAKER_02]: And then again, we re-revert to this very reactive mode where we only address problems after it becomes so blaring that they become crises.
[SPEAKER_02]: After not 11, I thought we got out of that mode. [SPEAKER_02]: We started being a lot more preemptive. [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we're at the risk now of sliding back into complacency. [SPEAKER_02]: Because there was always going to be a correction. [SPEAKER_02]: from the counterterrorism resources we dedicated right after 9-11. [SPEAKER_02]: I think we've over-corrected and we've gone too far in the other direction where everything now is about great power competition.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything is about a rising China or a revampuous Russia and counterterrorisms become a dirty word because people really don't want to think about it and there's a general sense of fatigue after two decades of doing it. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, and that had been out, we have to wrap it up. [SPEAKER_03]: Colin Clark, thanks so much for spending a time with us with you and sharing your expertise with us in our listeners. [SPEAKER_03]: We really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Always a pleasure. [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's it for this week's by-talk. [SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. [SPEAKER_03]: And if you haven't already, do check out thespytalk.co news site on Substack, where we offer a steady diet of scoops in the original analyses from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, and military operations. [SPEAKER_03]: Just Google Spy Talk.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're quickly find your way there. [SPEAKER_03]: This edition of the SpyTalk podcast was smoothly produced, as always, by can I, and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media. [SPEAKER_03]: That's it. [SPEAKER_03]: See you around. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jeff Stein. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm my goes-goth. [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening. [SPEAKER_00]: For more original reporting and insights like this, subscribe to spytalk.co on Substack and follow us on Twitter at Talk Under Score Spy.
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