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Michael S. Smith II

Drop a Billion-Dollar Bomb on Putin! (Figuratively Speaking)

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Vladimir Putin, Chairman of the Government, spoken at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos Municipality, Graubünden Canton on January 28, 2009. Licensed under Creative Commons. Photo Credit: World Economic Forum.

Sounds crazy, right? Until you consider that—unlike Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed solution of assassination—a framework for the Biden administration to put a one billion dollar bounty on Putin’s head presently exists in the United States Code. Indeed, although it would require a day’s work on the part of the US Congress, there may be a less costly and far more efficient way for President Biden to help bring about an end to the war in Ukraine than by just sending billions of dollars’ worth of additional military equipment to support a fight that appears guaranteed to kill tens of thousands of more people on both sides—unless Putin is promptly brought to justice for the war crimes committed by his regime’s military and mercenaries. Moreover, it might be possible for the Biden administration and Congress to pursue this solution without spending a dime of American taxpayers’ money. Here’s a brief look at how. (To clarify up front:  Designating Putin a Specially Designated Global Terrorist is not part of the proposed approach.)

When it was established in 1984, the United States Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program became the premier tool used to bring America’s financial might to bear in efforts to help bring to justice terrorists who either have or have planned to target Americans with attacks. RFJ touts among its ‘Success Stories’ paying a two million dollar reward for information that led to the arrest of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef. When you read reports by terrorism experts like Peter Bergen about the FBI advertising multi-million dollar rewards for information that can be used to locate leadership figures in State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) like al-Qa’ida and affiliated groups, FBI is actually amplifying rewards advertised by RFJ (See the fine print about the reward offer in the posters advertising rewards for top al-Qa’ida figures at the Bureau’s website like this one). Indeed, when Toby Harnden similarly wrote in a piece published by The New York Times in 2021 that ‘Sirajuddin Haqqani, the [Taliban’s] acting minister of interior, has a $10 million F.B.I. bounty on his head’, technically, this too was erroneous (See the reward details furnished by FBI here).

An argument can be made—and has been by the author—that RFJ could do a better job of helping to bring to justice most-wanted senior al-Qa’ida figures like Saif al-Adl. Still, it showed its value with the operation that resulted in the death of ISIS’ original so-called ‘caliph’, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Certainly, it was a stroke of nincompoopery par excellence when failed Congressional candidate turned Trump administration-appointed Pentagon Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman remarked that the twenty-five million dollar reward for information that could help bring Baghdadi to justice was ‘going to go to the dog’ that was injured during this operation. Moments earlier, USCENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie, who clearly understood the seriousness of the matter, had dodged a question about a payout for the RFJ’s twenty-five million dollar reward, claiming, ‘I have no visibility on that’. Although RFJ did not promptly tout this matter among the ‘Success Stories’ on its website, counterterrorism professionals meanwhile understood that the prospects of a large financial reward being issued for information used to put Baghdadi out of business had almost certainly helped quicken the demise of this terrorist leadership figure who had Americans’ blood on his hands—even if a reward was never actually paid. (Based on the author’s first-hand experiences in dealing with RFJ, he contends that it would be unsurprising if a full reward was not paid in this case.)

In more recent years, RFJ has been more aggressively used as an ‘intelligence-driven law enforcement’ resource against a more diverse mix of actors than members and supporters of FTOs. The Biden administration has harnessed the legal framework that manifested in RFJ’s establishment to dangle large financial incentives for information that federal agencies like FBI can use to identify and locate hackers responsible for some of the costliest cybercrimes targeting Americans and critical infrastructure in the US, including elections (See below text found in the US Code). Indeed, on its website, RFJ now lists ‘Malicious Cyber Activity’—in addition to ‘Terrorism’ and ‘North Korea’—among the ‘three broad categories’ of threat sources that it is involved in helping the US Government counter.

RFJ’s growing involvement with the US Government’s responses to this wider array of threats than just international terrorism is not the fruits of creative interpretations of existing laws on the parts of the State Department’s attorneys. In US Code 22, Section 2708, one finds that RFJ’s official purpose has been updated since 1984. It now encompasses the following (both emphasis and underscored emphasis added):  ‘to assist in the prevention of acts of international terrorism, international narcotics trafficking, serious violations of international humanitarian law, foreign election interference, transnational organized crime, and other related criminal acts’.

