Category Archives: Middle East

Jeremy Bird in Violation of the Logan Act?

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Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein rejected Wednesday a Likud party petition to disqualify the left-wing V15 group, which was accused by the ruling party of violating election law through its alleged ties with the Zionist Union list. In a press conference last week, Likud lawmakers claimed that the group was being financed illegally, and called for an investigation into alleged dealings with the Zionist Union, which merges the Labor and Hatnua parties, and is headed by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

Are there any Federal funds being used for Jeremy Bird of V15 being used to oust Netanyahu as the Prime Minister of Israel? Is Jeremy Bird being empowered by the White House as it agent working against our Middle East ally, Israel?

The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments

WASHINGTON — Jeremy Bird, the architect of the grass-roots and online organizing efforts that powered President Obama’s presidential campaigns from Chicago, is advising a similar operation in Tel Aviv. But this time it is focused on ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

His consulting work for the group V15 — an independent Israeli organization that does not support specific candidates but is campaigning to replace Israel’s current government — has added yet another political layer to the diplomatic mess surrounding Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress next week on Iran.

The White House has argued that Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to deliver the speech on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli elections, is harming the United States-Israel relationship by injecting partisanship. Republicans contend it is Mr. Obama who is playing politics and cite the work of Mr. Bird as proof that the president is quietly rooting for the defeat of his Israeli counterpart.

A founder of V15, the organization behind that effort. Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

American strategists have for decades signed on to work in Israeli political campaigns, with Democrats usually aligned with the Labor Party and Republicans often backing Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Obama or any of his senior aides had anything to do with the move by his former top campaign official, who has never worked at the White House, to join the effort to defeat Mr. Netanyahu.

But Mr. Bird’s involvement in the elections is drawing attention when tensions between the two countries are so acute that what is usually considered standard practice for American political consultants in Israel is now seen as a provocation.

“It’s clearly a data point that people are looking to that indicates how the relationship has deteriorated,” said Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He added that Mr. Bird reflects “the hypocrisy of this White House, which wants to stand on the notion that they’re not playing politics when in fact their fingerprints are all over this.”

The White House has repeatedly said its highest priority is keeping partisanship out of the relationship between the United States and Israel, citing that principle as Mr. Obama’s rationale for refusing to meet with Mr. Netanyahu during his visit.

Asked about the suggestion that Mr. Obama was tacitly backing an effort to oust Mr. Netanyahu, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said, “The long tradition of bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship has served both our countries well for generations, and President Obama will continue to go to great lengths to shield our alliance from the smallness of party politics.”

Mr. Bird, who was Mr. Obama’s national field director in 2012 and is a founding partner of the political consulting firm 270 Strategies, declined to be interviewed. But he said through a spokeswoman that V15 and its partners had asked him and his firm “to share best practices in organizing so they can maximize their impact both online and on the ground.”

“We’re witnessing something special happening in Israel right now: There’s a groundswell of organic energy as more than 10,000 supporters are coming together to have a voice in their country,” Mr. Bird said through the spokeswoman. V15’s “efforts are already paying off as they have reached out to more than 200,000 targeted voters, both in person and on the phone, about the need for change in Israel.”

Administration allies scoff at the accusation that Mr. Bird’s involvement is inappropriate, saying it is particularly galling given Mr. Netanyahu’s move to work with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, to arrange a speech without telling the White House. Many Democrats see the speech as a move that would undercut Mr. Obama’s efforts to forge a nuclear deal with Iran.

“It is eye-rolling for Netanyahu to complain about former Obama aides working against him when he cooked up a speech to Congress with Boehner and didn’t tell the White House,” said Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council aide to Mr. Obama. “He has removed his ability to complain about playing politics by openly meddling in U.S. politics. The notion that Jeremy and the 270 team were sent there with the blessing of President Obama is just silly.”

Mr. Bird’s work in Israel started in November 2013, when he began consulting with OneVoice, an organization pressing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He signed on with V15 in December 2014, after Mr. Netanyahu called the March 2015 elections. Last month, the Israel arm of OneVoice became a partner with V15 to mobilize voters.

