When I write about the threat of white supremacist terrorism, I often receive complaints from readers that I am focusing on the wrong problem and that my articles are ill-informed and misleading (I’m putting the complaints politely). Instead of focusing on white supremacists, they argue, I should instead write about the “real” terrorists like antifa and Black Lives Matter. 

Their opinions are backed up by statements from the police and Trump administration officials and images of burning cities. The terrorism label, for them, is a way of distinguishing who is in the wrong. Brian Jenkins, a leading scholar of terrorism, observed in 1981: “Terrorism is what the bad guys do.” 

When it comes to Black Lives Matter, there’s no credible case for labeling it a terrorist organization. One analysis of the Black Lives Matter protests found that 93 percent were peaceful, and some of the violent incidents at the rallies were simply opportunistic vandalism. 

Most of the protest leaders have tried to stop looting and other violence, recognizing this is counterproductive as well as wrong. Moreover, Black Lives Matter is an open movement with a host of organizations participating along with self-proclaimed supporters rather than a tight group with a defined membership. Thus, labeling the movement as a whole as violent is false. 

But not all violence is terrorism, either. In many instances, even those who do actively promote and use violence don’t merit the label “terrorist.” 

So what about individuals and groups that have been credibly linked to violence in Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, and other cities? Where does antifa fit in? Or right-wing militia-type groups like Patriot Prayer? How about individuals such as the shooter at the Kenosha, Wisconsin, protests? Should we call all of these people terrorists?

The answer is not as straightforward as you might think.

What does “terrorism” mean?

It’s easy to dodge this question and conclude that there is no real agreement on the definition of terrorism. One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, as the old saying goes — an argument one still hears walking the halls of the United Nations. As my colleague Chris Meserole and I have pointed out, even close US allies don’t agree with the United States — or even with one another — as to which groups are terrorists. 

However, serious analysts such as Bruce Hoffman and Boaz Ganor, as well as US statutes and various government agencies have all tried to define terrorism. Important for all these efforts is an attempt to put aside the question of the justness of the cause — whether someone is the “bad guy” — and focus on the goals and actions of the perpetrator. So one can favor a cause (national liberation, say) but still label the violence used to achieve it as terrorism. Conversely, one can oppose a cause without considering those advocating for it to be terrorists.

Serious terrorism definitions have several factors in common, most of which are self-evident, but a few require a bit more explanation. 

First, terrorism involves violence or the threat of it: Marches, protests, and similar peaceful activities do not meet the criteria. Stone-throwing or other low-level forms of violence, including street brawls and physical assaults, could technically be counted, but it’s best to maintain a high bar when using the terrorism label. Otherwise, major terror attacks like the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — in which a gunman killed 11 people in the deadliest attack on Jews on American soil — get diluted by numerous non-lethal events. 

Second, terrorism is inherently political. The target and motivation need to be linked to a broader cause or ideology. It need not be a wholly rational or achievable cause. But having such a cause is what distinguishes terrorism from crime, personal passion, or other common reasons for violence. 

Third, terrorism is perpetrated by non-state actors. That’s a political science term that basically means anyone who’s not acting as the agent of a recognized government. Soldiers and police officers, for instance, are state actors. Members of paramilitary groups, militias, private corporations, and non-governmental organizations are all non-state actors.

To be clear: There is no moral difference between a state agent such as a soldier planting a bomb in a marketplace and killing dozens of civilians versus this same action being done by a non-state actor, but it is important for our definitions. 

The United States also tries to carve out “clandestine agents” of the state — such as when Libyan intelligence officers bombed Pan Am 103 in 1988, killing 270 people  — as part of its terrorism definition, which further muddies the waters. 

A fourth criterion — and one that is highly relevant to this discussion — is that terrorism is “designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target,” in Bruce Hoffman’s words. The purpose of the violence, accordingly, is not just (or even primarily) to hurt, kill, or destroy the immediate target, but rather to convey a message. 

It is this psychological effect that gives terrorism its power, inspiring fear in individuals far from the blast zone, fomenting civil wars, reshaping foreign policy by producing an over-reaction, and otherwise having far more impact than the death toll and destruction of the initial attack itself. 

Part of the psychological effect is also a high degree of intentionality. Shootings at an anti-racism rally may scare others in another city, but for it to count as terrorism the shootings needed to be intended to have a broader effect — the purpose of violence at the rally, in other words, is to shape opinion far outside the city in question. It’s not enough for the violence to inadvertently scare (“terrorize”) people far away from it. Rather, such fear must be the goal.   

There’s another commonly used criterion that involves who is being targeted by the violence: Many terrorism definitions require that the targets be civilians or noncombatants. If an attack targets military forces on the battlefield in the middle of a war, for instance, it might not be considered terrorism, but rather a regular military or guerrilla operation. 

But this gets complicated really quickly: What if it’s an attack on military forces, but it takes place far outside a war zone? What if there’s no war at all, and the soldiers are just stationed at a military base somewhere? 

Take, for example, al-Qaeda’s suicide bombing of USS Cole, a US Navy guided-missile destroyer, while the ship was refueling off the coast of Yemen. The attack killed 17 sailors, but did so outside a designated war zone. Whether that incident counts as a terrorist attack could vary depending on how this criterion is applied. 

And what about police officers? They’re not soldiers, but nor are they pure civilians like shoppers at a Walmart, for example. This adds to the fuzziness. 

Terrorism definitions are muddy, and there is legitimate disagreement as to which deeds qualify. However, some factors, especially the intentional psychological effect, are important when considering how to categorize recent unrest and violence in the US.

