Counterterrorism Communications

http://fpc.state.gov/247672.htm

Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy and Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications 

New York, NY, September 30, 2015

MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Welcome to the Foreign Press Center. We’re honored today to welcome Special Envoy Rashad Hussain to speak with us today on the Administration and State Department’s CVE efforts. You may remember him from the youth conference a couple days ago, where he gave very interesting remarks.

MR HUSSAIN: Well, thank you so much. It’s great to be with all of you this afternoon. Before we begin I just wanted to highlight at the top the announcements that were made yesterday by the Government of Malaysia and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation. The Government of Malaysia announced at the Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Countering Violent Extremism that they are working on establishing a regional digital messaging center, and we welcome that announcement. And the Organization for Islamic Cooperation similarly announced that they are establishing such a center as well. You may know about the Sawab Center that was established in the UAE, and these are concrete examples of some of the efforts that are being made in the digital realm to counter the ideology and the propaganda that’s being put out by ISIL and other terrorist groups.

For our discussion today, I thought I’d talk a little bit about the CVE challenge that we’re facing, what we’re doing at the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism and Communications to address it, and then talk to you a little bit about some of our initiatives that we’re involved in this week here in New York.

The challenge that we’re facing, including in the online space, is that terrorist groups are exploiting grievances that oftentimes resonate with audiences around the world, and they’re using a warped ideology, particularly a warped interpretation of Islam to recruit disaffected youth by offering them a false sense of purpose, belonging, and religious obligation.

Although there is no uniform path to radicalization, we have seen that there are a number of common factors that are present in many of the cases. First is grievance. Typically, terrorists prey on political grievances, particularly their narrative of Western responsibility for Muslims suffering around the world. They also exploit a number of other grievances, including discrimination, alienation, repression, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, violation of human rights, restrictions on political expression and activity, and lack of economic opportunity.

Second, we see an ideological element. Terrorists oftentimes use a warped interpretation of Islam, including the manipulation of verses of the Qu’ran and Hadith to argue that Muslims have an obligation to use violence to defend Muslim communities around the world. Their message is also taken on a decidedly sectarian tone, particularly in the Arab world in the ISIL context, as ISIL and other terrorists call on Muslims to defend Sunni Muslims from Shia aggression. And as you know, ISIL has added an additional element to this message: their claim to be establishing a caliphate for Muslims around the world.

The third factor that we see is the presence of an influencer. Recruits rarely radicalize on their own; they’re almost always influenced by a figure in their community or by an individual, sometimes in the online space, who uses – who use grievance and ideology, as I’ve described, to reel them in.

So how do we respond to this at the government level and at the nongovernment level for that matter? If terrorists are calling people to a path they call righteous and holy, we have to be clear that the terrorist path is prohibited. If they claim to be defending Islam and Muslims, we have to illustrate clearly how they are actually destroying Muslim communities. And if terrorists are trying to convince young people that they’ll be joining a winning team, we have to convince their recruits that they’ll be joining a losing one.

And how do we do this? In the United States at the government level, we are expanding the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications to face evolving threats, and we have recently added an interagency counter-ISIL cell to the CSCC that is focusing on three main areas. First, we’re expanding our messaging efforts, including with original content on a number of social media platforms in Arabic, Somali, Urdu, Hausa, and English to amplify a few different narratives.

First of all, we’re amplifying the stories of ISIL defectors and former fighters. There’s actually an event taking place tonight hosted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which will be highlighting the stories of defectors and looking at how we can better integrate them into our CVE efforts around the world.

Second, we’ve been amplifying poor living conditions under ISIL, what it’s actually like to live there. It was something the President spoke about both yesterday and Monday in his remarks.

Third, we’re amplifying the resistance that ISIL is facing on the battlefield and the losses that they’ve taken. As you know, they’ve lost about 30 percent of territory they’ve controlled, of area in which there was populated – which were the areas where there were populated cities.

Fourth, we’re highlighting ISIL atrocities, particularly against Muslims, who make up a vast majority of ISIL’s victims.

Fifth, we are amplifying statements from credible voices in the Muslim world. And when I speak about credible voices, oftentimes people assume that we’re talking about religious scholars. And the statements by religious scholars are, of course, important, and there have been a tremendous number of edicts that have been issued; but some of the most credible testimony and statements have come from people that have lived under ISIL’s rule; they have come from people that have left as defectors and former fighters. We want to make sure that we’re getting those messages out there.

