The FBI National Security Branch interviewed a cross section of FBI leaders, special agents, and other law enforcement partners who played key roles in the evolving counterterrorism mission before, during, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Dan Coleman, Special Agent (Ret.), New York Field Office, FBI
As a special agent assigned to the New York Field Office, Dan Coleman investigated the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. In February 1996, he was the first FBI agent assigned to Alec Station, a group of CIA analysts targeting Usama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida. Coleman was one of the main handlers of an al-Qa’ida defector codenamed Junior. Coleman’s investigative work contributed to the indictment of bin Laden and al-Qa’ida conspirators in June 1998. Prior to 9/11, Coleman also worked on the plan to try to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan and bring him back to United States for trial, which was never carried out. He retired in 2004.
Q. How did you transition to investigating terrorism?
A. I worked on the first World Trade Center bombing, mostly from an intelligence side, but I had a source who was able to tell us within a couple of days who was claiming responsibility for the bombing, and it turned out the source was correct, and then I worked on the case that came after that, the bridges and tunnels case. I was able to use that source for more information about Sheik Rahman [Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman] and what he was up to… We were able to develop a sufficient case against bin Laden, and we had an arrest warrant and an indictment in June 1998. We had a plan to go get him in Afghanistan, but there wasn’t any will within the government to do that… We actually practiced landing a plane in a desert in Texas.
Q. What did you learn about al-Qa’ida and Usama bin Laden from the former al-Qa’ida member turned defector and informer, codenamed “Junior”?
A. What we did learn, is that even though “Junior” had stolen money from bin Laden, he loved the guy. We showed him a photograph of bin Laden sleeping in Afghanistan, and he said, “Oh my God, he sleeps just like the Prophet” because bin Laden was contorted in a shape like an Arabic letter that’s in the Prophet’s name. Bin Laden was very charismatic, and people liked him, and that’s why people followed him… that’s why so many people were loyal to him, but the loyalty was very organized, you had to sign contracts, and be referred in by somebody who was previously known.
Q. How would you describe the level of attention your work investigating al-Qa’ida received from FBI leadership during the 1996 to 1998 timeframe?
A. I think we tried to convince them, based on what we learned from “Junior” and other people, that when bin Laden said he was going to do something, he meant it, and he had proclaimed war against the United States in various statements going back to 1996, and we thought that should be taken seriously. It wasn’t until the bombings in Africa that we were able to get people convinced that they were a threat. But it didn’t really bang home until 9/11, that these guys meant what they said, and they were going to do what they said.
Q. From the interviews you conducted, what do you think motivated people who joined al-Qa’ida?
A. The geopolitical thing, and all that kind of stuff, that was from the leadership. I don’t think a lot of the guys at the lower levels thought much about that … this was a call to action, and this was a guy [Usama bin Laden] who could provide them with some monetary support, give them training, and lead them on to that action.
Michael E. “Mike” Rolince, Special Agent in Charge (Ret.), Counterterrorism Division, Washington Field Office, FBI
Michael Rolince, who joined the FBI in 1974, took over as chief of the International Terrorism Operations Section (ITOS) in August 1998, just days before the simultaneous truck bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Rolince helped coordinate, from a national perspective, the FBI’s East Africa bombings investigation; the Millennium conspiracy investigation; and the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. Following 9/11, Rolince held leadership posts at the Washington Field Office (WFO) in counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Named acting assistant director of the newly formed Office of Intelligence in December 2003, he retired in 2005 as the special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division at WFO.
Q. Before 9/11, how was the FBI trying to shift to a proactive stance against international terrorism?
A. Prior to the attacks of 9/11, the FBI’s CT [counterterrorism] program both at FBIHQ and within many field offices was consumed with investigating major attacks against U.S. persons and interests; identifying potential and known threats; and developing strategies to neutralize those threats, leaving little time for long-term strategic thinking. The business of counterterrorism was both proactive and reactive in nature. In an effort to gain a better understanding of the patterns and trends of our adversaries across the country, and internationally, a more proactive approach was in order.