Examining the facts — not the rhetoric 

Let’s apply these definitional criteria to the individuals and groups in question here. 

The marches, counter-marches, and most of the violence surrounding them in Portland and other cities are certainly political (with the exception of some of the opportunistic looting and property destruction), and involve non-state actors: two boxes checked. After that, however, things get more fraught. 

As mentioned above, there is no evidence Black Lives Matter either advocates for or engages in violence. So right there, it’s disqualified for the terrorism label. 

The violent label better fits some supporters of antifa, which is short for “anti-fascist” and is not a group but rather a loose network of like-minded individuals. Some self-proclaimed members, often anarchists, vandalize property, and many go to rallies to fight with (they would say defend against) white supremacists and others they label as fascists.

The Anti-Defamation League notes that a lot of antifa activity occurs online, often in the form of harassing right-wing extremists and white supremacists and doxxing them — outing them to their employers and communities. 

But the League also says: “While some antifa use their fists, other violent tactics include throwing projectiles, including bricks, crowbars, homemade slingshots, metal chains, water bottles, and balloons filled with urine and feces.” Because of this violence, they deserve to be rejected and condemned (and, when they use violence, arrested). 

However, this threat is blown way out of proportion. Claims that antifa is devilishly cunning or crazily violent are common, leading to many conspiracy theories — President Trump claims, for example, that they have weaponized soup cans. It’s gotten so outlandish that jokingly comparing antifa’s dastardly antics with those used by the Roadrunner to trick Wile E. Coyote in the Looney Tunes cartoons has become a meme on Twitter. 

But antifa in the United States was not linked to deadly violence until August 29, when self-proclaimed antifa member Michael Reinoehl allegedly shot a right-wing activist who was a member of Patriot Prayer. (In 2018, an antifa supporter attacked an ICE facility armed with a rifle and was shot to death.)

However, even when they use violence, antifa’s targets are local — they do not seem to be intentionally trying to cause a broader psychological effect.  

Reinoehl, for example, claimed he was simply providing “security” at Black Lives Matter protests (on his own initiative, it seems) and said that he shot the Patriot Prayer member in self-defense, believing he and a friend were about to be stabbed. In an interview with Vice before he was killed by police seeking to arrest him, Reinoehl claimed, “I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn’t going to do that.” The ICE facility attacker may have been suicidal, and reports so far suggest his focus was just on that particular facility. In neither case were they seeking a broader psychological effect.

Elevating this violence to terrorism, as President Trump has called for, exaggerates its scope and scale. As Colin Clarke and Michael Kenney argue, “Though sucker-punching someone in the face is certainly violent, it’s not terrorism.” If antifa transitions and Reinoehl-type shooters become more regular or are embraced by more within the network, then the terrorism question should be reconsidered. This is especially so if future violence is intended to have a far-reaching psychological effect. 

However, the amorphous nature of the movement makes any designation difficult in practice as it is not clear where antifa begins and ends and who, if anyone, is responsible for its violent activities beyond the individuals in question. 

Patriot Prayer is a group with a political cause — it’s pro-Trump and anti-left — and it engages in violence. Patriot Prayer has connections to law enforcement and white supremacists and to the hate group Proud Boys but insists it rejects racism. Its members often go to rallies, armed, seeking conflict with members of antifa. 

So far, though, these clashes have not been lethal, a supporter of the group has threatened opponents with “bullets put into your head.” Although terrorism includes the threat of violence as well as violence itself, given the level of vitriol on the internet today, such threats don’t justify calling the entire group a terrorist group. 

Like with antifa, when Patriot Prayer members are violent, their goals and targets do not seem intended to create a broad psychological effect. On Facebook, Patriot Prayer describes itself as “encouraging the country to fight for freedom at a local level using faith in God to guide us in the right direction.” Its focus is local and its members are largely about fighting the other side in the streets. So for Patriot Prayer, the terrorism label similarly doesn’t work.

Finally, there’s Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with murder in the fatal shooting of at least two people during a night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in late August. 

Rittenhouse was at least loosely tied to a political cause, casting himself as a defender of law and order against violence associated with marches protesting the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times by a police officer. Rittenhouse in his social media posts described himself as pro-police and claimed to a Daily Caller reporter that he traveled to Kenosha to protect businesses and help anyone who was hurt. 

Available evidence suggests no intentionality on Rittenhouse’s part to cause a broader psychological effect.  He seems to simply have seen himself as doing his part to help out law enforcement — even though he was armed with a powerful assault-style weapon and not a trained law enforcement official.

Why does the terrorism label matter, beyond semantics?  

Part of it is simply a question of demonization. Taking away the “terrorism” label forces us to think more clearly and critically about why the groups or individuals are acting as they are. 

More important, though, it affects which agencies and government authorities are invoked to deal with these groups and individuals. Protests, even violent ones, are traditionally a matter for the police and, if they need backup, the National Guard. Terrorism, in contrast, involves the FBI and other national security agencies. 

In a post-9/11 world, terrorism is considered a grave threat that must be crushed. When President Trump uses the term terrorism as a label for largely peaceful protesters, he is abusing the word and making an overreaction more likely.

The cities affected by the protests and the nation as a whole should condemn and try to stop any violence while encouraging peaceful demonstrations. However, using the terrorism label obscures more than it clarifies, creating a misleading impression of the demonstrations and the proper response.

Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Follow him on Twitter @dbyman.