Certainly, it is encouraging to see Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, beating the drum on more creative and civilized ways to justify putting more pressure on Putin than posturing interest in seeing him assassinated—specifically, by nudging the Biden administration to insist that the State Department designate his regime as a state sponsor of terrorism in response to the ongoing terroristic acts perpetrated by the Russian military and Russian-backed mercenaries in Ukraine. Yet there is already a framework for treating Putin like others who have orchestrated international terrorism campaigns, and without resorting to measures that could prove too clever by half if challenged by a small cadre of seemingly Putin-friendly elements within the US Congress.

Given that President Biden has branded Putin a ‘war criminal’, RFJ could be used to provide a hefty reward for anyone in Russia—or who might be interested in traveling there—to hand Putin over to stand trial for committing ‘serious violations of international humanitarian law’. Indeed, although the US is not a party to the Rome Statute, it is important to consider that Biden has called for a ‘war-crimes trial’ to address the voluminous evidence that can be used to justify charges that Putin is responsible for war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine. Furthermore, as noted by Human Rights Watch in a brief explainer about the US relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC), although the US has not officially acknowledged the ICC’s legitimacy by being a party to the Rome Statute, ‘In 2013, the US Congress expanded its existing war crimes rewards program to provide rewards to people providing information to facilitate the arrest of foreign individuals wanted by an international court or tribunal, including the ICC’. It also points to two prior cases (2012 and 2015) of the US playing a role in the transfer of two suspects to stand trial before the ICC.

Clearly, the Biden administration could point to those precedents to justify a plan to use RFJ to create incentives for Russian officials or oligarchs, perhaps even a group of both—maybe even some enterprising billionaire from a third country who can get close to Putin—to hand Putin over to await such a trial. The only catch in offering a one billion dollar reward for rendering him to another country, from which he could be transferred to the ICC, is twofold:  Firstly, according to US Code 22, Section 2708 (e)(1), which addresses the maximum amount that a Secretary of State may authorize RFJ to reward, there is a cap of ‘up to twice the amount specified in this paragraph’, a reference to the previously stated amount of $25,000,000. Secondly, circumstances contemplated for a Secretary of State to offer up to a $50,000,000 reward entail efforts to obtain information ‘leading to the capture of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization’.

Of course, this is hardly an insurmountable barrier to the proposed measures presented herein. Given the current mood of the country, Congress could quickly amend this to address the previously uncontemplated situation at hand. Indeed, it will surely require a far greater reward to resolve this situation in the manner envisaged herein than seven-figure rewards that may have been offered to help bring to justice warlords who were accused of committing grievous human rights abuses in conflicts on the African continent. In the interim, President Biden could issue an executive order to expedite the advertisement of a potentially game-changing reward for Putin’s capture.

So, if Congress were to do that, how could the Biden administration use the RFJ to advertise a billion-dollar reward to anyone who is willing to hand Putin over to the ICC without spending a dime of American taxpayers’ money?

That is somewhat more complicated than space allows for the author to explain. Meanwhile, it is useful to consider recent commentary by legal studies scholar Jennifer Taub about using the one hundred billion dollars worth of Russian assets frozen by the US Government to equip the Ukrainian military and volunteers who are waging the fight against Putin’s forces in Ukraine. Clearly, there are well-reasoned theories about ways to utilize frozen Putin regime assets to counter Putin’s grand vision—in violation of international laws—to bring valuable, natural resource-rich territories that were once part of the Soviet Union under his control. And even if those proposed solutions are too abstract to easily pursue today, there seems to be a will in Congress to work on devising new laws President Biden can enact that would make those ideas viable tools in the fight to counter Putin’s criminal aims. Again, in the interim, Biden could issue an executive order to accommodate the conversion of Putin regime assets frozen in the US into tools used to counter the Russian dictator’s grand plans.

Certainly, it is important to acknowledge that cases where it can be reasonably assumed the RFJ helped bring to justice some of the world’s most-wanted criminals tend to yield limited impacts. Much as the author assessed would be the case in testimony before a Senate hearing that was chaired by Senator Graham in 2017, as well as in a piece published at Lawfare, Baghdadi’s death has had, at most, a negligible impact on ISIS’ resiliency. However, it is important to consider that it seems like a rather safe bet that Putin’s vision of obliterating Russia’s economy and standing in the world by miring Russia in a war that he cannot hope to win—without resorting to measures that will undoubtedly trigger responses which will yield more catastrophic impacts on Putin’s regime and Russia more broadly—is unlikely to prove a durable cause if Putin is stripped of power.