And finally and perhaps most importantly, we are amplifying the positive – we are amplifying positive narratives, emphasizing what we stand for, emphasizing our values and the examples of young people around the world who are addressing challenges they face through productive means. Just Monday of this week, I attended the Global Youth Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, and there we had incredible young people from around the world that have come together to put together an action agenda for addressing countering violent extremism and participate in an expo in which they have created a number of projects, including in the online space, to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups.

The second main area that we’ve been focusing on through the CSCC is that we’re expanding partnerships with foreign governments and NGO partners to directly counter ISIL’s messaging, recognizing that other partners around the world will in some cases have the unique ability and be better positioned to respond to certain aspects of ISIL’s messaging. We are supporting NGOs and governments who are countering ISIL’s narrative and helping them to establish their own counter-ISIL messaging center, such as the one that I spoke about at the opportunity, the Sawab Center in the UAE and the centers that are being established in other parts of the world.

The third main area that we’re working in is that we’re coordinating U.S. Government and coalition messaging by issuing daily and thematic guidances on counter-ISIL topics, including the themes that I mentioned. And we’ve been distributing them to nearly 3,000 officials within our government as well as coalition partners. We’re also working on developing a content sharing platform so that U.S. government offices around the world and our coalition partners can work together to upload, download, curate, and produce counter-ISIL content.

To speak a little bit before I open it up for questions about some of the work that we’re focused on in New York this week, first, as I mentioned, we’ve been participating in the Global Youth CVE Summit. And at this summit there’s been young people from around the world who are really leading the charge on CVE efforts in their communities. We often find that they have the most credibility, the vision, the creativity, and the reach to produce powerful change in countering violent extremism efforts. And they have hosted and held a CVE marketplace and put together an action agenda this week with creative, affirmative, and positive proposals and a vision for dealing with extremism.

Second, as part of the President’s summit yesterday on countering violent extremism, a number of participants announced messaging initiatives to confront ISIL. And I’ve spoken to you already about the initiative that was announced by Malaysia and the OIC to complement what’s being done by the UAE, and we’re actually working with a number of other partners around the world whenever they reach out and ask us to share information on how we’ve established our messaging center in the United States.

And then finally, tonight I’ll be participating in an event hosted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue highlighting the stories of ISIL defectors. As I mentioned, the stories of defectors are probably some of the most compelling content that we have, and we’re working with our partners to make sure that we are doing everything we can to integrate them into our CE – to our CVE efforts.

I’d like to also note a report that was put out last week by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization in which they have documented the stories of a number of ISIL defectors and are taking account the growing trend the number of people that are leaving ISIL and other terrorist groups.

So with that, I’d like to open it up to questions and start our discussion.

MODERATOR: Please state your name and media affiliation before you ask your question. Thank you. Any questions?

QUESTION: My name is Mladen Petkov and I am from the Bulgarian National Radio. What do you expect from ISIL to be the response once you start having more and more stories of defectors? Because they will definitely might say this is propaganda and this is staged. What do you think should be done in order to address this – their narrative?

MR HUSSAIN: Well, we see that they’re worried about it already. And the reason why we know that is because they have responded, and they’ve put out tweets essentially cursing the defectors and calling them liars. And that’s an indication that they’re worried about the message that’s getting out there, and we expect them to continue to say that and to question their credibility.

But what we’ve found is that the stories of defectors are some of the most compelling stories and the most significant content that’s out there, because at one point in time they actually bought in to the ideology of ISIL and other groups; and when they got to Iraq and Syria, or in the cases of defectors from other terrorist groups, they’ve realized that the story that they were told and what they were sold was actually a lie; and what they have found in the territories which they went to was a reality that was completely divorced from any description of what was given to them by ISIL and other terrorist groups. And so they’re putting their stories out there. And we expect actually, as we see more and more defectors, that that’ll actually encourage others to leave ISIL and other groups as well.

QUESTION: Hakan Tanriverdi, Suddeutsche Zeitung. Thank you so much. My question is, because the number of people still traveling to Syria is rising, right – there was a report recently in The New York Times stating just that. And you said you want to have counter-narratives, in a way, positive stories. But ISIL will always say, look, there are two things – one, drone strikes; second, Guantanamo. And are you – how are you planning to counter that story?