The US drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the long-time leader of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, comes when the United States is at a dangerous crossroads in the Middle East. Soleimani was responsible for many of Iran’s most important relationships, including with paramilitary groups in Iraq, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas, among many others. In many countries, he and the Quds Force basically controlled Iranian policy. 

By killing him, the United States is risking a major escalation with Iran and across the region at a time when the overall US position is weak and growing weaker. Tehran has vowed “harsh revenge” and declared it is withdrawing from the nuclear deal in its entirety. Trump, for his part, has tweeted out yet more threats, vowing to “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

With painful irony, Trump is escalating tensions with Iran just as he is weakening the overall US position in the Middle East. His actions may force a US withdrawal from Iraq, hinder the fight against ISIS, and bolster hardliners in Tehran — all while making American allies uncertain and fearful.

A reconsideration is in order, but the Trump administration has no record of such self-scrutiny. Rather, its record in the region so far is confusing and ineffectual. As a result, the influence of US adversaries like Iran is likely to grow, while allies will, by necessity, go their own ways.

Soleimani’s death comes when Iran’s position in the Middle East is vulnerable. Recent months have seen popular protests in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, with hundreds dying in government crackdowns. Most of the protesters focused on corruption, the poor quality of government services, and other bread-and-butter issues. However, a strong theme throughout the protests in Iraq and Lebanon was resentment at Iran’s undue influence in these countries and the manipulation of politics. In Iran itself, protests swept more than 100 cities, and demonstrators burned revolutionary leaders in effigy. 

Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen has alarmed many of the region’s Sunni powers. In addition, the public in Iraq and Lebanon were expressing unhappiness with Tehran’s influence in their domestic politics. Politically, the situation was ripe for pushing back. However, the dominant regional story now is the Soleimani killing, Iran’s potential response, and the risk of broader escalation. Even before the assassination, US strikes in Iraq last month against the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militant group enabled Iran’s allies there to portray the United States as the aggressor and shifted the discourse to one of “resistance” against American imperialism, a timely diversion for Iran. 

Tehran used its allies in Iraq to orchestrate demonstrations at the US Embassy in Baghdad, burning parts of the compound: just enough violence to threaten the United States, but not enough to provoke US military retaliation. That was incorrect, as it turned out. Tehran’s leaders probably thought that their limited use of violence would lead Trump, who in the past was highly cautious about a confrontation with Iran, to step back — a clear misjudgment of a mercurial leader. 

The strike that killed Soleimani also killed several leaders of Iraqi militant groups, further inflaming the situation. Following these deaths, the gloves are likely to come off, allowing Tehran to shift the discourse both at home and in Iraq to questions of vengeance and supposed US aggression rather than the Iranian regime’s own abuses and declining popularity. Already, Iraqi leaders and the country’s parliament are calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, though it is unclear if this proposal will move forward. 

Even as the Trump administration prepares for an Iranian response, US allies continue to work at cross-purposes in the absence of American leadership or even basic guidance. 

Trump has abandoned allies and sent conflicting messages across the region

The rift between Qatar on one side, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on another, still divides key US Gulf allies, all of whose support would be vital in a broader military confrontation with Tehran. They disagree primarily on whether or not to support Islamists in the Middle East’s many crises, and Trump has egged them on rather than try to calm tempers. 

In Libya, allies are on opposite sides of the country’s messy civil war. Turkey has announced it will deploy troops to back up its growing military support for the US- and UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, other important regional allies, are backing a rival force led by Khalifa Haftar, a Libyan general opposed to Islamists. Which thuggish claimants to power are better for Libya and its fractured political scene is an open question, but the Trump administration’s approach has been the worst. The United States formally recognizes the GNA, but Trump himself has praised Haftar, sending a confusing signal. In any event, a proxy war involving important US allies increases regional instability and distracts them from Iran and other dangers.

Allies are understandably nervous, as President Trump has made no secret of his desire to end the US military presence in the Middle East. “We’re getting out. Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand. The job of our military is not to police the world,” he declared. 

Even countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel that were critical of Obama and welcomed Trump’s victory are reconsidering their relations with the United States. For these and other US allies, the US presence has been an extra layer of security. However, Trump’s decision not to respond when Iranian drones attacked Saudi oil facilities and temporarily disrupted half the country’s oil production (roughly 5 percent of global output) changed the calculus of what constituted a traditional “red line.” Trump made it clear that threats to allied security are no longer important for the United States.

Now allies are preparing to go their own way; Riyadh has even made overtures to Tehran, though it is likely to back away while the risk of a greater US-Iran conflict is high. Saudi Arabia wants the United States to take a strong stand against Iran politically, but its leaders worry that they will get caught in the crossfire if the shooting war escalates.

Nature abhors a vacuum

Not surprisingly, others are stepping into the void created by the weak and confusing US position. Russia, in particular, is stepping up its role. Fresh from helping the Assad regime secure victory in the Syrian civil war, Russian aid and mercenaries have made Haftar’s forces in Libya even more formidable. Even staunch US allies like Israel are now courting Moscow as an important regional actor. Iran, long a pariah, held joint naval exercises with Russia and China just before the latest round of conflict began. 

All these problems might be forgivable if they followed a broader logic and reflected a considered decision to reduce the US role in the region and, therefore, try to achieve less.

However, the Trump administration remains as long on ambitious policy declarations as it is short on commitment. Nowhere has this been more clear than with Iran. 

Under Trump, the administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iranian nuclear deal that the president has described as “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” Subsequently, the United States embarked on a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran, and indeed, the increased sanctions and financial pressure have hit Tehran hard. Iran has now declared it will not abide by the nuclear deal, though it has refrained from saying it will take the next steps to build a bomb. 