Part of the shift entailed an initiative entitled MAXCAP 05, which was developed by senior counterterrorism leadership to take a long, hard, and honest look at the effectiveness of our 56 field offices’ efforts against known terrorist groups and the countries that sponsored them.
The strategy entailed working with field offices to ensure they had properly identified existing and potential threats within their respective divisions and had allocated sufficient resources against each threat. Utilizing the “red, green, and yellow” model, each office was tasked with assessing their CT program’s strengths and weaknesses, after which decisions would be made regarding moving agents and analysts from lower priority programs within the office to address deficiencies, or alternatively, FBIHQ reallocating manpower from other FBI field offices who were found to be underutilizing existing resources. Should a field office identify a need of enhanced funding or technology, FBIHQ would commit to fill that gap.
Dale Watson, Executive Assistant Director (Ret.), Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, FBI
As an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City Division, Dale Watson oversaw the Kansas Joint Task Force investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, since much of the conspirators’ meetings, planning, purchasing of materials, and construction of the bomb occurred in Kansas. The task force was responsible for the arrest of Terry Nichols and the collection of supporting evidence against Timothy McVeigh and Nichols. In 1996, Watson was selected as the first FBI deputy director of the CIA’s newly formed Counterterrorism (CT) Center due to the growing international terrorism threat. He was transferred to FBIHQ to manage the FBI International and Domestic CT programs. In 1999, based on the continuing growth of the terrorism threat, Director Freeh elevated the CT programs to form the Counterterrorism Division within the FBI and appointed Watson as its first assistant director, a position he held throughout the 9/11 investigation. He was promoted in January 2002 by FBI Director Mueller to the new position of executive assistant director, with responsibility for all FBI CT and counterintelligence programs. Watson, who retired in October 2002, is a lifetime member of the IACP and former chair of the IACP Terrorism Committee.
Q. How would you describe the operational tempo of the CT Division prior to 9/11?
A. It was unbelievable. From the mid-90s until 9/11, there was a huge increase in the number of CT cases, both domestically and internationally. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Congress passed several laws that greatly increased the FBI’s jurisdiction and responsibility in CT and weapons of mass destruction investigations. Any act of violence waged against U.S. citizens by a terrorist group, anywhere in the world, became a federal crime and an FBI case, regardless of the location. FBI investigative activity was also generated in response to our enemies’ actions and declarations; al-Qa’ida was threatening U.S. citizens and institutions, abroad and within
our homeland.
Q. What do you remember about the overall mindset within the FBI toward terrorism?
A. Those in the FBI not assigned CT matters held the same attitude as the American public and most U.S. government policy makers, that terrorist attacks were terrible things happening overseas but not posing a threat to the United States. For those working CT, the bureau’s focus was on a “reactive” stance, responding to terrorist actions in the same manner as criminal cases. There was little to no intelligence analysis directed at prevention of terrorism. But after terrorists bombed two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the reactive posture was changed.
Q. And how did you attempt to shift the Bureau to a more proactive approach toward international terrorism?
A. After the East Africa bombings, we made three key shifts. First, the Bureau identified terrorism as the number one priority. Director Freeh elevated the counterterrorism program into an independent division, which increased our resources and reflected CT’s importance. Second, to increase our ability to react and respond to overseas events, we formed FBI Rapid Deployment Teams in four of our largest field offices (New York, New York; Miami, Florida; Washington, DC; and Los Angeles, California), trained to quickly respond with necessary training and equipment to different parts of the world. Through Director Freeh’s efforts, our legal attaché program was expanded to key countries with terrorism issues. Third, the FBI launched an aggressive program focused on proactive prevention of attack. It required each field office to evaluate the terrorism program within their territory based on specific criteria [and to establish JTTFs where appropriate]. The criteria included Intelligence, liaison, investigative capability, information sharing, and agile coordination with FBIHQ. These data were used to drive decision-making on readiness and resources, and to identify gaps. We were close to full implementation of these efforts before 9/11.