MR HUSSAIN: Well, the first thing that’s important to remember is that ISIL has been overwhelmingly rejected by people around the world, including Muslim communities. If they are reaching out, essentially casting a very broad net to 1.6 billion people around the world, and essentially arguing that Muslims around the world have an obligation to come and establish the khilafah, the Islamic State and to defend it and to defend against oppression that Muslims are facing – well, the vast majority of Muslims have dismissed that argument and have rejected that argument and have noted that ISIL’s actually doing more damage to the causes that they claim to defend. So you have 1.6 billion people out there, and we see a tiny percentage of people that they’ve been able to attract.

I think it’s important to also remember that they aren’t creating a market; they’re drawing from a market of disaffected youth that already exist, which is why as part of our countering violent extremism efforts, as one element to that, as the President and the Secretary have spoken about, it’s important that we address the range of factors that push people towards violent extremism. And of course, extremists are going to continue to point towards various policy issues around the world and to exploit those grievances. But the fact of the matter is I think it’s very clear that they are doing nothing to address the real grievances; they’re actually just causing more misery and more sorrow and more death and more damage. And that’s the message that we need to continue to get out there.

We also need to make sure that we are providing a positive message in terms of articulating what we stand for. And we do that not just in the CVE realm, but that’s a routine part of good foreign policy, that we are promoting education, that we’re promoting entrepreneurship, that we’re promoting development, that we’re promoting English training and literacy programs. And that’s part of what we do as part of our vision for the world, to provide opportunity. And we have to make sure that as a part of that, we are providing – I don’t even want to use the term “alternative” paths – that we are providing a positive path and a positive vision for young people around the world.

And we see that happening all around the globe, where if you look at the summit that was taking place, the youth summit, for example, on Monday, that’s just one example of the creativity and the vision and the passion that we’re seeing so that young people can channel their energies in a positive way and make sure that they’re presenting a path for their – for other young people around the world to pursue peace and dignity in a way that will actually be effective, rather than what the terrorists are doing, which is offering nothing more than more misery, death, and sorrow, and injustice.

QUESTION: Hello, thank you very much. Ra’ed AlOmari from The Jordan Times, Jordan. I noticed something that Baghdad central government’s sectarian policies are always absent in the anti-ISIS narrative. I mean, what made the Iraqis join ISIS – and this is something I hear from the Iraqis themselves – and they always say that the people of the world, they don’t know about what’s going on in our country. They only meet in high-profile meetings, and they gather and they talk, then they launch initiatives, but they don’t never – they never tackle the push factors and the root causes. But because of the sectarian policies of the Iraqi Government, the – let’s say, I’m sorry to say it, but the Shia government, people started to join ISIS.

MR HUSSAIN: Well, it’s – you’re correct that it is important to address the push factors that are pushing people towards violent extremism. And as a part of our strategy in our countering violent extremism efforts, we are looking at a range of issues, and I’ve mentioned some of them. Now, the sectarian element, of course, is – plays an important role. And ISIL is using that as a part of their recruiting strategy. And the first point I’d note on that is that it really is the responsibility of Muslim communities around the world that have the credibility in addressing issues of Islamic scholarship and Islamic studies and addressing those sectarian tensions that have existed for quite some time. Those didn’t just prop up overnight or just even in the last decades. And so it’s important that Muslim communities continue to – and we’ve heard scholars at a number of events around the world talk about this, the importance of making sure that those differences are addressed in a peaceful manner and that the scholarship continues to promote the idea that the differences that exist are largely political differences, and that there shouldn’t be challenges or differences that result, certainly, in conflict.

We have been working, of course, with the Iraqi Government. And Prime Minister Abadi, as the President mentioned yesterday, has taken a number of steps to address issues of sectarianism and to establish a more inclusive government. And we, of course, applaud that. But this is going to be a long-term fight. When you’re talking about the issue of sectarianism, these are divisions that have existed for a long time. It will not be just the role of governments to address them, but it’ll be the role of civil society and particularly religious leaders to address some of these tensions, to make sure that they don’t spill over into broader political issues and conflict.

QUESTION: Yeah. Hi, I’m Jason Tan from Singapore. Thank you very much for the briefing. You mentioned all these positive narratives that you’re trying to put out, including stories of defectors and so on. That seems all very logical to us, right-thinking members of society, but how sure are we that this is what the disenfranchised youth today wants to hear? Because for them, the attraction is this purpose that is put out by ISIL, right, where it seems to appeal to them for – with a higher calling.