The effort has angered Mr. Netanyahu and his allies in Israel, who unsuccessfully sought a court injunction against V15, arguing it was violating Israeli election law by accepting foreign donations. Likud withdrew the request last week, citing difficulty in proving the charge.

Republicans in Congress have criticized Mr. Bird’s involvement and the work of OneVoice, which has received grants from the State Department. In a letter to the department last month that prominently mentioned Mr. Bird and his ties to Mr. Obama, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Lee Zeldin of New York, both Republicans, said they were concerned that American taxpayer money was being used to influence the Israeli elections and unseat Mr. Netanyahu.

“It is deeply troubling that President Obama’s national field director is helping run the campaign to defeat the democratically elected leader of one of our closest friends and allies, the nation of Israel,” Mr. Cruz said in an interview on Friday.

In a response to the lawmakers, Julia Frifield, the State Department’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, said in a statement that OneVoice’s Israel branch received a $233,500 grant in September 2013 to support peace negotiations by Mr. Netanyahu’s government. The grant was paid in installments, with the final one paid in August 2014, before elections were called.

“There is absolutely no basis to claims that the Department of State has funded efforts to influence the current Israeli election campaign,” Ms. Frifield wrote.

Mr. Bird is the latest in a long line of Americans who have worked on foreign political campaigns, particularly in Israel. In December, Mr. Netanyahu hired John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster; Likud has brought on Vincent Harris, a campaign aide to Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. Former aides to Mr. Obama have also worked for the prime minister, including Bill Knapp and Josh Isay.

Former campaign strategists to Bill Clinton, including his pollster Stanley B. Greenberg and strategist James Carville, went to Israel in 1999 to help Ehud Barak defeat Mr. Netanyahu.

Border Surge, Crime Fighting, Chilling Report

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Border surge harming crime fighting in other parts of Texas, internal report finds

To download the report, click here.

AUSTIN – The deployment of additional state police and Texas National Guard troops to the southern border last June has reduced illegal border crossings but cost more than $100 million and compromised the Department of Public Safety’s ability to combat crimes elsewhere, according to an internal DPS assessment prepared for Gov. Greg Abbott and lawmakers. “The Department of Public Safety is understaffed throughout the state, and a sustained deployment of personnel to the border region reduces the patrol and investigative capacity in other areas of the state that are also impacted by transnational crime,” according to the report, which was distributed late last month on the condition that it not be publicly released.

The 68-page assessment, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, largely cast the border surge ordered by state leaders last summer as a success, citing the reductions in illegal border crossings and cartel activity in the operation zone.

The report also said that millions spent to bring state police officers and guardsmen to the border and give them time to develop relationships with local law enforcement helped push the cost of Operation Strong Safety II beyond $100 million.

“The permanent assignment of a sufficient number of troopers, agents and Texas Rangers to the border region is more effective and efficient than short-term deployments from around the state,” the report found.

The current deployment, which began last June in response to a spike of unaccompanied children crossing the border that quickly subsided, has now stretched to eight months. The guardsmen have been on the border to support the mission for six months, drawing increasing criticism from some state lawmakers and prompting a search for a long-term solution.

Among other recommendations, the report said the state should immediately fund 320 more patrol vehicles for the operation and eventually replace the deployed guardsmen with technology and 500 Department of Public Safety officers – a suggestion that mirrors the plan Abbott announced last week.

Abbott has named border security as an emergency item, allowing bills related to it to be passed in the first 60 days of the legislative session. Both the state House and Senate have also prioritized the issue, proposing budgets with unprecedented levels of spending on border security.

By this summer, the state will have spent nearly $1 billion on border enforcement since 2008, nearly half of that in the two-year budget period that ends Aug. 31.

A key question is how long the guardsmen should stay on the border. Abbott has called for them to remain until his proposed 500 extra officers arrive. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also supports a continued deployment, but state House Speaker Joe Straus is more skeptical.