However, it is not clear what, exactly, the United States seeks from Tehran, as the Trump administration has never laid out a realistic set of goals. 

Trump claims not to want regime change, but his administration has never laid out a serious negotiating position detailing its goals. After the Soleimani killing, any such talks will be off indefinitely. Moreover, by drawing down forces in Syria, not responding to Iran’s attack on Saudi Arabia, and railing against a military presence in general, US leverage with allies and adversaries alike has decreased. Similarly, the administration has failed to rally US regional allies around a common strategy, instead letting them get sidetracked in Syria (and now, Libya) into fighting each other. By killing Soleimani, the United States has upped the stakes dramatically, but it has done so at a time when allies are angry and confused and US goals are unclear.

The future looks grim, as neither Iran nor the United States is pulling back. Iran is widely expected to retaliate for the death of its iconic military leader. Trump’s threats against Iran and the additional attacks on pro-Iran militant groups in Iraq, as well as threats to sanction Iraq if it tells American forces to leave, make it seem that the United States wants to escalate the situation. Iran may try to hit American bases and troops, diplomatic facilities, or even the US homeland. The large number of US military outposts and official facilities give it plenty of locations to target.

Trump has used limited force in the Middle East before, such as his one-off strike against Syria for its use of chemical weapons, or continuing the Obama administration’s campaign against ISIS. In taking on Iran, however, the consequences are far more grave. Iran is far more capable of projecting violence abroad than Syria or ISIS, and it has more tools to punch back. In addition, Trump acted with the support of US allies in previous cases, whereas this time most allies are hesitant, believing the United States escalated without good reason.

What a reasonable, strategic administration would do

As the likelihood of a confrontation with Iran grows, it would be an opportune time for the United States to take stock of its position in the Middle East and determine its realistic goals there. 

Another administration, say that of George W. Bush or Barack Obama, would quickly prioritize US goals and determine the price the country would pay to achieve them. This could either involve trying to deescalate the situation by continuing to support a low-level troop presence or even reducing it further. Or it might mean preparing for a greater confrontation, courting allies to win their support while sending an array of forces to the region and coordinating with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other countries currently at odds. It could also mean recognizing that alienating Iraq and making Iran even more of an enemy hinders the fight against ISIS.

Such careful thinking is unlikely during Trump’s time in office. Unfortunately, it is more likely that this administration will move from crisis to crisis, from tweet to tweet, without developing an overall game plan. In so doing, it will be caught flat-footed each time with the wrong size force and without the necessary allies.

Under another administration, there might even be long-term advantages to the Soleimani killing. It’s possible to imagine after an additional round or two of attacks, a mix of coercion and inducements could bring Iran back to the negotiating table on conditions more favorable to the United States. Doing so, however, would require a clear strategic vision and ability to bring allies together around it — plus a willingness to shift the US regional posture to back up both threats and diplomacy. Trump’s record suggests none of these conditions are likely.

Nor will the US relations with Iran necessarily improve significantly should Trump lose the 2020 election. A new administration cannot set the clock back to the pre-Trump era, and Iran’s vengeance is going to be against the United States, not any particular administration. The connections that regional states are forging to Russia, and the disruption among traditional allies, cannot be easily remedied. Indeed, Trump has greatly weakened the US position. Having skill, resources, and dedication would no doubt help a future administration, but the hole Trump has dug is deep and growing deeper.

Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Follow him on Twitter: @dbyman.

Success has a thousand fathers, and it’s too early to know who exactly did what when it comes to the reported killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Every agency and ally will want to claim some share of the credit. Although the specifics remain elusive, what we do know about the raid that led to his death — and its consequences — illustrates a series of lessons about US counterterrorism since 9/11, when the United States put the fight against groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State at the top of its priority list. 

Allies are everything

The US Kurdish allies in Syria — the same ones the United States abandoned when it abruptly withdrew most of its forces from Syria and greenlit a Turkish invasion — reportedly played a key role in providing intelligence for the raid. So, too, did Iraqi allies. This is the norm, not the exception. Much of the intelligence war on terrorism is done by, with, and through allies, which have on-the-ground information as well as a capacity to act locally, neither of which can be replaced without massive US troop deployments.

If the United States is going to fight global terrorist groups like the Islamic State, it will need a range of allies. Some are traditional friends and powerful states, like Australia and France, that have their own counterterrorism assets and operate in areas like Indonesia or West Africa where the United States has historically played little role. Others are local tribes and militias, whose forces are in direct contact with militants in remote parts of Somalia, Yemen, and other areas where jihadists are active. These allies risk the lives of their fighters and otherwise sacrifice to the cause of counterterrorism, and Americans should be grateful.

In his remarks on the raid, President Trump thanked Russia and Turkey as well as Iraq, Syria, and the Kurds. Turkey has proven at best a fitful ally against the Islamic State. It initially allowed jihadists considerable freedom to transit its territory, but over time became far more aggressive. Its invasion of Syria and attack on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-dominated group that for years has been in the front line against the Islamic State, shows that Ankara is far more concerned about Kurdish-linked unrest than fighting jihadists.

The SDF, for its part, will have less time and fewer resources to help the United States fight the Islamic State, as it will now be focused on the Turkish threat and on guarding its autonomy against Syria and Russia, to which it turned in desperation to defend against the Turkish onslaught. Russia, as President Trump pointed out, sees the Islamic State as an enemy, but any thanks should wait until Moscow proves its bona fides by using its own assets and pushing its Syria ally to prioritize fighting the Islamic State in the territory it has just seized from the SDF. 