So the question is really, how much traction do you think all these narratives that you’re putting out will find with the youngsters today?

MR HUSSAIN: Well, there’s a couple of audiences that we’re trying to reach. First of all, we’re trying to reach out to audiences that are not radicalized or not extreme, that are not even on the fence or on the verge of potentially becoming extremists, but we want to prevent people from ever getting to the fence. And so there’s a strong prevention aspect of the messages that we’re putting out. If every young person when they’re growing up grows up with the idea that no matter what grievance they have, or no matter what difficulty they face, it is unacceptable to use violence as a means of addressing those grievances, particularly violence against innocent people, then I think we’ll have a successful message and a successful narrative out there and we’ll have a successful way of preventing people from ever getting to the point where they might even consider joining a terrorist group such as ISIL.

But we have seen that messaging has been effective in reaching people that are on the fence or may be on the brink of becoming radicalized or perhaps have become radicalized. And the reason why we know that is because we’ve heard it from defectors. Defectors who have left these groups have said that when they saw what ISIL was actually doing to Muslim communities, for example, they saw some of the atrocities that they were engaged in, they saw that the societies that they were setting up were actually more damaging to Islam and Muslims, that they decided to leave. And we are very busy in the work of following the metrics in how our messaging gets out, what type of following it has, the number of followers, the reach, how groups are responding to that, how the messaging is affecting public opinion.

I would note that in countries throughout the Muslim world, the approval for the tactics that ISIL is using is in the single digits, and that they’re overwhelmingly rejected. And so we continue to measure not only our messaging, but we continue to measure the types of messaging which are effective generally. So if we see a video online that goes viral that’s not produced by any government but that’s produced by – it could be a civil society organization, it could just be by an individual in Iraq or Syria – and we see that video going viral, we look at the content and we see how we can work with our partners around the world to draw from those themes and to create effective material to help prevent people from going down the part of violent extremism.

Yes.

QUESTION: Hi, I’m – oh, thank you. Aisha Gani from The Guardian in London.

MR HUSSAIN: Yes.

QUESTION: I’m really interested in the role of the defectors and how exactly State Department is interacting with them. Are you guys paying them? And also, how is the larger Muslim community seeing them? Because many people in the Muslim community aren’t even extremists, so why should they listen to these guys who are extremists? Who are they speaking to exactly? Thank you.

MR HUSSAIN: Yeah, I mean, absolutely we’re not paying them. The thing that makes the stories of defectors so effective is because they are so authentic and their testimony directly from people that have at one point bought in to the ideology of ISIL or other terrorist groups and have in some cases gone to Iraq and Syria, seen what it’s actually like, and left and said they want to have nothing to do with it. And so that’s something that’s happening on its own. And the report that came out of the UK just last week highlighting I believe at least 58 individuals who have spoken very publicly – in that report, one of the observations with this was that this is a small fraction of the people that are leaving ISIL.

And so what we have seen as a government entity, as the State Department, is that those stories speak for themselves, and when the defectors are out there saying that ISIL is doing more damage to Islam and Muslims, and it’s not Islamic and it’s not a state, then that message resonates quite effectively.

And so we’ve actually been an observer of that phenomenon as we’ve seen it happening. Of course, when we see those stories out there, that’s something that we try to amplify along with other governments and nongovernmental entities around the world.

QUESTION: My name is Abdulkareem, from Nigeria. I work for Leadership Newspaper. From where I come from, Boko Haram get its recruits through – from people that are angry with the society, with government; people that are poor that have no jobs and so on. And when they are trying to convince (inaudible) telling them we are going to do jihad, they also offer them some – make promises to them: Okay, you get money; you get wives and so on.

If we are to send they message across to these people that what they are doing is wrong – if they realize that what they are doing is wrong – some of them, they still want to continue because if they come back to the normal society, they will still be faced with hunger, they will still be faced with poverty. So is there any program you are putting together to see that these people are – have been helped with – to get job or some training to be empowered and so on?

MR HUSSAIN: Yeah. Well, this is an issue that President Buhari has spoken about very eloquently since he’s come into office. And I had the opportunity to visit Nigeria about a month ago and meet with the government there and civil society and religious leaders. And we’ve seen all elements of civil society, including religious leaders and other activists, make the point that you made just now, which is that this is not just an ideological problem in Nigeria. Oftentimes, young people are bought off and they join Boko Haram because they’re looking for money, essentially.