Already, CIA Director Bill Burns is psychologically conditioning Americans—and the world—to feel unsurprised by a more nightmarish scenario, in which Putin resorts to deploying nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Putin has since animated those very fears by posturing a threat to deploy nuclear weapons against nations that are backing Zelensky. The Biden administration can do more to resolve this situation, and it should not hesitate to more directly utilize either America’s financial might, or even the Putin regime’s assets that are frozen by the US Government, to try to bring about a less deadly conclusion to Putin’s terrorism campaign in Ukraine. One which, it seems CIA now assesses, may easily spiral into a much wider and more impactful war. Advertising a one-billion-dollar reward for anyone who is willing to help hold Putin accountable for the war crimes that are being committed in Ukraine could be the most efficient way to hasten an end to this fast-growing nightmare.

A View to the Threat Environment: Perspective from General David H. Petraeus

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Former CIA Director General David H. Petraeus, PhD, US Army (Ret) discussing the intelligence business as a guest speaker for a graduate course on open source intelligence taught by the interviewer at Johns Hopkins University, 2019. Photo Credit: Michael S. Smith II

Smith:  Thank you for agreeing to conduct this interview and thank you for your many other contributions to projects managed by Department of War Studies’ faculty and students, including your recent participation in the War Studies at 60 speakers series cohosted by RUSI.

General Petraeus:  Great to be with you, Mike, thanks.

Smith:  Before we proceed further, I should acknowledge that General Petraeus will be serving as an additional reader on my committee as I conduct PhD research supervised by faculty in the Department of War Studies here at King’s College London. And I probably would not have applied to conduct PhD research at King’s without his encouragement.

That said, here we go:

A careful reading of Usama bin Laden’s statements, al Qaeda’s propaganda, as well as the statements produced by ISIS leaders, who have claimed to be stewarding the global jihad charted by bin Laden, suggest a key objective among leadership figures in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement has been to drain political will within the United States and its close allies to sustain “long and bitter wars,” as bin Laden put it, that might deny Salafi-Jihadists capabilities to bring their chief goal of reestablishing a caliphate to fruition. The growth in membership in Salafi-Jihadist groups during and after the Arab Spring, and the expansions of their operational footprints across many regions spanning from West Africa to the Philippines, suggest al Qaeda and ISIS have realized growing capabilities to convince people their objective of exhausting that political will is being met—thus their strategies for pursuing their apparently inspirational goal are indeed viable.

Since 9/11, what policies pursued by the United States and its allies might have inadvertently  intensified the perceptibility of these groups as being credible, durable and capable stewards of international campaigns aiming to reestablish a caliphate?

General Petraeus:  As you note, Osama bin Laden did, indeed, want to sap our political will and impose costs of various types on us. In fact, the 9/11 attacks did result in various costs, as we are reminded each time we go through airport security or have bags screened before entering a large public venue. Clearly, we had to improve our security and take innumerable measures to do that in various ways, not just physically but also in other domains, including cyberspace. 

 That said, in responding to your question, no actions come to mind that we took that inadvertently gave credibility to IS or AQ or their affiliates as they sought to achieve their goals of creating a caliphate or establish control of various areas. There were certainly deliberate actions in the past decade that heightened the “status” that IS, in particular, had attained as a serious threat to our allies and our homeland, and I believe those actions were needed, including the creation of the Counter-ISIS Coalition; however, again, no inadvertent ones come to mind. 

 Rather, it was the achievements of ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria that inspired alienated youth in Europe and elsewhere to seek to join ISIS in those two countries or to carry out attacks in their home countries. It was ISIS’s success on the ground in Iraq and Syria, as well as in cyberspace (where ISIS established what might be termed its virtual caliphate), that most powerfully conveyed that ISIS was a winner, was succeeding. ISIS’s accomplishments, in fact, demonstrated that nothing succeeds like success when it comes to recruiting, inspiring others to carry out extremist activities, prompting still others to contribute in various ways, and so forth.

 In sum, it was not inadvertent activities by the US and countries of the Counter-ISIS Coalition that established ISIS as a successful movement that others wanted to join; it was success on the ground until the US and other countries returned to Iraq and deployed to Syria, providing the military assets that enabled Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Democratic Forces to defeat ISIS, eliminate the IS Caliphate, and dramatically reduce the virtual caliphate—though clearly there are remnants of ISIS that continue to be very threatening in Iraq and Syria, with affiliates in other countries, as well, most significantly Afghanistan, as well as some continued, but much reduced, activities in cyberspace, as well.