The global killing machine rumbles on

Before 9/11, the United States struggled to find, let alone kill, terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden. Since then, Washington has developed an impressive mix of intelligence and special operations capacities that are on the hunt for terrorist leaders. In Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries, the United States has killed suspected terrorists using drones and special operations force raids. Such deaths do not by themselves destroy the terrorist groups, but they make them less effective, creating leadership confusion and forcing leaders to hide rather than plot attacks. 

Baghdadi’s killing is likely to have a similar impact. It deprives the Islamic State of its so-called caliph, and it is unclear if his successor will be as charismatic or competent. The president claims the United States is already hunting his successor, and so his time at the helm may be short-lived. In any event, he will have to keep a low profile and will otherwise be unable to exert a high degree of leadership, command, and control without risking meeting the same fate as Baghdadi. Nevertheless, the Islamic State has a deep bench, and it has recovered from massive leadership losses in the past.

Havens don’t have to be havens

Terrorists benefit from safe havens, and jihadist groups in particular prey on weak states or those caught up in civil wars — such as Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Before 9/11, al-Qaeda was able to build a mini-army in Afghanistan, with the United States seemingly impotent to stop it. Yet as the Baghdadi raid illustrates, these war zones are far less impenetrable than they were in the past.

Working with allies, the United States can bomb terrorist hideouts or raid them to arrest and kill their operatives. US intelligence, alone and in combination with allies, is far better able to monitor terrorist havens. Drones and other platforms have greatly expanded US strike options, and special operations forces are far better resourced and focused on the terrorism problem, too.  

Even if the United States largely withdraws from Syria, it will still have some capacity to act there. The United States has five thousand troops in neighboring Iraq, and it could act from the territory of other allies. So Baghdadi’s followers and other thugs should sleep lightly — if at all.

Jihadist groups are hit hard

In the aftermath of 9/11, US officials feared jihadists would conduct similar attacks, including ones involving the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. Yet although al-Qaeda launched bloody attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, and the Islamic State wreaked havoc in Paris in 2015 and Sri Lanka earlier this year, the last 18 years have seen far fewer attacks than anticipated. The al-Qaeda core has not conducted a major attack on the West in over a decade. 

The collapse of the Islamic State’s caliphate, and now the reported death of Baghdadi, deprive the group of one of its most important recruiting pitches and have put it on the defensive, forcing it to focus on surviving rather than conducting attacks on the West. European states have become more effective at counterterrorism, while last year saw only one death in the United States at the hands of jihadists. 

Indeed, while civil wars like Syria and Yemen still rage at horrifying levels, terrorist attacks have fallen around the world. Part of this is because counterterrorism instruments and Western defenses have improved, but it’s also because the collapse of the caliphate and the withering of al-Qaeda has made the messages of extremists less compelling.

The hunt will continue

Given how hard the jihadists have been hit, it’s remarkable how enduring the groups have proven. Despite their losses, both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are still standing, and their affiliates are robust. Ambassador Nathan Sales, the US counterterrorism coordinator, warns of the spread of al-Qaeda to Africa and even claims that “what we see today is an al-Qaida that is as strong as it has ever been.” The ideas the Islamic State and Al Qaeda promulgate now reach and inspire far more people than they did before 9/11. And some of the partners with whom the United States works are corrupt and brutal, and they will not be able to provide the long-term governance necessary to prevent the return of jihadist groups. 

In Iraq and Syria, and in other lands where jihadist groups are active, much of the response will remain tactical, hunting group leaders and preventing the groups as a whole from developing havens and otherwise getting too strong. Baghdadi’s death is an important blow, but it is not the end of the struggle. 

The president himself would do well to learn these lessons. His constant carping on European and other allies risks jeopardizing one of America’s most important counterterrorism assets. Abandoning key partners like the SDF is short-sighted and sends a message that America cannot be trusted.

At home, even as he praised intelligence officers in remarks announcing Baghdadi’s death, he railed against “poor leadership” in the intelligence community and “people who aren’t very intelligent having to do with intel,” probably references to officials involved in investigating his transgressions or standing up for independent analysis. Such pettiness and mistakes will make it harder to build on today’s important counterterrorism success.

Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Follow him on Twitter: @dbyman.

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With the surprise withdrawal of US forces in Syria and the subsequent — and immediate — commencement of Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces, chaos has ensued. Kurdish forces are claiming that hundreds of ISIS prisoners have escaped at the Ain Issa detention facility while fighting raged nearby, while two officials told the New York Times that the US military had failed to secure 60 or so high-value detainees before its forces departed. 

President Donald Trump, however, has assured Americans that his new approach would not prove a threat to the US homeland, saying, “They’re going to be escaping to Europe.” 

Europeans, to be sure, will not find this reassuring. Given the thousands of Europeans who went to fight for the Islamic State and the problems Europe has had with jihadist terrorism in general, they should be alarmed by the US abandonment of the Syrian Kurds and the possible escape of large numbers of ISIS prisoners. The good news is that the potential threat illustrates the counterterrorism progress made in the years since 9/11, but the end of the US role in Syria is clearly bad news.

Europe has a painful record when it comes to jihadist terrorism, suffering repeated mass casualty attacks in the post-9/11 era, including an ISIS-orchestrated set of strikes in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people. European states, however, have made strides on this front, bolstering intelligence collection and sharing, toughening up their laws, and otherwise improving counterterrorism measures. The latest crisis in Syria highlights the need for Europe to continue its aggressive counterterrorism policies, improve how it handles terrorists in jail, and develop a more coherent set of policies to handle suspected terrorist detainees.