The internal report did not directly mention the issue but said the guardsmen should be replaced “as resources become available.”

Overall, the document mostly provided a more detailed version of what Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and Texas National Guard Adjutant General John Nichols have said at a series of committee hearings during the early part of this session, including at a Monday meeting in which several state senators called for the operation to have more defined goals.

While the report gave more detail than has been publicly released about the claim often made by Patrick and other state leaders that the deployment has reduced crime, it focused on illegal crossings and cartel activity in the operation zone, providing less detail about local crimes and leaving open the possibility that criminals have simply shifted their efforts elsewhere.

Cartel arrests

In addition to the steep reduction in crossings since the mission began, which some experts have attributed to other factors, the report said that encounters with gang members in the operation area have dropped by 38 percent, pursuits in Hidalgo and Starr counties have dipped by 29 percent and documented human stash homes have plummeted by two-thirds.

Documented drug stash houses have slightly increased, said the assessment, which found that 150 tons of illegal drugs have been seized as part of the operation.

The report also said the chiefs of the Mission and McAllen police departments have credited the deployment with decreased local crime.

The mission has also led to the arrest of several high-profile cartel leaders, according to the assessment.

In its detailed cost breakdown, the report found that the Department of Public Safety has spent about $22 million on salaries, $21 million on overtime payments, $5 million on vehicle fuel and maintenance, $2.5 million on flight costs and $7 million on “travel,” presumably for officers to get to and from the operation.

Among other costs, the Texas Military Department has spent $16 million on wages, $550,000 on food for undocumented immigrants, $181,000 on fuel, $78,000 on building rent and $16 million on “operating expenses.”

Cables Reveal Iran’s Weapons Status

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Item 7 of leaked intelligence cables from 2012 explains conditions on status of weapons.

Item 7 Iran

 

From an IAEA brief noted December 2014:
*Iran has had a nuclear weapons program since at least the late 1980s.
*In 1989, it set up a management structure for the program responsible to the Ministry of Defence, which it has reorganized over the years.
*At the start, a lot of Iran’s technical knowledge to produce nuclear weapons came from the same underground network which helped countries like Libya. *Iran has also been getting help from an unnamed “nuclear weapon state” (Russia? China?), but it has developed considerable scientific and technical capabilities of its own.
*The program has involved extensive procurement activity, much of it clandestine using false front companies, but benefitting from the fact that many of the components sought have both civilian and military applications.
*In addition to enriching uranium, Iran has been working on converting highly enriched uranium (HEU) into metal, and casting and machining it into the components of a nuclear core.
*It has done modelling and calculations on how an HEU device would function.
*Engineering work has been done on integrating a nuclear device into a missile delivery vehicle.
*Iran has been experimenting with a multipoint initiation system, with the explosives used having the dimensions of a payload that would fit into the warhead chamber of an Iranian Shahab 3 missile which has a range of some 1300 kilometers. (Iran is also working on a longer range missile.)
*Iran has been working on the development of safe, fast-acting detonators which can be triggered within a microsecond of each other in order to set off an implosion-type nuclear device.
*Work has been done on a prototype system for fuzing, arming and firing a nuclear weapon which could explode both in the air above a target and on impact.
*Iran has conducted a number of practical tests to determine how firing equipment might function over long distances with a test device located down a deep shaft; and it has studied safety arrangements for conducting a nuclear test.

***  

By the next decade, according to the IAEA, the regime would consolidate its weaponization researchers under an initiative called the “AMAD Plan,” headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a Ph.D. nuclear engineer and senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The AMAD Plan was charged with procuring dual-use technologies, developing nuclear detonators and conducting high-explosive experiments associated with compressing fissile material, according to Western intelligence agencies. The AMAD Plan’s most intense period of activity was in 2002-03, according to the IAEA, when current President Hasan Rouhani headed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council before becoming its chief nuclear negotiator.