Smith:  A prominent feature of United States national security policies during the 20th and 21st centuries has been the use of America’s economic influence to constrain the capabilities of hostile state and nonstate actors to accrue financial and other resources. One way that the US Government has sought to diminish the capabilities of hostile foreign nonstate actors responsible for terrorist attacks targeting US interests to secure important resources—ranging from new members to cash and weapons, to sanctuaries in countries whose governments might not otherwise be inclined to interfere with their activities—has involved the US State Department designating them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Early in 2017, I tried to persuade Senator Lindsey Graham to push the Trump administration to insist that the State Department designate the Taliban an FTO. As he was receptive to the idea, I also shared contact details with Senator Graham for a holdover staffer on the National Security Council (NSC) from the Obama administration’s NSC who was happy to discuss evidence that demonstrated the Taliban met the criteria for such a designation. Yet it quickly became evident that this was not something the Trump administration was inclined to do. This year, following the withdrawal of US military personnel from Afghanistan pursuant to the terms of a deal struck with the Taliban by the Trump administration, Senator Graham called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate the Taliban an FTO. Several other prominent Republican senators have also introduced a bill to try to effectively force the State Department to designate the Taliban a terrorist group.

If the Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations had insisted that the United States Department of State should have designated the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in response to the various forms of support it offered al Qaeda—as well as other entities designated as FTOs—before and after 9/11, would the situation in Afghanistan be much different than it is today, and, if the State Department designates the Taliban an FTO in the near future, how might that affect things?

General Petraeus:  This is a difficult issue, of course, as the current US administration and its two predecessor administrations at various points sought to negotiate with the Taliban. And that was seen as difficult in various respects if the organization was designated as an FTO (though, in practice, I think workarounds were possible). In any event, I certainly recognize the challenges inherent in that situation. 

Beyond that, I’m not sure whether designating the Taliban as an FTO or identifying it as a declared hostile force on the battlefield (as it was treated for a number of years until the previous two US administrations, at various junctures, sought to distinguish between the Taliban and al Qaeda and other extremist groups, including the Islamic State) would have been best. But clearly not targeting Taliban elements that were attacking our Afghan Security Force partners, while not putting our forces in harm’s way, was very challenging—and maddening—for those advising and assisting Afghan forces during those periods. In essence, our forces could always hit any AQ and, over time, IS elements we identified, but at a certain point in each of the previous two administrations could not target the Taliban unless they threatened our forces. And that created, again, a very difficult situation for those trying to help our Afghan partners seeking to secure their country and fellow citizens. 

Smith:  A lot can be learned about the interests and plans of jihadist groups from what their leaders say. Much can also be learned from what they don’t say. The Taliban’s leaders have not publicly disavowed al Qaeda. This suggests that they may once again serve as willing hosts of al Qaeda. Meanwhile, given that (a) al Qaeda’s leaders have for decades referred to the Taliban’s founding leader and his successors as Emir al-Mu’minin (Commander of the Faithful; a title historically reserved for caliphs), and (b) its current leaders have given baya (an oath of allegiance) to the Taliban’s current leader, it seems that the Taliban’s leader actually could persuade al Qaeda not to use Afghanistan as a base from which to train and deploy terrorists to perpetrate attacks in the West. Indeed, that al Qaeda did not seize on the opportunities to target US military personnel during the NEO staged at Hamid Karzai International Airport suggests the Taliban conveyed to al Qaeda’s leaders that it was not advisable to exploit that situation, and al Qaeda deferred to such guidance. Yet, even if al Qaeda were to honor a request not to use Afghanistan as a base to train and deploy its members to perpetrate attacks in the West, al Qaeda could still use Afghanistan to help it orchestrate attacks in the West. Because providing al Qaeda a sanctuary contributes to its capabilities to convince prospective aspirant terrorists the world over that the group is a durable enterprise that remains worthy of support—including support furnished in the form of terrorist attacks perpetrated in the US.

Do you see the situation in Afghanistan as something that contributes to al Qaeda’s capabilities to build and reinforce support, including among individuals in the West who may be willing to serve as de facto agents in its external operations? 