A history of violence and radicalism

Europe’s response to jihadist terrorism has long been uneven — often dramatically so. France, which suffered repeated attacks on its soil from the Algerian civil war in the mid-1990s, adopted an aggressive counterterrorism program, and its intelligence service went from clueless to superb as the decade wore on. The United Kingdom preferred to keep the jihadists close in the 1990s, allowing London to become a home for dissidents and propagandists of all sorts, many of whom encouraged young Muslims to fight in Bosnia, Chechnya, and other places with insurgent battlegrounds.

The British hope was that by monitoring them and allowing a safety valve, they could control the dangers. Other countries — such as Belgium, Germany, and Italy — simply ignored the problem. The jihadists, after all, seemed focused overseas, and the attacks on France could be waved off as an Algeria-specific problem that was a bitter legacy of French colonialism.  

For some countries, 9/11 represented a change. The sheer scale of the devastation opened eyes to the risk of terrorism at home. For others, a more aggressive counterterrorism posture seemed an easy way to appease the United States, which saw the fight against Al Qaeda as the world’s top security concern. 

But the resulting greater pressure on European jihadist networks, and the participation of some European states in the military campaign in Afghanistan, angered the jihadists and proved, in their eyes, the enmity of Europe. Al Qaeda in particular began to turn the networks developed to export foreign fighters from Europe into operational nodes to attack the continent. The 2004 Madrid bombings and the 2005 London attacks, which killed 191 and 52 people respectively, were bitter fruits of this shift. Even tiny Denmark was at risk after a Danish newspaper published cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, leading to repeated threats against the country. In 2015, jihadists would kill 12 staff members of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris for its insults to the prophet.  

In the face of this violence, Europe continued to improve, albeit fitfully. Those touched directly by the threat, such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, initiated crackdowns and an array of programs, ranging from intelligence collection to efforts to “combat violent extremism” — using social programs and improving community ties to decrease the alienation of Muslim communities. Europe also expanded intelligence sharing among its members and with the United States.

Complicating the efforts of European security services, Europe also has an array of radical networks that seek the imposition of Islamic law and are hostile to the values and legitimacy of European governments. Al Muhajiroun, which was active in the United Kingdom until the 2005 crackdown and whose successors remain active, was linked to 25 percent of the UK terrorism convictions between 1998 and 2015. An Al Muhajiroun leader even radicalized one of the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombers. Other European countries had similar, if less potent, organizations like Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4Denmark. These organizations create networks among like-minded radicals — at home, throughout Europe, and abroad in the Muslim world — that can easily be co-opted by their violent members.

Despite this long history, many European states found themselves overwhelmed by the flow of foreign fighters and the wave of terrorism that swept Europe during the Syrian jihad. Some of this was related to the staggering scale of the foreign fighter flows. Almost 6,000 European Muslims traveled to fight in Syria, compared with around 700 between 1990 and 2010 to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq combined.

The tide began to turn in 2015. The United States, working with France and the United Kingdom and other European countries, partnered with the Iraqi government, local Iraqi militias, and the Syrian Kurds to fight ISIS, with the group’s other enemies, such as Iran, also playing important roles. Slowly, but steadily, the once-mighty caliphate shrank, and by 2019 ISIS no longer controlled territory. Many of the foreign volunteers died in the fighting, but thousands found themselves in prison camps in Iraq or run by Syrian Kurds. There they lingered, with the Kurds (unlike the Iraqis) reluctant to execute them, but with most European states unwilling to repatriate their nationals.

The steady destruction of the above-ground ISIS caliphate seems to have been a boon to Europe; both the number of terrorist attacks and total fatalities have fallen in recent years. In Europe, 14 people have died from jihadist terrorism in 2018, a steep fall from 2015, when attacks in Paris and elsewhere led to 150 deaths.

Beyond the falling death toll, the biggest sign of success is the diminished role of foreign fighters. Those who had fought in foreign wars played a dominant role in European terrorism in the post-9/11 era but now, as a Danish intelligence report notes, “Attacks in Europe are overwhelmingly committed by lone individuals who have not been to a conflict zone.” Most of the European foreign fighters either died in Iraq and Syria, were detained there, kept on fighting underground, or were arrested upon return. Either way, the wave of attacks that analysts feared a couple of years ago did not materialize. 

But the Syrian Kurds are now focusing on the Turkish military, and it is likely that ISIS prisoners are escaping already. Even a small number of hardened, dedicated fighters could pose a major terrorism threat; research has proven they are far more lethal. The Islamic State is highly opportunistic, and it will use the ensuing chaos and distraction of its enemies to reconstitute itself, increasing the danger of international terrorism as well as local violence.

The European dragnet, though, is stronger than it once was

One bit of good news is that Europe’s earlier problems with terrorism stemmed, in part, from a series of self-made failures, several of which have been corrected. When the Islamic State emerged in 2012-’13, some intelligence services simply had their eyes closed. Others were woefully underfunded. Thus they failed to detect the problem before it grew beyond their control. 

The Dutch intelligence service at first believed the Netherlands had few domestic radicals and only in hindsight realized that 2013 represented a banner year for recruitment, when almost 100 volunteers went to Syria. In the Hague, Islamic State supporters, often affiliated with groups like Sharia4Holland, brandished the Caliphate’s black flag in demonstrations, called for the death of “dirty Jews,” and discussed openly on Twitter and Facebook the call to make jihad.

