Ali Soufan is the CEO of The Soufan Group and a former FBI special agent who investigated cases including the East Africa Embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole and the events surrounding 9/11. He is the author of “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda.” Follow him on Twitter: @Ali_H_Soufan
Why did you become an FBI agent?
Some of the best things in life occur by coincidence. It was never my intention or my plan to be an FBI agent. However, what started as a curiosity, ended up being one of the best choices I’ve made. In your book, you talk about how you got terrorists to talk by sitting down and drinking tea with them. Why doesn’t torture work?
It is not only about sitting down with a terrorist over a cup of tea. Before the start of an interrogation or an interview, you need to be fully prepared, you need to educate yourself by having a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter, you have to be fully aware of all related information available to your case, and then develop an interrogation plan tailored to systematically abbreviate the subject’s ability to resist and deceive by facing him or her with a barrage of facts and evidence that highlights the inconsistencies in their statement. It is very much like playing a mental poker game. The battle to gain accurate and reliable information starts way before entering the interrogation room. As for the “sitting down and drinking tea’—well, this is part of the approach: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
As for torture, put aside that it is morally wrong and legally prohibited; it is ineffective, especially in the long term. Look around the world at countries that practice torture vs. nations the do not. Which ones are more stable and secure? Your goal as an interrogator is to get to the truth, not to get what you want the subject to say. It is about gaining cooperation, not compliance. Torture will force compliance where people will say anything for the pain to stop. Ibn Sheikh al-Libi provided evidence linking Saddam to Bin Laden to WMD; his compliance led to tragic consequences. At the time, however, those who wanted to believe such information were convinced that it was a great example how torture worked. You have talked to terrorists, what motivates them? Are they just zealots? Are they insane? Or are they young people looking for a noble cause? Hundreds of young people from the West have joined ISIS. What motivates them to do this?
There is no one mold that fits all. People are motivated for different reasons. Some join out of a lust for violence, sectarian or otherwise; some join to vie for power, wealth, or territory; many are extremists, and join out of a misguided sense of religious duty; and a few are pragmatists, and join for protection or because they would be killed if they did not. Some, as we see in conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria, or Yemen are often opportunists, joining the group with the highest chance of success.
The reasons people travel to join a group like ISIS are likewise varied; some are psychopaths heeding the call to violence, some were radicalized over the Internet with very little religious awareness, or radicalized by a family member, religious figure, or someone else in their social circle, but many, especially in the West, join out of a feeling of alienation in their home communities, and the desire to join what is being portrayed as the ultimate Islamic society. For many, it is an issue that has to do with searching for identity. The unifying thread among the majority of foreign fighters, however, seems to be the desire to participate in the battle for the end of times.
The United States has actually seen a relatively small number of its citizens travel to join ISIS, especially given the size of its Muslim population and the large number of fighters streaming out of many countries in Europe. Whether this is attributable to the panoply of international Islamic communities within the United States, or the degree to which they have been enveloped into American society and life is hard to tell. It is clear, however, that foreign fighters across the world are buying into the “jihadi” narrative of bin Ladin, and heeding the call to travel–or in some cases, stay home–and do violence in its name.
What are your views on ISIS, whose tactics were too extreme for Al-Qaeda? Are they (ISIS) Muslims?
First of all, while the Islamic State and al-Qaeda may appear wildly different, they have more in common than sets them apart. The Islamic State is an offshoot of al-Qaeda (in a previous iteration, it was known as “al-Qaeda in Iraq”), and as such, considers itself the heir to bin Ladin’s legacy, rejecting current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State adhere to the narrative of bin Ladin; in essence, the ideology of violent sectarianism and the killing of those not of your creed. The differences between the two organizations really lie at the leadership-level and in the tactics they employ–not in the nature of their appeal or in their zealous promotion of violence. While the Islamic State may rely on beheadings to terrorize and amplify its message across the world, al-Qaeda uses a bullet to achieve the same objectives.
I like to think of the Islamic State as an accident of history. Its rise was facilitated by the chaos and suffering in Syria and enabled by the regional competition and sectarian divisions which provided the incubating factors in which it could grow. For as long as the region is unable to put an end to conflicts and fill the power vacuums that exist in places like Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen, groups such as the Islamic State will find room to grow and recruits to fill their ranks.
While the Islamic State claims religious legitimacy and has declared itself an Islamic “Caliphate,” its ideology and savagery contradict the core tenets of Islam. Many of the group’s top leaders are Ba’athists from Saddam Hussein’s secular regime; they have brought their former leader’s appetite for ruthless violence to the group and fused it with sectarian flames based on the salafist/ takfiri interpretation of Islam that drives many of its supporters. This lethal combination has enabled the Islamic State’s rapid rise and brutal reign of terror, as well as its widespread support among violent extremists.
The War on Terror seems to be never ending. Is there an end game to this, or are we going to be fighting terrorists for generations?
Despite 13 years of the U.S.-led ‘War on Terror,’ global terrorism has continued to increase, and the number of adherents to the violent narrative of bin Ladin has multiplied–a strong indication that tactical victories have not led to long-term strategic success.
This is indeed a problem that will endure for generations and that we will have to combat for generations. Today, the Islamic State, among other groups, is deliberately indoctrinating the children under its control with its ideology of violence, ensuring the long-term survival of the group’s driving mission, even with any setbacks the organization itself may suffer. Furthermore, the trauma that the people of Syria and Iraq have endured–and the millions of internally displaced people and refugees, many of whom will never return home–virtually guarantees that instability in the region will have a far-reaching and lasting impact. A whole generation of Syrians is at danger of being lost–without security, education, or stable employment–there is little to nothing to protect them from the violent movements that are consuming the region.
Solving this problem will take years or even decades, and cannot be achieved by the U.S. alone. We need a long-term strategy in place of a set of tactics. There needs to be a regional and global effort to tackle the incubating factors of terrorism—regional conflicts, tyrannical governments, among other socio-economic factors such as unemployment, lack of education, lack of civil institutions, sectarian divisions–as well as a concerted effort to counter the narratives of violence that extremists use to prey on the vulnerable.
What are you doing now and do you ever wish your backing catching and interrogating terrorists?
Today I run The Soufan Group, an international strategic consultancy firm, which provides strategic security intelligence services to governments and multinational organizations. Many of my colleagues are former law enforcement and intelligence professionals. Sometimes I miss the old days, but I view my work at TSG as a continuation of our lifelong dedication to global security.