General Petraeus:  I do fear that either the al Qaeda or the Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan—or both—could present challenges over time to the United States and, more likely, to the homelands of our allies, especially those in Europe—as IS elements and affiliates did at the height of ISIS’ power in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. In fact, Colin Kahl, the US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy recently warned that IS’s element in the Af/Pak region and, to a lesser degree, AQ could present a threat beyond Afghanistan in relative near-term. “ISIS-K and al Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the U.S.” he noted. “But neither currently has the capability to do so. We could see ISIS-K generate that capability somewhere between 6 to 12 months. I think the current assessments by the intelligence community [are] that al Qaeda would take a year or two.”

In fact, as you noted, there is a long history of varying levels of collaboration between the Taliban and al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not the least of which was when the Taliban permitted the sanctuary in the late 1990s and early 2000s that al Qaeda used to plan the 9/11 attacks. And one would expect the Taliban to continue to be permissive when it comes to al Qaeda, though there may be an attempt to discourage attacks on the US that might force the US to get more active once again in that region.

The Taliban-IS relationship, on the other hand, is one of conflict, as we have seen in the months since the Taliban took control of Kabul and Afghanistan, with IS elements carrying out horrific attacks against our forces and Afghans outside Kabul International Airport during the final days of our withdrawal operations and many subsequent attacks, often targeting Hazara Shia but also against Taliban forces and Afghan citizens. The Taliban leadership has deployed forces to track down IS elements, but one would expect conflict between IS and the Taliban to continue.

Smith:  After United States President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. decided to withdraw US military and other governmental personnel from Afghanistan, as well as intelligence assets who assisted the US with counterterrorism operations there, President Biden claimed his administration would “maintain a laser-focus on our counterterrorism missions there and in other parts of the world.” He also advised the US is conducting counterterrorism missions “in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence,” adding:  “If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.” Yet the optics of the US departure—in particular, the ease with which the Taliban returned to power and then placed individuals designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the US in key positions within its new regime—could adversely affect perceptions of the US as being a reliable counterterrorism partner among local civilian populations in many countries where al Qaeda and ISIS are expanding their operations. Particularly Afghanistan. Indeed, it seems reasonable to assume that the optics of what unfolded in Afghanistan could negatively impact America’s and several partner nations’ capabilities to cultivate the assets who play important roles in helping intelligence and military organizations identify where to orient “over-the-horizon” tools.

Do you assess that President Biden’s decisions to extricate the US military from Afghanistan and do very little to prevent the Taliban from reclaiming power over much of the country will adversely affect the capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community and intelligence agencies in governments of America’s closest allies to maintain existing and cultivate new relationships with individuals and organizations that can help gather information about the activities, plans and locations of al Qaeda and ISIS members?

General Petraeus:  US intelligence and military leaders have very forthrightly noted that the loss of our bases in Afghanistan, which constituted the final bases we had in Central and South Asia, will make it much tougher to carry out operations to gain the kind of intelligence we will need to keep a close eye on AQ and IS elements in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. There is no disputing that. Drones, for example, have always played an important role, together with all other sources of intel to be sure, in providing various forms of intelligence; however, they will now have to fly out of bases in the Gulf States—and depending on the specific location, they likely will use 50-65% of their flight time just getting to and from the location in Afghanistan where they may be needed to establish an “unblinking eye.” That obviously dramatically reduces dwell time and increases the number of such assets required. But all other typical actions will also be vastly more difficult given the loss of bases, partners, various intel assets, etc., etc. That is beyond dispute. And the intelligence community and US military elements are undoubtedly aggressively pursuing initiatives that will help mitigate the risks that have increased substantially with the loss of our Afghan government, military, and intelligence partners in Afghanistan.

Smith:  The proliferation online of incitement-focused propaganda produced by al Qaeda and ISIS, the ease with which their members can identify and cultivate prospective aspirant terrorists on popular and “dark” social media platforms, and the ever-increasing speed with which inspirational information about “successes” achieved in their global terrorism campaigns spreads across the cyber domain has not only enhanced their capabilities to radicalize, recruit and incite violence; this has simultaneously increased the availability of open source information that can be harnessed by the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) to identify and manage threats linked to the Salafi-Jihadist movement. Yet, 20 years after 9/11, persistent threats posed by this movement—and the largely unmitigated growth in threats within the United States posed by rightwing extremists who have harnessed the Internet in similar ways—suggests the USIC has not made a maximal effort to utilize OSINT to prevent and counter violent extremism. Indeed, the renewed efforts underway in policymaking spheres in the US to elevate OSINT’s profile among other intelligence disciplines suggests members of Congress are concerned that biases favoring more discreet intelligence disciplines like human intelligence and signals intelligence may have remained a persistent issue within senior echelons of the US national security enterprise since 9/11.