Ignoring Europe’s own history with foreign fighters, many local authorities often at first secretly smiled as these volunteers, many troublemakers or criminals, left for the Caliphate. Their departure led to a fall in crime and, some officials hoped, would remove a potential source of radicalism. As French officials made it clear to me in 2014, “it is not a concern if they die there — only if they come back.”

But the 2015 Paris and Brussels attacks revealed gaping holes in Europe’s counterterrorism net: Lists of suspects were often not shared, and different countries used different systems of transliteration, hindering basic data searches. Even for countries with effective security services like France, vulnerability was still high, as less proficient neighbors like Belgium create de facto havens where terrorists face far less pressure. Many European states did not have laws criminalizing participation in foreign wars on behalf of a terrorist group. The same weak legal codes hindered the prosecution of both departing and returning foreign fighters. Indeed, some fighters ended up in extralegal detention because their home countries lacked appropriate criminal authorities to handle their cases.

European states have become more aggressive and many of these problems have diminished, which will make it harder for escaping European foreign fighters to wreak havoc. Security services are far better resourced and, after the wake-up calls of Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016, more focused on the present danger.

Belgium, for example, arrested returnees from Iraq and Syria upon stepping back in country and developed an array of community-based programs to monitor them and dissuade them from returning to violence. Intelligence sharing is also far stronger. Some states, notably France and the United Kingdom, also sought to kill their own nationals in the Syrian war zone, diminishing the threat to their homes by action overseas. France, for example, provided a hitlist of 30 high-value targets to Iraqi soldiers.

Europe, as a whole, also toughened up its laws. UN Resolution 2178 demanded states take action to stop foreign fighters from joining up with terrorist groups and Resolution 2396 focused on stopping terrorist travel. A number of European states link their domestic laws to UN resolutions, and thus gave states the impetus to crack down at home and cooperate more abroad.

Another problem: Transit to and from Syria remained easy. Part of this was due to the lax policies of Turkey, which until 2015 tolerated the flow of foreigners to Syria as part of its overall campaign to unseat President Bashar al-Assad by supporting an array of opposition forces. This gave jihadists easy access to the war zone from Europe and vice versa. When in 2015 Ankara began to crack down at home and secure its border with Syria, ISIS was dealt a major blow.

Given Turkey’s expanding role in Syria in the wake of its invasion of Kurdish territories, European states will depend on it even more. First, Turkey may take over some prison camps or otherwise become a large-scale jailor of Islamic State members, though the reports of prison escapes are discouraging on this score. Second, it will remain an important potential transit point to Europe. In both cases, Turkey’s actions — or inactions — will shape the scale of the terrorist threat to Europe.

Three key counterterrorism needs

With Syria again in flux and the possible return of many foreign fighters, European states need to continue to resource their security services and otherwise prepare for violence. Part of this necessity is also due to a growing back and forth between right-wing extremism and jihadist violence, where the jihadist attacks are used by white supremacists to justify attacks on Muslims — a circle that must be broken. 

Europe also needs longer jail times for those convicted of terrorism-related crimes. Too often, individuals are sentenced to short jail terms. In the United States, the average prison sentence for jihadist-linked terrorism is almost 15 years; in Europe, sentences are usually only a few years, leading to a revolving-door problem.

As a result, individuals are often still at a prime age for jihadist recruitment in jail and for violence when they leave incarceration. Indeed, given the large number of radicals in jail, there is a danger that they will become more radical or radicalize others. Jail, in other words, risks making the problem worse. Some European states have made progress in improving training for prison personnel and developed special prisons for convicted jihadists. Belgium has “satellite prisons” with more monitoring and better-trained staff. Prison staff also receive more extensive training on identifying radicalization, and specialized personnel are present to focus on terrorists.

Third, Europe has tried to outsource the returnee question, including the more than 1,500 children of European origin who went to the Caliphate — or were born there. Dodging this issue has become far more difficult, given the US military withdrawal from Turkey and the Turkish assault on Syrian Kurds.

European states, courting popular opinion, have tried to strip citizenship from dual-passport holders and otherwise shove the responsibility onto others. In addition, they risk sending potential terrorists to countries with weaker legal systems or that otherwise will not properly manage the threat. Most irresponsible is ignoring the children left behind. US Kurdish allies in Syria and Iraqi forces hold hundreds of European children born of Islamic State fighters. Children should be treated as victims rather than as future terrorists: The scholarship done so far indicates little serious risk that they will become terrorists themselves. Abandoning them is a moral failure.

Europe has come a long way since its tolerant and somewhat incompetent approach of the 1990s. Unfortunately, Trump’s policy decisions have increased the terrorism threat Europeans now face, and they are right to worry that attacks orchestrated or inspired by ISIS are more likely. Their governments must grapple with a potentially stronger ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the increased risk of radicals returning home, and they must do so knowing that the Trump administration seems to care little if this happens. 

Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. This essay draws on his new book, Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad. Follow him on Twitter: @dbyman.

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On September 12, 2001, friends and family asked me, a terrorism expert, whether al-Qaeda would hit us again. Almost 15 years later, the same question hangs in the air, albeit with ISIS substituted for al-Qaeda.

Back in 2001, I predicted that another mass-casualty attack on the United States was likely. Thankfully, I was wrong. The fact is that, for a number of reasons, the US homeland today is safer than it was 15 years ago.

This does not mean the US homeland is immune to terrorism: Orlando and San Bernardino are only the latest reminders that terrorism remains a real concern.