Feeling the heat from the MEK’s disclosure of two nuclear facilities in 2002 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the mullahs apparently halted the AMAD Plan’s activities in late 2003. But Mr. Fakhrizadeh and his scientists didn’t stop their weaponization work. As former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright told us, “Fakhrizadeh continued to run the program in the military industry, where you could work on nuclear weapons.” Much of the work, including theoretical explosive modeling, was shifted to Defense Ministry-linked universities, such as Malek Ashtar University of Technology in Tehran.

Mr. Fakhrizadeh has continued to oversee these disparate and highly compartmentalized activities, now under the auspices of Iran’s new Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym, SPND. The MEK first disclosed the SPND’s existence in 2011. Now the opposition group has obtained what it says are key new biographical details and the first photograph of the 56-year-old Mr. Fakhrizadeh, whom Iran has refused to make available to the IAEA for long-sought interviews.

The MEK has also compiled a list of what it says are 100 SPND researchers. Far from disbanding the SPND, the MEK alleges, the Tehran regime has kept its nucleus of researchers intact. Possibly to avoid detection by the IAEA, the MEK says, the regime recently relocated the SPND’s headquarters from Mojdeh Avenue in Tehran to Pasdaran Avenue. “The new site,” the MEK adds, “is located in between several centers and offices affiliated to the Defense Ministry . . . , the Union of IRGC, the sports organization of the Defense Ministry . . . and Chamran Hospital.”

To further mask the illicit nature of the relocation from the IAEA, the MEK says, “parts of Malek Ashtar University’s logistical activities were transferred to the former site of SPND. The objective was to avoid closing [the former] center, and in the event of inspections, to claim that the site has always had the current formation.” Don’t expect the regime to fess up to much of this by the August 25 deadline set in its joint communique with the IAEA.

The fact that the IAEA and the Western powers are now turning to the weaponization question is a sign of how far the Iranian nuclear-weapons program has progressed. As the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center’s Henry Sokolski, a former nonproliferation director at the Pentagon, told us: “A concern about weaponization followed by testing and use is the moral hazard when you don’t pay attention to fissile-material production.”

In other words, having ceded a right to enrich and permitted the Islamic Republic to develop an advanced enrichment capability, the West is now left with preventing weaponization as the final barrier against a nuclear-capable Iran. The diplomacy of Mr. Rouhani and his Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, is intended to soothe jittery Western nerves on weaponization.

That palliative effect will be reinforced by the IAEA’s latest quarterly report, also released last week, in which the Agency reported that Iran has sharply reduced its stock of 20% uranium and hasn’t enriched above 5% since the November interim agreement took effect. The report also highlights the Islamic Republic’s new willingness to address at a technical level the “possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” including Tehran’s development of exploding bridge-wire detonators and high-explosives testing.

But if past is precedent and the MEK’s new disclosures are to be believed, Mr. Fakhrizadeh will continue to do his work as he has to this day. The snake may shed its skin but not its temper, runs an old Persian proverb.

Islamic State Destroying Civilization’s Artifacts

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Last month, Islamic State was in Mosul destroying tangible history on civilization, some items were rare manuscripts dating back 3000 years. Books were loaded into trucks and taken away to be destroyed.

An Iraqi lawmaker, Hakim al-Zamili, said the Islamic State group “considers culture, civilization and science as their fierce enemies.”

Al-Zamili, who leads the parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, compared the Islamic State group to raiding medieval Mongols, who in 1258 ransacked Baghdad. Libraries’ ancient collections of works on history, medicine and astronomy were dumped into the Tigris River, purportedly turning the waters black from running ink.

“The only difference is that the Mongols threw the books in the Tigris River, while now Daesh is burning them,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. “Different method, but same mentality.”

If you still doubt the Islamic State mission to destroy all things non-Islamic, which Barack Obama does doubt, then consider Gilgamesh as part of part of the history.

Gilgamesh was a legendary king and hero of the city-state of Uruk. The historical Gilgamesh was a Sumarian king of Uruk around 2700 BC. According to the Sumerian king list, Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), the son of Lugalbanda. Legend has it that his mother was Ninsun, a goddess. Sumarian fragments of the legend that grew up around him have been found dating back to about 2000 BC.