Does the threat environment make OSINT an increasingly valuable tool for the US Government, and, if so, what are some of the things that could be done to help ensure it is not an underutilized resource?

 General Petraeus:  It is publicly known that the [Open Source Enterprise] (previously named the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center), for which the CIA is the executive agent, has been a very productive and exceedingly important source of information from traditional media and also from social media and other activities that use the internet. Indeed, the richness of what can be gleaned from sources of information available via the internet has exploded. It is not uncommon, in fact, for such sources to rival those obtained by more traditional tradecraft and tools. During the fight against ISIS in Mosul, the location of the Caliphate’s capital in northern Iraq, e.g., one of the best real-time sources of information was available via a blog titled “Mosul Eye.” I can only imagine that my former colleagues at the CIA had that high on their list of all sources of intelligence for insights on the situation inside Mosul during the fight with ISIS and during the eventual liberation of Mosul. The same has been—and is—true for many other situations around the world. And ensuring that all such sources are well known and used is imperative.

Could Terrorists Use Afghanistan to Conduct External Ops Sooner than the Biden Administration Wants the World to Believe?

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Portrait of the terrorists who perpetrated a mass-casualty attack at a Shiite mosque in Kandahar during Friday prayers on October 15, 2021, distributed on Telegram Channels used to manage distribution of ISIS’ official propaganda (Source: Michael S. Smith II)

Nearly 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, United States President Joseph R. Biden, Jr decided to withdraw US military and other governmental personnel from Afghanistan. Once the withdrawal was underway, it became evident that the Taliban could and would reclaim control of most of the country. Since then, the Biden administration has strived to assuage concerns that either al-Qaeda, which has a longstanding alliance with the Taliban, or Islamic State (ISIS), which has a sizable presence of members in the country, could immediately use Afghanistan to conduct external operations. A notable example was seen in remarks issued by Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl during an open US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. In an exchange with the committee’s chair, Dr. Kahl advised, “I think the intelligence community currently assesses that both ISIS-K and al-Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the US, but neither currently has the capability to do so.” History suggests this is a problematic assessment. Because the external operations programs managed by al-Qaeda and ISIS are much more dynamic than the one overseen by Usama bin Ladin on September 11, 2001. Plus, the situation in Afghanistan may be increasing their capabilities to conduct newer forms of external operations sooner than Dr. Kahl has led the Senate Armed Services Committee—thus the world—to believe either terrorist group can.

 A New Paradigm of External Operations

When the American born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki partnered with Samir Khan to launch a new ezine named Inspire, a sea change in al-Qaeda’s global jihad came into clearer view.

Already, al-Awlaki’s online activities had indicated al-Qaeda was keen to expand its capabilities to generate buy-in for an ideology that could imbue some new adherents in the West with a sense of urgency to “defend” their faith vis-à-vis acts of terrorism. Before Khan moved from the US to Yemen to join forces with al-Awlaki, authorities’ responses to his online activities provided al-Qaeda with evidence that the US Government was not prepared to tackle such innovative efforts to build support for the group’s global jihad. As Khan put it in the second issue of Inspire while expressing his surprise that federal agencies had not disrupted his plans to travel overseas to join al-Qaeda in October 2009, “I was quiet [sic] open about my beliefs online and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out I was al Qaeda to the core.”[i] Indeed, prior to Khan’s departure for Yemen, then-Congressman Sue Myrick, a member of the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chair of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus who represented the North Carolina congressional district in which Khan resided, had expressed concerns about his online activities to the FBI.[ii] In a recent discussion with me about open source intelligence’s (OSINT) potential utilities in counterterrorism, Congressman (Ret) Myrick noted, “When he was in Charlotte, working out of his parents’ basement, he changed servers constantly, used foreign ones, so they never could charge him,” adding:  “It was a total screw up by the FBI.”