And so what was very clear in our visit to Indonesia is – sorry, to Nigeria – is that there are a number of short-term priorities that we have to address, and that’ll include a messaging response, that’ll include the response of the military. And President Buhari has put forward an agenda to address the Boko Haram challenge within a matter of months. But there will also be a number of long-term initiatives that will be necessary, initiatives which address the problem of education and illiteracy, initiatives that address the problem of development. And we look forward to doing whatever we can to work with our partners in Nigeria, and we’re already working on the ground through the State Department, USAID, and others so that we can address some of these root causes that you’re talking about.

And I just want to applaud the work that’s being done by civil society itself in Nigeria, who is – we saw some of the most creative work that’s being done by young people in Nigeria to address some of the very problems that you talked about.

QUESTION: My name is Alkasim Bala from Radio Nigeria. My concern is on the issue of ownership of these kind of campaigns. From where I come from, it’s one thing for government and NGOs, civil society groups to come up with a campaign, and it’s another thing for the society, the local people, to identify with this kind of campaign. Counterterrorism is a collective responsibility where everybody is supposed to participate. Are there strategies you are putting in place for the local communities to champion this cause?

MR HUSSAIN: Absolutely. I think that’s a very good point. Much is made about radicalization that occurs online through social media, and it’s very important that we address it and that’s why we’re doing just that.

But data shows in counterterrorism research that the majority of people that are radicalized are radicalized through personal interactions. Now, it is true that increasingly, personal interactions are happening online. But oftentimes, it’s person-to-person interaction within the community – could be at a mosque, it could be in other community settings. But that’s where a lot of the radicalization is taking place.

And I’ll also note there that while oftentimes people have pointed to the religious element of this and radicalization occurring in sometimes religious circles, we also have seen data indicating that individuals that are radicalized and those that are engaging in terrorist recruitment actually have very little knowledge of religion, and Islam in particular. But it’s – the question that you asked is important because some of the most credible responses are going to come from individuals on the ground that are closest to the communities, because not only do they know the messages that will resonate, but they’ll have the credibility to deliver that message, and they’ll know the best tools for delivering it.

And so what we’ve been trying to do in our efforts is not only work with governments and NGOs around the world on broad messaging, but work with smaller organizations in providing whatever assistance that we can to groups that are trying to counter violent extremism within their communities. And there’s a number of examples of that that we can provide to you. Some of them actually happen to be in Nigeria, but you’re correct in noting that those are some of the most important efforts that are underway.

QUESTION: Hi, sir. I’m Faisal Raza Khan from Pakistan. How do you see Afghanistan and Afghan problem to be the nurturing ground for ISIL, and as well providing fodder for Syria and Iraq? And secondly, the counterterrorism campaign which is going on in that region, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan from the last 14 years – do you think that this whole campaign has given the desired results? And how do you see the extremism and the radicalization which is going on already in this region? Do you think that new initiatives will help in erasing all those concerns which are already popping up?

MR HUSSAIN: Well, to address your first question on expansion of ISIL in other parts of the world, it’s important that we continue to make clear that the message that ISIL is selling is a false one in the sense of the atrocities – by amplifying the atrocities that they’re engaging in around the world, talking about the living conditions that actually exist in the territories that they control, and showing that they’re actually doing more damage to the causes that they claim to defend, including damage that they’re doing to Muslim communities.

What ISIL has done is they’ve claimed to establish a khilafah in Iraq and Syria and are calling others around the world to pledge allegiance to their so-called Islamic State. But the only reason why they’re able to have any success in doing so is by showing that they’ve somehow established an entity which is truly Islamic, it is truly a state, and one that is providing for Muslim communities around the world.

So what we’re going to need to continue to do is making clear that what they’re selling is a lie and that they’re actually doing more damage. And that will be important not just in the immediate region but also in the case of other affiliates that we see now that are popping up around the world.

In the specific context of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as you know, there’s no one that has suffered more around the world, in fact, the numbers show, than the people in that region from the attacks – from the terrorist attacks that they’ve seen at the hands of the Taliban and other groups. And we believe that we are making progress, but this is going to continue to be a generational fight, and part of what we have to continue to do in that region as well as other regions in the world is to address the ideology. And the President and others spoke about this yesterday. It’s not just addressing violent extremism but to address extremism itself.