Arthur M. “Art” Cummings, Executive Assistant Director (Ret.), National Security Branch, FBI
Following 9/11, Arthur Cummings was brought back to the Counterterrorism Division at FBIHQ to help expand and reorganize the FBI’s counterterrorism program. As chief of the Counterterrorism Operational Response Section, Cummings developed and oversaw FBI operations in Afghanistan. As the FBI’s counterterrorism mission rapidly expanded, his leadership roles included serving as chief of ITOS, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division and Intelligence Branch at WFO. In January 2008, Cummings was named executive assistant director of the National Security Branch (NSB). He retired in 2010.
Q. When 9/11 happened, suddenly the FBI had this massive investigation with all-hands on deck. How would you describe each distinct phase of the FBI’s initial response to the 9/11 attacks?
A. The first was our response in terms of the crime scene and the evidence collection. That wasn’t new to us, and we had the response teams and the lab screening all the material, on a scale the FBI had never seen. And the second was the criminal investigation, and yet again, that was something we were very well practiced at, but it was wildly broader in scale. And we brought in the NSA and the CIA, all the elements of national power were brought to bear. We’re going to hunt down the people responsible for this and need to ensure everyone that was part of it is held to account… the bottom line was, this investigation has to stand the test of time. The piece we were not used to was the terrorism prevention mission. We knew they’re coming after us again, and we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We were changing the tires on the car while it was going 100 miles per hour.
Q. And in those first years following 9/11, how would you describe the FBI strategy?
A. In the first couple years, we were running a very significant disruption strategy, and from 2001 to 2010, there were only a few terrorism operations that weren’t disrupted. The guiding strategy was, do not make an arrest unless you’re sure you know absolutely everything about this person. For me, to take someone off the street who’s a known terrorist is negligent. The goal was to understand their entire world, then disrupt them.
Q. But, as is always the case, threats evolve. What started to shift following the initial fight against al-Qa’ida?
A. Starting around 2006, we really started seeing the success of online radicalization, and we saw a significant shift. Al-Qa’ida evolved into a strategy of decentralized operations, so that it’s not “command and control,” now, it’s a franchise, [and the approach] is “we’ll give you some training and send you back to your home country to carry out attacks on your own.”
Michael Steinbach, Executive Assistant Director (Ret.), National Security Branch, FBI
Steinbach joined the FBI in 1995 and started his career working violent crime. He transferred to the CT Division in 2003. In 2004, Steinbach deployed to Afghanistan as the deputy on-scene commander for FBI operations. In 2009, Steinbach was named assistant section chief for ITOS. Steinbach later served as assistant director of the CT Division in 2014 before becoming executive assistant director of NSB in February 2016. He retired in 2017.
Q. How would you describe the mission when you initially joined the CT Division?
A. It was an interdiction mission; we needed to identify U.S. persons known to be in Afghanistan and Pakistan and identify people leaving those areas to come to the United States. We were trying to understand who was coming in.
Q. How did the threat evolve from 9/11 through the early 2000s?
A. It went to the online forums, which were almost like a watering hole for people around the world interested in jihad. Someone would get the password to get into these like-minded forums, and the idea was, instead of travel, we can train you in terrorist techniques, we can radicalize you online.
Q. What changed with the rise of social media?
A. With the shift to social media, you had the last element that was missing. You could now broadcast and blast the message out… with social media, that radicalization tool is sitting in your back pocket in your phone. It’s with you all the time; the message is constantly in your head.
With al-Qa’ida, the messaging was strategically controlled from the top-down. But with ISIS, there was a decentralized communication model. Communications did not need to be approved from senior leadership, and as a consequence, there was a significant volume of messaging compared with al-Qa’ida, which was promulgated through multiple social media platforms.
Today, we say that propaganda moves at the speed of social media. For ISIS, what propaganda benefits were gained by holding territory?
It emboldened them to say, “We’re winning, the Caliphate is reemerging,” and that’s a message they could push out. In Europe, it created a huge pipeline of recruits coming in and helped them to continue to radicalize sympathizers and continue to recruit.
Bruce Glasscock, Chief of Police (Ret.), Plano Police Department, Texas
Bruce Glasscock started his law enforcement career as a patrol officer in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. He went on to serve as chief of the Fort Collins, Colorado, Police Department and chief of the Plano, Texas, Police Department during nearly 32 years in law enforcement. He served as president of the IACP for the 2000–2001 term and has continued as a member of the Board of Officers and Executive Committee.
Q. Overall, how would you describe the relationship between state and local law enforcement prior to 9/11?
A. Well, I guess I need to characterize my experience with the FBI from the Dallas area in 1990. I think the Dallas-Fort Worth area had one of the best relationships with federal agencies… I think that was a unique relationship, and I think there was a general feeling between local law enforcement and the FBI… not of real close partnership, there was a sort of distancing that occurred. After 9/11, when I was president of IACP, I think Robert Mueller really started a strong, concerted effort to improve the relationship between local law enforcement and the FBI.
Q. What do you remember about the IACP’s annual meeting in October 2001, just weeks after 9/11?
A. Director Mueller wanted the feedback, and I didn’t hold any punches back… the director and I were talking about the message for the meeting, and I said you’re not going to be able to blow smoke at these guys, they’re all experienced law enforcement professionals, and he said, “I need to hear it, about how we can improve the information flow.”
Q. And what change did you see in the flow of information post-9/11 between the FBI and state and local law enforcement?
A. I think the question became, what can we do to assist the FBI, and how can the FBI assist us? Post-9/11 in Plano, we had some individuals considered of high interest to the FBI because of travel. Pre-9/11, I doubt we would have ever known that. But the FBI gave us information, and we could provide feedback and context from the local community. My sense is, it has changed tremendously since 9/11, because we all learned the lesson that we need to do a better job of working together.
Carlos T. Fernandez, Special Agent in Charge (Ret.), Counterterrorism, New York Field Office, FBI
Assigned to the New York Field Office after becoming a special agent in 1996, Carlos Fernandez helped investigate the East Africa bombings and attack on the USS Cole. Following 9/11, he served with a small team in Yemen pursuing leads on al-Qa’ida operatives, then returned to Yemen as legal attaché. In 2009, Fernandez served as senior FBI representative to Joint Special Operations Command. In 2011, he was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of New York’s Counterterrorism Division, then became special agent in charge for counterterrorism in New York in 2015. He retired from the FBI in 2017.
Q. What changed in terms of engagement between the field and FBIHQ following 9/11?
A. The necessity for detailed information to go back to headquarters was incredible, and the engagement, whether it was local or from the intelligence community, was just 10 times higher than it was prior to 9/11. The accountability, it’s really hard to explain how different it became… everyone needed to get briefed, and everybody had input on these cases… that level of engagement increased exponentially following 9/11 and as things started to grow.
Q. Post-9/11, how did the role of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces grow?
A. Pre-9/11, people, let’s say locally, they wanted to be informed on what was going on; following 9/11, they wanted to be part of what was going on. That’s where you saw the numbers within our JTTFs grow, and the numbers grow at headquarters as well.
Q. What did the expansion of the JTTFs bring to the counterterrorism effort?
A. Tremendous resources. We realized that everyone really had a stake in the fight, so by increasing our partnerships, we increased our capabilities, and by everyone having visibility on the threat, and the importance of addressing the threat with all U.S. resources, I think that was probably one of the biggest achievements we had in the fight against terrorism.
Pasquale “Pat” D’Amuro, Assistant Director in Charge (Ret.), New York Field Office, FBI
As assistant special agent in charge, Joint Terrorism Task Force, National Security Division-Counterterrorism for the New York Field Office from August 1997 to January 2001, Pasquale D’Amuro supervised the investigation of the East Africa bombings in 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. In October 2001, FBI Director Mueller asked D’Amuro to lead the PENTTBOM investigation. In January 2002, D’Amuro became assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division, then served as executive assistant director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence. D’Amuro, who was named assistant director in charge of the New York Field Office in August 2003, retired in 2005.
Q. Can you give some context to the counterterrorism mission before 9/11?
A. The first al-Qa’ida matter that I deployed on was the East Africa bombings in 1998. We managed to get an [Air Force] Starlifter that took a bunch of us over to Nairobi to start working on that investigation… after we landed in Nairobi, I turned to a couple of agents and said, listen, it’s important we establish a command post, and sure enough, that night we get a very critical phone call, telling us about a guy who came back to a motel bloodied, who kept going outside to make phone calls, and sure enough, that turned out to be al-Owhali [Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali].We were able to work with the source and transfer him back to the United States, and about a week and half later he confessed to the bombings… it was an unbelievable investigation, because at the peak of it, we had almost 500 agents deployed to Nairobi.
Q. What were some key organizational and structural changes within the FBI’s counterterrorism program following 9/11?
A. We practically tripled the size of the Counterterrorism Division after 9/11, and, in doing that, we created some very critical pieces. One of the first was terrorism financing. It’s always about following the money; there’s got to be money involved in almost any crime. It was difficult to try to find and trace the money, but you’re able to do it if you have good investigators. Creating a professional analysis piece for counterterrorism was critical… when I came to the New York office, we created the first Office of Intelligence in the field.
Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Division, New York Field Office, FBI
Now serving as special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the New York Field Office, Jacqueline Maguire became a special agent in 2000. Assigned to New York’s JTTF in June 2001, Maguire served on a reactive squad investigating all terrorism threats. At work on the morning of September 11, just blocks from the World Trade Center, Maguire heard the first plane hit the north tower and responded with fellow JTTF members; they were on the street adjacent to the World Trade Center when the second hijacked plane slammed into the south tower. Following 9/11, Maguire helped manage the flood of tips coming in from the public. Sent to Washington, DC, in October 2001, Maguire became the lead agent investigating the hijackers of Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon.
Q. What were some of the immediate goals of the initial investigation?
A. The immediate goal was to identify who was responsible. Early in the evening of September 11, the names of the hijackers had been potentially identified, and, from there, our goals were to identify any associates, to identify any co-conspirators, and to make sure there was no second wave coming.
Q. In addition to the possibility of co-conspirators, was there anything else you were trying to determine about the hijackers?
A. We wanted to determine where the hijackers were, who they associated with… where did they live, who did they call, where did they spend their money, where did they get that money that they spent? As a result of that investigation, we ended up with a near daily account of the hijackers’ activity here in the United States and, to some extent, prior to them entering the United States.
Q. And from your perspective, how did the terrorism threat change and evolve from 2006 to 2011?
A. We had been focused on al-Qa’ida, and that was centralized in Afghanistan, under bin Laden. But during that time frame, it became more decentralized and then we started to see al-Qa’ida branches becoming stronger. That’s also when we started to see the homegrown violent extremists [HVE]—during that time, the world is using more and more social media, and we become a more digital world. People don’t have to be necessarily directly tasked for terrorist attacks, they don’t have to attend an al-Qa’ida training camp… as more and more of the world went online, someone could sit in their basement and listen to the preaching of Anwar al-Aulaqi, and become inspired by that, and go off and do something on their own.
Q. What law enforcement challenges did that create?
A. With that evolution, changing into the HVE threat, there are less so-called dots to connect, and sometimes there are no dots, because it could be just that one person acting alone. We started to see examples where their circle is very limited, if a circle of associates exists at all, and again, especially through social media and the internet, they don’t need to talk to anyone.
Q. As you look back, what do you think were the key elements in making the FBI more proactive in its counterterrorism mission?
A. I think the obvious one is intelligence, building a more robust intelligence function. Along with that, and as important, are our partnerships and us becoming a true member of the Intel community. And though we had JTTFs before 9/11, not every field office had a JTTF; after 9/11, every field office established a JTTF. When we talk about HVEs, I think our partnerships with state and local law enforcement are key with those sorts of threats, because they’re the ones out there on the street, they know their neighborhoods much better, they know what is normal, and what’s not normal for their communities. All those eyes and ears on the ground is a huge help for us. It’s a force multiplier against the terror threat, and the FBI certainly couldn’t do our job without our law enforcement partners.
Jennifer Keenan, Legal Attaché (Ret.), Sanaa, Yemen, FBI
Jennifer Keenan became a special agent in 1989 and mainly worked criminal cases with the New York Field Office until September 1998, when she joined a counterterrorism squad investigating the East Africa bombings. She deployed to Tanzania in October 1998, followed by travel to Jordan, Yemen, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates pursuing al-Qa’ida leads. In July 2001, Keenan became the FBI’s assistant legal attaché in Islamabad, Pakistan, focused on counterterrorism. Following 9/11, Keenan worked with CIA officers and Pakistani authorities and participated in raids targeting al-Qai’da operatives and associates in Pakistan. She interviewed foreign fighters fleeing Afghanistan and managed evidence recovered during the first campaign against the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in late 2001. Following leadership roles in counterterrorism at FBIHQ, Keenan served as legal attaché in Sanaa, Yemen in 2005. She retired in 2019.
Q. In your early years of counterterrorism work, what was your experience with the “wall” between intelligence and criminal investigations?
A. Back then, FISAs [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests] were authorized solely to collect intelligence, and any information developed was required to remain with national security investigations. It was nearly impossible to share FISA-collected information to the criminal side. The policies were updated, and while the primary purpose of a FISA is still to collect intelligence for matters of national security, there is now a pathway to share information imperative to criminal investigations. So, pre-9/11, we basically had two types of investigations; it wasn’t efficient at all, and clearly, information that should have been shared was not always shared with the criminal investigators.
Q. In the aftermath of 9/11, we know a lot about the changes taking place in the United States. What change did you see overseas from the Pakistani authorities?
A. The Pakistanis also had a problem of deciding how to handle all the non-Pakistanis. Literally everybody that got into Afghanistan went through Pakistan. When we attacked Afghanistan at the start of the Global War on Terrorism, almost everyone fled back into Pakistan … and the general rule was, we [U.S. intelligence and law enforcement] could talk to any non-Pakistani fleeing foreign fighter. Once the bombing of Tora Bora started, the Pakistani border was flooded with foreign fighters, they were fleeing by the hundreds and hundreds… this is all late 2001. The foreign fighters had no documents or proper visas and were basically entering Pakistan illegally. We were able to collect fingerprints, take mug shot–type photographs, and conduct interviews with everybody that the Pakistanis caught and allowed access to… we got some great, great information that way. The operation took place after they had exited Afghanistan, just kilometers from the border.
Q. Looking back on your time as a legal attaché, how did you try to build relationships with the Yemeni authorities?
A. Providing training to Yemeni law enforcement and intelligence agents served as a segue into building a sustainable and solid relationship. We developed a close relationship with the Yemen Ministry of Interior (MIO) law enforcement laboratory, and that was an offshoot of collecting evidence from the attack on the USS Cole, the Navy destroyer attacked by suicide bombers in a small craft in the harbor of Aden on October 12, 2000. Many relationships were built out of necessity during the USS Cole investigation. We tried to be very open with the Yemeni authorities about the investigation. We brought Yemeni authorities to the United States to interview all the service member witnesses they wanted to talk to regarding their own investigative interests; these witnesses had been on the USS Cole when it was attacked. You can’t expect people to help you with your interviews if you’re not going to give them access and help with their interviews… it turned out to be a very good thing.
Q. Overall, why is the LEGAT (legal attaché) program important to the FBI’s counterterrorism mission?
A. Crime has gone global; it’s all interconnected, so with counterterrorism and international terrorism, countries are looking at this problem/issue as a global phenomenon, because citizens from many countries are being radicalized, and that doesn’t bode well for anybody’s stability as a government. Our ability to help each other dictates that we have a working relationship, so even if you’re not getting a whole lot of information, you’ve got to meet, you’ve got to sit down, you’ve got to have tea, and at some point, you might have some common threat, and just because today they’re not going to answer your question doesn’t mean that tomorrow they won’t, and so that’s a really big part of it. The LEGAT program is the conduit for law enforcement cooperation.
The Evolving Counterterrorism Mission
In recent years, domestic violent extremists have also begun using social media to communicate and exhort each other to commit violence, both within the United States and internationally, much as international terrorists and homegrown violent extremists did in the years following 9/11. Internationally, cooperation on the challenges posed by domestic violent extremists (DVEs) is growing between Europe and the United States, and also with the Five Eyes partners of Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Michael “Mike” McGarrity, Assistant Director (Ret.), Counterterrorism Division, FBI
Following service as an assistant district attorney in New York City, McGarrity joined the FBI in 1996 and initially worked violent crime and gang investigations from the New York Field Office. In 2006, he served as a supervisory special agent with the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. Following service as the FBI’s deputy on-scene commander in Afghanistan supporting U.S. Special Forces operations, McGarrity served as unit chief, then acting section chief of the ITOS. In 2009, McGarrity led the WFO extraterritorial counterterrorism squad targeting al-Qa’ida leadership. In this assignment he was also responsible for investigating terrorist attacks and hostage cases targeting Americans overseas. McGarrity served as director of counterterrorism with the National Security Council at the White House. McGarrity was commissioned by President Obama to be the first director of the interagency Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell whose mission was to safely recover Americans abducted abroad. Named assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division in February 2018, he was the longest serving assistant director for counterterrorism since 9/11 upon his retirement in November 2019.
Q. During your time as assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division, compared to your previous work in counterterrorism, how had the terrorism threat evolved?
A. Certainly the online presence, both in international terrorism—global jihad, which had been there for years after 9/11—but we started to see a lot of the domestic terrorism threat actors also going toward the internet. They were certainly behind international terrorism threat actors in their use of the internet, in realizing the capability the internet provided them to get their message out… to recruit, to radicalize was significant, certainly from 2016 to 2019… but once they learned how to leverage the internet, they became pretty good at using it to further their violent extremist ideologies.
Q. And what’s the role of social media in the process of radicalization to violence?
A. I think social media, and the internet in general, has been an accelerator in the radicalization process and has allowed threat actors to promote ideologies across national boundaries more quickly. A person, whether an HVE or a DVE, who has a grievance, feels disenfranchised, and is looking for something—they can find like-minded individuals on the internet; they can look for a specific ideology and multiple ideologies, if you will, that support their specific ideology. You can pick and choose from what’s out there to support your particular ideology and yet never have to leave your computer to communicate, plan, and target individuals. The internet and social media can embolden threat actors who would normally not be charismatic and influential in an in-person setting. Social media allows threat actors to post and promote their attacks almost in real time, influencing others to copy their attacks or causing others from opposing extremist ideologies to counterattack.
Q. What challenges does that create for the FBI and law enforcement?
A. Very much like we saw in the HVE side, it’s very insular in nature, less conspiratorial, so if they’re not conspiring with someone, if they’re not meeting with someone somewhere in the physical world, physical sources will not get you there. The FBI and law enforcement across the globe have to be in the online world, you have to be in the virtual world to see it, through sources and undercovers and different platforms.
Q. Is there also the aspect that the timeline to violence can be quicker?
A. Because of the internet, the flash to bang, if you will, is quicker, because what happens is, you have a grievance you find something that supports your grievance, real or perceived it doesn’t matter, and because something is supporting what you believe, there’s less of an indoctrination period; it’s more of a support period. It goes grievance, disenfranchisement, radicalization, mobilization to violence, and then attack. And that period has definitely shrunk, due to the internet.
Ross Guenther, Deputy Commissioner, Public Safety and Security, Victoria Police, Australia
Ross Guenther joined Victoria Police in Australia in 1985, and his professional experience as a police officer and leader includes leading and managing teams across investigative, general policing, specialist operations, and business environments. Promoted to the rank of assistant commissioner in 2015, he became head of the newly formed Victoria Police Counter Terrorism Command in 2016. The following year, Guenther was elected to the leadership of the Leadership in Counter Terrorism Alumni Association and currently serves as its president. In 2019, after joining the IACP, Guenther was nominated to serve on the Terrorism Committee. Last year, Guenther was appointed deputy commissioner for Public Safety and Security, with responsibility for Counter Terrorism Command, Crime Command, and Transit & Public Safety Command.
Q. What changes have you seen in the terrorism threat in Australia since you led the Victoria Police Counter Terrorism Command in 2016?
A. During that time period between 2015 and 2018, the Victoria Police were successful in disrupting several intended criminal plots, the majority of those being connected back to ISIL, and very much driven by internet-related propaganda. As we witnessed the loss of geography in Syria for ISIL, the issue remained that all of the extremist material that was on the internet remained on the internet, so, it wasn’t that the Islamist-based threat dropped away; it remained constant for all that time. But then toward the end of that period, we saw the rise of more ideologically motivated violent extremism, which at the time, we referred to as the Extreme Right, and it became more organized. Most of the Extreme Right groups were regarded as very disorganized, very disparate, but there’s been a change in that posture in the last two to three years, which is certainly increasing our concern about that threat.
Q. During that time frame, with what was then referred to as the Extreme Right, did individuals start getting better at using social media and the internet to radicalize people?
A. That’s a good point, I mean, not unlike the Islamist threat, the Extreme Right became much more organized in the use of encrypted technologies… by using social media, and [improving] their ability to recruit and attract representatives to the cause, we saw that galvanize into more over demonstrations in our public areas as well, where numbers that used to be very, very small started to grow.
Q. What are you seeing in the growth of ideologically motivated violent extremism in Victoria?
A. We are monitoring, certainly, more IMVE [ideologically motivated violent extremism] entities than at any time previously, but it’s still the socially dislocated individuals at the edge of those groups that give us the most cause for concern.
Q. That’s tied to the difficulty of detecting and monitoring those individuals, correct?
A. Yes, because you have to consider, how does a person become a person of interest to us… that means we are either told about that individual through a number of sources, or we’ve recognized them through their interactions with groups, or we don’t actually have them on our watchlist or radar—that’s the gap that we really concern ourselves with.
Q. In terms of the engagement, cooperation, and collaboration between the FBI and Australian authorities on counterterrorism, what factors have made it not be pro forma?
I think the game changer is about relationships because we have relationships on a very personal level… we actually speak on a very personal level, and use those relationships to enhance our response, because we’ve built great trust through that.
Q. Is there anything else you want to add in terms of the ongoing counterterrorism challenge and where it goes from here?
A. It certainly hasn’t gone away, and I think the risk for law enforcement, and probably government more generally, will be to think, well, it’s been some time since we had an attack in some of the developed nations, so, do we need the investment to remain large? My strong contention around that is we certainly need that ongoing commitment and support from government because the threat hasn’t diminished.