Perhaps more importantly, al-Qaeda also had evidence that al-Awlaki’s blog posts and YouTube content had likely helped stimulate Nidal Hasan’s interests in perpetrating a terrorist attack at Fort Hood in November 2009. Regardless of whether al-Awlaki should be painted as the radicalizing force, Hasan had contacted al-Awlaki via e-mail to try to confirm that attacks targeting US military personnel would be permissible, according to al-Awlaki’s notions of sharia (Islamic law). That al-Awlaki did not reply to Hasan’s e-mail with a message contesting the legitimacy of the following directive issued by bin Ladin and other Salafi-Jihadist luminaries in their 1998 declaration of war with the US and Jews was almost certainly the stuff of inspirational silence:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it …

Yet, prior to 2010, al-Awlaki’s online activities had not offered such concrete evidence that he aimed to expand al-Qaeda’s capabilities to orient the interests of his target audience towards using items in their mothers’ kitchens to make bombs and perpetrate terrorist attacks. This was made clear with a how-to feature story in the first issue of Inspire that was published online in 2010.

Also made clear by the first issue of Inspire was al-Qaeda’s interest in establishing direct and safe lines of communication with individuals in the West who may be willing to serve as agents in its external operations program. Not only did al-Awlaki and Khan provide Gmail, Hotmail, Fastmail and Yahoo e-mail addresses that could be used to contact them; they published a four-page tutorial on how al-Qaeda enthusiasts in the West could use an encrypted correspondence tool to exchange messages with them.

That al-Qaeda’s second and presumably current leader determined there was profit to be garnered from the model of online incitement developed by al-Awlaki and Khan is made evident from the continued publication of Inspire and variations thereof following their deaths in 2011, as well as al-Qaeda’s expanded use of popular and “dark” social media since. Notable dividends include the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013 and the attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. According to the US Justice Department’s chief expert witness in the prosecution of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, perpetrators of the former plot gathered instructions for producing their bombs from the aforementioned article published in the first issue of Inspire, titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.” A victim targeted in the latter attack in France was featured in a hit list that was published in the tenth issue of Inspire, which was published online in the spring of 2013.

As I noted in testimony for a US Senate hearing in 2017, following the declaration of its so-called “caliphate,” ISIS took al-Awlaki’s online model for expanding al-Qaeda’s capabilities to wage jihad in the West to “new heights.” In 2014, it should have been clear to officials in the US Intelligence Community who were briefing senior officials like then-Vice President Biden that ISIS’ intensely incitement-focused propaganda was intended to support its external operations. Abu Mohamed al-Adnani (d. 2016), the group’s spokesman who declared ISIS had established a “caliphate” in 2014, was also managing its external operations program. This indicated that orchestrating attacks in the West would feature prominently in how ISIS leaders would seek to define perceptions of the group. So too did the abundance of threats against Western nations in the group’s propaganda. Additionally, by the end of 2014, the most prominent narrative directed at consumers of the group’s propaganda that was tailored for (prospective) supporters in the West emphasized the following action items:  According to Islamic traditions, all Muslims must give baya (allegiance) to ISIS’ “caliph,” and this allegiance is demonstrated with one of the following two actions:  Making hijrah (emigrating) to the “caliphate” to support the group, or, if one is unable to do so, perpetrating terrorist attacks in their home country.

Since then, ISIS has used its propaganda that is tailored to present an image of strength and durability—thus worthiness of support—paired with an aggressive exploitation of social media technologies, along with more user-friendly encrypted communication tools than were available to al-Awlaki, to orchestrate exceedingly more attacks in the West than al-Qaeda. In many cases, these attacks have been perpetrated by terrorists not trained in either conflict zones or “sanctuaries.” In most cases, their selections of targets and tools used to perpetrate attacks have reflected adherence to directives devolved in ISIS propaganda. So too have these terrorists’ efforts to firmly define their actions as contributions to ISIS’ global jihad pursuant to the following guidance that was published in the fourth issue of its infamous ezine Dabiq in October 2014:

At this point of the crusade against the Islamic State, it is very important that attacks take place in every country that has entered into the alliance against the Islamic State, especially the US, UK, France, Australia and Germany. … It is important that the killing becomes attributed to patrons of the Islamic State who have obeyed its leadership. … Otherwise, crusader media makes such attacks appear to be random killings.

By ensuring their actions were understood as efforts to fulfill expectations for group supporters’ conduct set in ISIS propaganda, these de facto agents of ISIS’ external operations have done more than just demonstrate their faithful adherence to the group’s gudiance. They have also helped ISIS—which al-Adnani claimed was the true steward of bin Ladin’s manhaj (methodology) weeks before declaring it had established a “caliphate”—appear as a more competent and dedicated manager of a global jihad than al-Qaeda under the leadership of bin Ladin’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Current Situation in Afghanistan:  New Fuel for the New Paradigm of External Operations?

