New York State has convicted a white supremacist as a ‘terrorist’ for the first time in its history. James Harris Jackson was convicted for the murder of Timothy Caughman, a 66-year-old African American man, in what has been classified as a hate crime. Jackson pled guilty Tuesday to the charge of Murder in the First Degree in the Furtherance of an Act of Terrorism.
Cipher Brief Expert and Former NYPD Director of Analysis, Mitch Silber, who is also the author of The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West, writes that extreme right-wing violence (XRW) is something that needs more attention from U.S. counterterrorism authorities.
The Cipher Brief spoke with Silber about what he sees as the most-pressing terrorist threats facing the U.S. both at home and abroad.
Silber: Among terrorist groups that would seek to harm the U.S. both at home and abroad, Hezbollah is at the top of my list in terms of global capability. The question for 2019 is whether the U.S. v. Iranian rivalry will heat up and whether Iran will seek to use its proxy forces to deliver an asymmetric attack against the U.S. or American interests abroad.
Next would be ISIS. Though the Islamic State's external operations arm seems to have gone dormant in the wake of its loss of territory, the intent is clearly still there to hit the West and the U.S. and many returning foreign fighters have returned to Europe with skills and intent that can be remotely managed. However, the Islamic State is not the only threat in Syria. There is also Hurras al Din, al Qaeda's affiliate in Idlib, which enjoys a sanctuary there. Lastly, there is al Qaeda, with its presence in Yemen (AQAP) and remnants of its core in Afghanistan/Pakistan that are seeking to regenerate some external planning capabilities.
The Cipher Brief: What are the groups that might not be on the main radar just yet but have potential to take advantage of circumstances to grow in 2019?
Silber: Though not a group in the traditional sense of the word, Extreme Right Wing (XRW) violence at home is something that needs more attention from the IC and law enforcement. The threat from XRW in the U.K. is now almost on par with jihadist threats and in the wake of the massacre in Pittsburgh last October, the U.S. would be naive and negligent to ignore Neo-Nazi, White Supremacists in the homeland, who operate and view themselves as a leaderless resistance movement.
The Cipher Brief: Are terrorist tactics changing? Are the organizations adapting to changes on the ground, whether it’s in Syria or Afghanistan?
Silber: In Syria, we have seen the metamorphosis of the Islamic State from a territorial entity that took on many of the elements of a state, with an external terrorist operations capability back to an underground insurgency. This change will and has triggered a change in their tactics to more unconventional/guerilla tactics, not unlike the Taliban have been using in Afghanistan.
The Cipher Brief: What are the tactics that the U.S. and its allies should be focused on to address these emerging terrorist threats?
Silber: Weak central governments, safe havens and civil wars are some of the elements that provide the fertile ground for terrorist groups to grow and build their capabilities. Whether it is Yemen, Somalia, Syria or Afghanistan, to some degree the problems and solutions are the same. Anything that the U.S. can do to strengthen local governments, end civil wars while simultaneously building government capacity to control their own territory can help mitigate the situations.
The Cipher Brief: Finally, a reality check: there hasn’t been a significant terrorist attack in the U.S. in quite some time, yet we’ve heard that organizations haven’t stopped actively plotting (for example, AQAP’s quest to bring down an airliner). Has that threat picture changed in your opinion, and what do you see as the next threat, if left without a countermeasure, that could cause the greatest damage to the U.S.?
Silber: No doubt, the intentions of al Qaeda or the Islamic State and many of their regional affiliates have not changed vis a via wanting to hit the U.S. Fortunately, the U.S. has been able to degrade these groups' capabilities. The next threat that absolutely needs countermeasures is remotely piloted vehicles or drones — that can be armed, even with low tech explosive devices and could do tremendous damage to a soft target, or a swarm of drones that could impact aviation with a devastating attack on an airliner.
Read also, The Next Terrorist Threat and How to Kill Off A Withering Terrorist Organization...