The Gilgamesh Epic is the most notable literary product of Babylonia discovered in the mounds of Mesopotamia. In the epic named after him, Gilgamesh, the Sumerian king of Uruk, seeks to escape death, but ultimately concludes this is futile and turns to lasting works of culture to achieve immortality. The Babylonian king Gilgamesh was said to be one-third human and two-thirds god. He ruled the city of Uruk on the Euphrates River more than four thousand years ago in what is now Iraq. According to legend, the gods sent him a series of ordeals, starting with the wild man Enkidu, who challenged the king and reformed his abuses of power. Once reconciled, the two embarked on a quest to fell all the cedar trees of southern Iran and slay Humbaba, the demon residing there. So begin the tales of Gilgamesh.

The Islamic State released a video Thursday showing sledgehammer-wielding militants destroying artefacts dating back thousands of years in Mosul’s central museum, yet another act of destruction in the radical Islamist group’s rampage through the Middle East.

The five-minute video begins with a verse from the Koran condemning idol worship, followed by an ISIS militant denouncing the polytheism of the ancient Assyrian and Akkadian cultures. The militant cites Muhammad’s destruction of the idols in Mecca as the precedent for their actions.

“These statues and idols, these artifacts, if God has ordered its removal, they became worthless to us even if they are worth billions of dollars,” he declares.

The militants then set on the statues with sledgehammers.

The video also includes footage from an archeological site in Mosul in which a fighter drills through a 7th century BC Assyrian sculpture of a winged bull.

A caption claims that the artefacts did not exist in the time of the prophet, having since been put on display by “devil worshippers,” possibly a reference to the Yazidi minority.

The international community has condemned this latest act of destruction by the extremist group. The Guardian provided some of the reaction from influential voices in the region:

 “The birthplace of human civilisation … is being destroyed”, said Kino Gabriel, one of the leaders of the Syriac Military Council – a Christian militia – in a telephone interview with the Guardian from Hassakeh in north-eastern Syria. […] “In front of something like this, we are speechless,” said Gabriel. “Murder of people and destruction is not enough, so even our civilisation and the culture of our people is being destroyed.”

“When you watch the footage, you feel visceral pain and outrage, like you do when you see human beings hurt,” said Mardean Isaac, an Assyrian writer and member of A Demand for Action, an organisation dedicated to protecting the rights of the Assyrians and other minorities in Syria and Iraq. […]

“I’m totally shocked,” Amir al-Jumaili [a professor at the Archaeology College in Mosul] told the AP. “It’s a catastrophe. With the destruction of these artefacts, we can no longer be proud of Mosul’s civilisation.” […]

Isaac said: “While the Islamic State is ethnically cleansing the contemporary Assyrian populations of Iraq and Syria, they are also conducting a simultaneous war on their ancient history and the right of future generations of all ethnicities and religions to the material memory of their ancestors.”

John Kerry vs. James Clapper

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Is it prudent or wise to under-estimate terror threats? Is it honest to downplay reality and blame attacks on just a few telegraphing the reasons to be just single lone wolves? Secretary of State John Kerry and the Director of the Office of National Intelligence seem to differ dramatically on intelligence matters.

 

Kerry and Clapper sit in the same meetings and they collectively participate in joint video conference calls on ‘critic’ (critical incident reports), flashing read terror events, and share in emails as part of agency distribution address lists. So this begs the question, how is it that Kerry and Clapper can be so far apart in assessing and telegraphing the global threat matrix just a day apart from testimony?

Kerry: “Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally, less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century.”  Video here.

Clapper: ““When the final accounting is done. 2014 will be the most lethal year in global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled. About half of all attacks including fatalities in 2014 occurred in just three countries, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Video here.

Clapper is the top intelligence official appointed to receive and analyze all global threats to the West that not only simmer but occur daily.

His opening statement says more to what the actual threat matrix is than John Kerry will allow himself to admit. Opening statement is here. Sadly, there is a non-bloody threat as well that rarely gets mentioned except Clapper did speak to it.