And so to the extent that we’re seeing extremism being propped up because young people who haven’t had a chance to get educated, including girls, are being exploited, we’re going to have to make sure that we do a better job of addressing those root causes in addition to the military efforts that are underway and in addition to the messaging efforts that are underway. I think the lesson that we’ve learned over the years is that we can make some progress using some of the immediate tactics that have been used, but if we’re going to be successful in the long run, we have to address the generational challenges that exist in that part of the world, and as I said, that includes making sure that there’s improvements to education, both religious and secular, and for both boys and girls.

QUESTION: Hello. Thank you. My name is Eng. I’m from Kompas Daily, Indonesia. I’m also interested in the defector side that you’re – you were explaining earlier. So do you have any particular programs for these defectors? You mentioned earlier that you amplify their message towards the people, but do you have any particular program to getting – how do you reach out – are you reaching out to them?

And then the second of all, how do you work with different government in countering these issues? Because each government has their own policies regarding this matter. They have – some government only have law enforcement – law enforcement measure, but they don’t have prevention measure or – how do you work with that? Thank you.

MR HUSSAIN: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot of interesting discussions that are occurring around the world, and this will be part of the discussion that takes place tonight at the event that I mentioned that’s hosted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, talking about defectors’ stories and how we can better integrate them into our countering violent extremism efforts. A number of the defectors that we’ve seen are – have returned to other parts of the world. As you know, there’s very few people that have traveled from the United States to join ISIL. And the defector stories are largely stories of people that are returning to other countries, and different countries have different mechanisms for dealing with it – with this problem.

You have a number of countries that have rehabilitation programs, and we’re always looking at those programs and learning if there’s aspects of those programs that we can draw on around the world to establish best practices, and there’s certain – certainly countries that don’t have the rehabilitation programs and are taking a largely punitive approach. And I think there’s a good discussion that’s occurring right now, including at the UN, of how we can create off-ramps, for example, if people – for people that have gone to Iraq and Syria and realized instantly that they’ve made a mistake, and what we can do when those people have left.

Part of what we’ve seen is that, even in the law enforcement realm, various countries have said we’re still going to prosecute you for the crimes that you committed, but if you’re able to speak publicly or you’re able to engage with young people that might be at risk, then maybe your punishment looks a little different than it would if you were caught as a terrorist just like anyone else.

And so there’s a lot of ideas that are being discussed right now, and I do believe that we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to look at those options, because we’re going to see, I believe, an increasing number of people that are leaving these groups. And while in many cases they have committed crimes and they have to account for that and there has to be a punitive element to it, there’s also an opportunity to learn from their experiences, especially those that are – have instantly realized that they’ve made a mistake and are remorseful and are willing to engage with young people to ensure that others don’t make the same mistake.

MODERATOR: We have time for one last question.

QUESTION: Hi. I’m Shariful Islam from Bangladesh. In Bangladesh in recent months, we have seen several people who intended to join ISIL were arrested by the law enforcers. Those peoples had good jobs; they are from well-off families, so it seems their problem is solely ideological. What is your suggestion to de-radicalize such types of elements?

MR HUSSAIN: Well, as I said, there is no one path towards radicalization. There are cases in which the ideological element plays a larger role. Even in those cases, though, where we see that people have come from well-off families, in many of those cases you’ll still find that those individuals are still looking for a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning. So it’s not clear that their motivations are solely ideological even in those cases.

But what we do find is that in addressing those cases, there’s a lot of difficulty in de-radicalizing once a person has gotten to a certain level. And so what we really need to be focusing on is making sure that we address this phenomenon before it occurs and that we are reaching out to young people and making sure that we’re addressing factors that may lead towards a path of radicalization. We have to make sure that we are addressing the ideological element. And as the President spoke about yesterday, Muslim communities around the world have begun to do this and will continue to need to do more in order to prevent people from going down that path of radicalization.

But in cases where we have seen people become radicalized and they are in places where there are programs that are available and initiatives available to help with the de-radicalization process, I think we need to be looking at them very carefully, learning what the best practices are, seeing what types of methods are effective, what types of methods are ineffective, and continue to draw from that as the international community.

MODERATOR: Great. We’d like to thank Mr. Hussain for briefing our journalists today. Thank you for attending.

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