But the total death toll of 94 people killed by jihadists since 9/11 is less than single mass-casualty attacks like the 2015 strikes in Paris (130 dead), the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (168 deaths), or the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (270 deaths), to say nothing of the almost 3,000 killed on 9/11.

Obviously, even 94 innocent people killed is far too many, but if we remember the post-9/11 doomsaying, it looks like an incredible success.

On the other hand, although the terrorist threat to the US homeland is minimal, terrorist groups threaten US interests in the Muslim world now more than ever.

15 years without a mass-casualty attack is more than luck

Luck no doubt explains part of this surprising track record, and near-misses like the 2001 shoe bomber or the 2009 underwear bomber should give us pause. Yet there are several factors that have contributed to making the US homeland a safer place than it was 15 years ago. 

The first factor is the relatively small number of actual American jihadists. After 9/11, fears quickly arose of large pockets of American Muslims lying in wait to attack.

These were false: Few American Muslims support radical groups, and those who do tend to be isolated and not part of a broader organization. Within this small pool, many are often incompetent. Few are able to construct a bomb, deceive the FBI, or otherwise pose a serious danger.

Bumblers can still kill, and a few like Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, may get lucky and kill many. But it is not an accident that the most lethal and sophisticated attacks are done by highly trained terrorists.

When amateurs gather in relatively large terror cells to pull off a bigger attack, the odds of at least one member babbling on the phone, bragging to an untrustworthy acquaintance, or otherwise accidentally tipping off security services rise dramatically.

Often, practice runs such as a trip to the shooting range or an effort to find bombmaking materials come to the attention of security services. 

Before 9/11, al-Qaeda tried to solve this problem by bringing thousands of young Muslims to camps in Afghanistan, building a mini army there that enabled it to carry out terrorist attacks around the world.

But since 9/11, it has proven far harder for would-be American jihadists to travel and train: The fall of the Taliban devastated al-Qaeda’s training apparatus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and constant drone attacks make it difficult for large groups to gather there. 

So it is not surprising that some of the biggest post-9/11 attacks — Orlando, San Bernardino, and the Boston marathon, for example — involve wannabe terrorists who identify with jihadist groups rather than trained killers. 

These attacks were deadly, but they probably would have been far worse if the killers had learned basic tradecraft and thus been able to sustain their attacks, build a more devastating bomb in the Boston case, or strike targets of greater symbolic importance.

A gay nightclub in Orlando and a regional health facility in San Bernardino don’t quite evoke American might like the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did.

The US government’s counterterrorism efforts — in the form of military strikes on terrorist infrastructure, CIA-led international intelligence cooperation, FBI domestic investigations, and Department of Homeland Security border security — deserve much of the credit.

Taken together, they make it harder for al-Qaeda, and now ISIS, to train, plot, organize, infiltrate, and otherwise carry out a terrorism spectacular. 

The 9/11 attacks took several years of preparation to pull off, and involved operations and individuals in Germany, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A similar plot today — with far more intelligence agencies on alert, and the organization’s core leaders in hiding or on the run — would be far harder to pull off.

The real threat today is from jihadist insurgencies abroad

Where al-Qaeda has succeeded, however, is in promoting an ideology of violence and anti-Western hatred, a sentiment now taken up by ISIS. 

Before 9/11, the idea that the United States and its Western allies were at the heart of the Muslim world’s problems was not even taken seriously by most jihadist groups, let alone most Muslims.

Suspicion of Western intentions and values is now considerable, however, and terrorist violence — and the hostile rhetoric of Western politicians and petty discrimination like the burkini ban — makes this worse.

This ideology has proven particularly powerful in the Middle East. On September 12, 2001, there was a jihadist presence in several Muslim countries, but with the exception of Algeria it was marginal. 

Today, powerful jihadist insurgencies, many linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS, can be found in Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, among other countries, with key allies like Egypt also facing a significant problem. 

Jihadist groups prey on civil wars, exploiting them to recruit and worsening the bloodshed. Instability has swept the Middle East and parts of South Asia, killing hundreds of thousands and risking the stability of many US allies.

The United States has long expressed an interest in the stability of the Middle East as well as the security of Israel and the steady flow of oil (and, at times, even espoused the spread of democracy in the region): The spread of jihadist violence and civil wars are potential dangers to all of these concerns.

The political debate in the United States, however, seems to have it all backward. Politicians on both the right and left call for turning inward, ignoring how terrorist groups are devastating whole communities around the world. 

At the same time, fulminating against American Muslims and playing up the chances of mass-casualty ISIS attacks misses the true reality of the threat and is self-defeating. American Muslims regularly cooperate with law enforcement, and alienating this community would be disastrous. 

Solving the Middle East’s many problems — or even a few of them — seems like a bridge too far to many Americans. President Obama himself is skeptical of such ambitions, particularly in a region that has seen more US policy disasters than successes. 

At the very least, however, counterterrorism and US policy toward the region must be better integrated, ensuring that states at risk of high levels of terrorism such as Tunisia receive additional attention and support while policy toward countries like Egypt recognizes that the government’s misguided crackdown on all Islamists could exacerbate terrorism there and around the world. 

Despite not having a catastrophic attack on US since 9/11, terrorism remains an emotive issue. Its dangers should not be ignored, but too often they are played up or misconstrued, contributing to bad policies and helping the terrorists generate more fear.

Daniel Byman is a professor and the senior associate dean at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. His latest book is Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know. Find him on Twitter @dbyman.