President Obama’s top intelligence official pointed to a range of threats facing America Thursday, from the surge by Sunni Muslim extremist groups in the Middle East, to the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, to the push by Russian and Chinese operatives to penetrate Washington’s clandestine national security community.

But one threat was listed above all others in congressional testimony provided by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper — that of cyberattacks carried out by a growing host of politically, as well as criminally motivated actors against both government and private U.S. computer networks .

“Cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication and severity of impact; [and] the ranges of cyber threat actors, methods of attack, targeted systems and victims are also expanding,” Mr. Clapper said in prepared remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

While the threat is complex, however, Mr. Clapper downplayed the idea America is at a high risk of having its infrastructure crippled by a major doomsday-like “Cyber Armageddon” scenario.

“The likelihood of a catastrophic attack from any particular actor is remote at this time,” he said. “We envision something different. We foresee an ongoing series of low-to-moderate level cyberattacks from a variety of sources over time, which will impose cumulative costs on US economic competitiveness and national security.”

Computer system attacks by Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korea operatives represent the biggest threat, the intelligence director said. “Politically motivated cyberattacks are now a growing reality, and foreign actors are reconnoitering and developing access to U.S. critical infrastructure systems, which might be quickly exploited for disruption if an adversary’s intent became hostile,” he said. “In addition, those conducting cyber espionage are targeting U.S. government, military and commercial networks on a daily basis.”

Mr. Clapper’s remarks came as part of the intelligence community’s annual reporting to Congress on worldwide threats facing the U.S. The intelligence director’s prepared testimony is generally regarded each year as the declassified boilerplate of the intelligence community’s annual assessment of those threats.

In addition to cyber, Thursday’s threat assessment pointed to dangers associated with a variety of other developments around the globe, from Russia’s ongoing military action in eastern Ukraine, to the political and security crises in Syria and Libya, to the spread Boko Haram Islamic extremist attacks from Nigeria into Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

China’s nuclear weapons

Among the more notable passages in the assessment was one asserting that “the leading state intelligence threats to U.S. interests in 2015 will continue to be Russia and China, based on their capabilities, intent and broad operational scopes.”

The evolving nuclear weapons pursuits of Iran and North Korea were also noted — as was that of China, where the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) Second Artillery Force continues to “modernize its nuclear missile force by adding more survivable road-mobile systems and enhancing its silo-based systems,” according to the assessment.

“This new generation of missiles is intended to ensure the viability of China’s strategic deterrent by providing a second strike capability,” it stated. “In addition, the PLA Navy continues to develop the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and might produce additional JIN-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.” “The JIN-class submarines, armed with JL-2 SLBMs, will give the PLA Navy its first long-range, sea-based nuclear capability,” the assessment said. “We assess that the Navy will soon conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols.”

Mr. Clapper testified that “Sunni violent extremists are gaining momentum and the number of Sunni violent extremist groups, members and safe havens is greater than at any other point in history.”

While he said “the threat to key U.S. allies and partners will probably increase,” the intelligence director added that the growing number of the extremist groups is likely to be “balanced by a lack of cohesion and authoritative leadership.”

He also said that while “the January 2015 attacks against Charlie Hebdo in Paris is a reminder of the threat to the West,” most groups place a higher priority on “local concerns” than on attacking the so-called far enemy of the the U.S. and the West — the way that Osama Bin Laden’s original al Qaeda had been so focused during the years leading up to and immediately following Sept. 11, 2001.

But Mr. Clapper’s testimony suggested that there is still uncertainty surrounding the threat posed by the Islamic State movement, known by the acronym ISIL.

“If ISIL were to substantially increase the priority it places on attacking the West rather than fighting to maintain and expand territorial control, then the group’s access to radicalized Westerners who have fought in Syria and Iraq would provide a pool of operatives who potentially have access to the United States and other Western countries,” he said. “Since the conflict began in 2011, more than 20,000 foreign fighters — at least 3,400 of whom are Westerners — have gone to Syria from more than 90 countries.”