The current situation in Afghanistan could be used by both al-Qaeda and ISIS to conduct external operations sooner than the Biden administration apparently wants the world to believe. It enhances each group’s capabilities to project an image of strength and durability. This, in turn, fuels their powers of persuasion that factor centrally in their capabilities to conduct effective recruitment-cum-incitement campaigns in the cyber domain focused on grooming agents for external operations here in the West.

For al-Qaeda, the hasty withdrawal of the US military has enabled the group to meet a key expectation set by bin Ladin’s external communications:  al-Qaeda and its allies can survive “long wars” with the United States and its closest allies, which bin Ladin believed would “bleed” America of vast amounts of financial resources, influence in the Muslim world and the political will to deny participants in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement capabilities to pursue their chief goal of restoring a caliphate. This intensifies the perceptibility of al-Qaeda as a credible organization that is pursuing a viable strategy for achieving that inspirational goal. The optics of a Taliban “victory” corresponding with the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks also reinforces the view of al-Qaeda as not only an important force in, but also a key beneficiary of the apparently successful effort to transition Afghanistan back into an “Islamic Emirate.” Indeed, that the Taliban has not disavowed al-Qaeda conveys a message to al-Qaeda’s wider support base that Afghanistan is likely to be a safer haven for the group than ever before. Here, it is useful to consider that, as demonstrated by ISIS following the declaration of its “caliphate,” de facto control of territory factors importantly in Salafi-Jihadists’ capabilities to fashion a group as a legitimate enterprise that is worthy of support—including support furnished in the form of terrorist attacks perpetrated in the West.

For ISIS, recent developments in Afghanistan have rendered an abundance of opportunities to further contrast the group with al-Qaeda. Further, it is doing this in ways that can provide particularly potent incentives for individuals who share these groups’ goal of restoring a caliphate to help ISIS assert dominance in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement. Notably, by seizing on the opportunity to perpetrate attacks targeting American military personnel at Hamid Karzai International Airport, ISIS simultaneously highlighted two things that are almost certainly of great interest to prospective recruits, including members of competing groups like al-Qaeda who may be willing to defect into ISIS’ ranks:  There were substantial opportunities to kill US military personnel, but neither al-Qaeda, nor its chief ally, the Taliban, were seizing them. This reinforces ISIS’ claims that al-Qaeda has deviated from the path of jihad charted by bin Ladin. Thus, as al-Adnani put it in an address just before he declared ISIS had established a “caliphate,” al-Qaeda is no longer the “base of jihad.” Moreover, the spectacular effects produced by the attack at the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021 that was perpetrated by a single ISIS member—in particular, the deaths of 13 US military personnel—paired with the surge of ISIS-claimed attacks in Afghanistan thereafter, are successes that can help the group animate aspirations among supporters in the West to perpetrate attacks here.

Ultimately, the situation in Afghanistan is very likely to stimulate interests among sympathetic consumers of al-Qaeda’s and ISIS’ propaganda here in the West in doing things to help these groups advance their global agendas. Given the increased emphasis among the US and its closest allies on denying prospective aspirant terrorists capabilities to travel abroad to join these groups, one of the easiest things al-Qaeda and ISIS enthusiasts here in the West can do to support them is volunteering to serve as agents in their external operations. This makes amplifying the notion that neither group can immediately capitalize on the situation in Afghanistan to help them orchestrate attacks in the US a risky business, both in terms of the Biden administration’s political and national security management concerns. Not only could this undermine confidence in President Biden if attacks occur, potentially offering Donald Trump and other prospective contenders for the presidency renewed opportunities to harness concerns about counterterrorism policies to boost their candidacies the way that Trump did in 2016; it creates additional incentives for al-Qaeda and ISIS to increase their efforts to push supporters in the US to perpetrate attacks. Indeed, as bin Ladin clearly understood, defying expectations about Salafi-Jihadists’ capabilities to advance their agendas that are set by their powerful enemies can help inspire confidence in groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Thus, perhaps it is not a coincidence that, right now, there is a push underway to help increase al-Qaeda’s capabilities to attract support from English speakers by increasing the availability of English-language translations of its propaganda.

[i] Citing the transliteration of the group’s name used by Khan.

[ii] The author was a contributing expert to the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus.