Peter Bergen Quotes

ISIL's widespread reach through the Internet and social media is most concerning, as the group has proven dangerously competent at employing such tools for its nefarious strategy. ISIL uses high-quality, traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its extremist ideology.

How did ISIL grow? It's real simple: social media.

ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

In February 2016, Russia arrested seven alleged ISIS militants who were plotting attacks in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The group included Russians and Central Asians and a ringleader who had come from Turkey.

Given its Internet sophistication and the attraction the group has with vast numbers of potential recruits from among disaffected populations around the globe, ISIS has the realistic potential to eventually swell its ranks of jihadists waging a 'holy war' to hundreds of thousands in both the western and eastern hemispheres.

Al Qaeda asks its recruits to establish their bona fides as a condition of membership, even requiring answers to a long questionnaire. But ISIS has democratized and globalized jihad by lowering the entry bar to an eve-of-destruction YouTube pledge of allegiance to the caliphate - and even that could probably be waived.

We have already seen ISIS use Donald Trump in their propaganda directly. I mean, I will go so far as to say Donald Trump is the ISIS candidate.

ISIS uses traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its ideology. With the broad distribution of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize vulnerable persons of all ages in the U.S. either to travel to foreign lands or to conduct an attack on the homeland.

ISIS is winning the propaganda war. They are recruiting people, including Americans, to join them, with the promise that they are joining this great apocalyptic movement that is going to defeat the West.

ISIL particularly is very slick, very sophisticated, proselytizing and recruiting, and they are very astute users of social media.

The threat here focuses primarily on troubled souls in America who are being inspired or enabled online to do something violent for ISIL.

We can put a stake through the heart of Islamic State as an army. We can put a stake through the heart of its leaders. You can take away its territory. But you can't put a stake through the heart of the ideas, of the ideology, that sadly, tragically, still has some attraction for some small numbers in the Islamic faith.

Setting aside moral considerations, those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists' explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations - telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion.

What made al-Awlaki so influential is that, unlike a number of leaders of al Qaeda such as Osama bin Laden, he was a cleric, so he could present himself as a leading religious figure. Second, because al-Awlaki had spent much of his adult life in the States, he communicated with his followers in colloquial, accessible American English.

The Department of Justice will continue to pursue those that travel to fight against the United States and our allies, as well as those individuals that recruit others on behalf of ISIL in the homeland.

We obviously know that terrorist groups have become very reliant on social media.

When mainstream Muslims defeat the Islamic State, that lessens the ability of the Islamic State to recruit and fund-raise.

No one is born a terrorist, but the route to become one is surprisingly easy. We need to listen to those who have been there, and those who have made their way back, if we want to stop others from taking their first steps down this same path into darkness.

One of the scariest things about ISIS is their ability to leverage social media to inspire individuals who have never been to Syria and Iraq.

ISIS targeting the U.S. military is like a sheep targeting a lion.

Al Qaeda and ISIS may have global aspirations, but their ability to penetrate a society is strongly influenced by local conditions.

We cannot leave vulnerable young men open to the exploitation of extremists, both for our own security and their own wellbeing.

Through the Internet, ISIS and other terrorist groups reach people they wouldn't ordinarily be able to reach.

Jihadist organizations attempt to exploit discontent among marginalized groups in unstable societies.

We need to do more to prevent radicalization, the inspiration of terrorism in this country.