Several months ago, President Obama signed an executive order establishing an interagency center to coordinate the US government’s public messages against terrorist organizations. A major component of this Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) was in the news lately for its clever campaign against AQAP on Yemeni tribal forums. Because the center is new, most people are unfamiliar with its mandate or how it operates. More broadly, people are unaware of the complexities of government messaging against terrorist organizations. To shed light on these subjects, the first coordinator of the CSCC, Ambassador Richard LeBaron (now retired), has given me permission to post his recent remarks on what he learned during his tenure. It’s very instructive for anyone interested in counter-propaganda and how the US government is coping with the new information environment.

Over the past several days, Leah Farrall and I have been debating on Twitter about her recent blog post on the killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi by a US drone. In her post, Leah argues that the US policy of killing senior al-Qaeda Central leaders is wrongheaded because those leaders are “a moderating force within a far more virulent current that has taken hold in the milieu.” Leah compares these strikes to the practice of killing older elephants to thin a herd, which leaves younger elephants without any respectable elder to turn to for guidance as to how to behave. By analogy, killing senior al-Qaeda Central leaders means there will be no one with enough clout to rein in the younger generation of jihadis when they go astray. As a measure of the moderating influence of al-Qaeda Central’s senior leaders, Leah contends that those leaders are very discriminating about the

The al-Qaeda supporters on the Shumukh forum have mixed reactions to the Abbottabad documents released by the CTC. Here’s a summary of the main thread (159824) that discusses the documents: These documents are not real. They are designed to sow discord among jihadis and create tension b/n al-Qaeda and the online jihadi forums. The documents are real and show normal disagreements between a commander and his subordinates. No big deal. We need to wait for Sahab (AQ’s media wing) to validate the documents. Even if the documents are false, most outside analysts agree they show the sincerity of AQ and its seriousness. Each of the documents contains an element of truth but the CTC has also mixed in falsehood, such as the bits about divisions between AQ leadership and the affiliates We need to see all of the Bin Laden documents to really know what’s going on. This is just a

While you wait patiently for the CTC’s release of a few Bin Laden documents tomorrow, here are three articles I’ve written recently on what’s happened since Bin Laden’s death (plus a video): A Brookings memo explaining why many of Egypt’s Salafis have embraced party politics after railing against it for decades An update to my Foreign Affairs piece An exploration of the implications of al-Qaeda holding territory in Yemen and Somalia A panel discussion on al-Qaeda’s status with Stephen Tankel and Mary Habeck Totally unrelated, if you’re interested in what the US government is doing, not doing, and should be doing in the realm of social media, there’s this.

As I’ve said in the two previous installments, how you define and scope CVE will affect program design and implementation. The most important questions to ask are: Which population along the spectrum is the focus of the program? Who is best suited to implement the program? What laws and human rights principles come into play? How do you know if you’re succeeding? For each point along the spectrum, there is a variety of programs that might work. Here’s just a sample: Disseminating derogatory information about a terrorist group and its actions Interventions by law enforcement or respected community leaders Counseling and mentoring Change Yourself: adventure programs, leadership development Change the World: non-violent political activism, volunteerism Some will work better for one part of the spectrum than another. Some might work across the board. The exact nature of the program is not nearly as important as finding a satisfactory answer to this question:

Yesterday, Mary Habeck posted a net assessment of al-Qaeda’s fortunes. After I said something uncharitable about it on Twitter, Mary was understandably annoyed. In the spirit of fairness, I will give her argument a full airing here and respond. Mary first states the facts that she believes most AQ experts agree on: “al Qaeda is primarily the small “core” located somewhere in Afghanistan-Pakistan” “the affiliates have an ambiguous relationship with this core and are generally focused on local concerns” “the objective of the core is to attack the U.S. and its allies” “because of our excellent counter-terrorism (CT) efforts, we have thwarted all such attempts on the U.S. since 9-11” Like Mary, I do not subscribe to 1, 2 and 3 and I know many other AQ experts, inside and outside government, who don’t as well. Al-Qaeda is the small group in Af-Pak and its affiliates who have pledged an

Those of us who parse Islamist and Jihadi-Salafi texts “like Talmudic scholars poring over a manuscript” are familiar with Joas’ meticulous work on Maqdisi and others of his ilk. But since I’ve never seen Joas invited to give a single talk in this part of the world, I have the feeling that his work has not gotten the full airing it deserves outside the academy. So over Joas’ protests (sorry brah!), here’s a quick rundown of what he’s been up to since 2009: “Legitimizing Pragmatism: Hamas’ Framing Efforts from Militancy to Moderation and Back?” Terrorism and Political Violence, 22, no. 3 (2010): 358-378 (article on Hamas’ efforts to legitimize its changing policies vis-à-vis Israel over the years while staying true to their original rhetoric) “Protecting Jihad: The Sharia Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad,” Middle East Policy, 18, no. 2 (2011): 148-162 (explains the rise of the now well-known Shari’a Council of

In my previous post, I proposed a minimal definition of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) as reducing the number of terrorist group supporters through non-coercive means. I also suggested that the spectrum of support ranges from those who are vulnerable to becoming supporters to those who are engaged in criminal activity. There are pros and cons associated with intervening in each group. The three groups at the far right of the spectrum are the easiest to identify because they have either consistently voiced their support for a terrorist organization or taken action on its behalf. Although they are extremely difficult to dissuade, focusing on them risks less blow back from the broader communities of which they are a part. There is also less risk of straying into the policing of thought crimes. Conversely, the two other groups, “vulnerable” and “radicalizing,” are theoretically easier to dissuade than the others but they are

At Jihadica, we usually don’t weigh in on policy debates. I’m reluctant to break that tradition but I have a few thoughts on countering violent extremism that I’d like to workshop with Jihadica readers before turning them into something more. The United States and its allies devote considerable financial and human resources to countering violent extremism (CVE). Nevertheless the definition of CVE is unclear, ranging from fighting bad guys to creating good guys. This lack of precision makes it hard to design, execute, and evaluate CVE programs and makes it easy to slap the CVE label on all manner of initiatives, including many that seem to have little to do with stopping terrorism and might otherwise be cut by Congress. The lack of precision also inhibits thinking about whether the CVE enterprise is worthwhile and what should constitute it. In the interest of clarifying the activities covered by CVE and