Next Generation Terrorism – by Sasha Ingber

If Hezbollah beepers explode in unison in Lebanon Today, this is an unprecedented spectacle and an unprecedented operation that could prompt the terrorists or their ally Iran to retaliate. However, it is worth remembering that in the past, it took years to grow a terrorist.

“There was a process,” says Bernard Hudson, former CIA counterterrorism chief. “Even in the early stages of al Qaeda, they had a process where they would identify a person, sit down with them, have study groups, go from one stage to the next. And it could take two years to convert someone who was just curious about their ideology into a committed member.”

Then came the Internet. And Bern shouted out a few words of Anwar al-Awlakian American-Yemeni cleric who was killed by a US drone strike in the global war on terror, who said people can radicalise themselves online.

I called Bern before taking the train to New York for the first-ever Global Summit on Terrorism and Political Violence. It was held in the new Perelman Performing Arts Center, on the edge of the 9/11 Memorial. Outside, I could smell the sweet scent of countless flowers, their stems planted in the engraved names of victims at the memorial pools. I walked past the site several times a day on my way to and from my hotel. And it made the content of the Soufan Center conference seem even more real.

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, had just left the 9/11 Memorial ceremony. With so many prominent political figures there, it was “the first time ever that we’ve put them on an X, in one of the most terrorist-attacked places in the world,” Greg Ehrie, the chief security officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at the conference. But he worried that Americans would be lulled into a sense of complacency. “We’re using words like ‘never again’ and ‘never forget.’ And are we going to shift to, ‘There’s no chance left and we’re all OK?’”

While Biden has prioritized great-power competition, Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war have revived terrorist threats that have never really abated. In New York City alone, 41 plots have been thwarted in the past 11 years, said Rebecca Weiner, deputy commissioner of the NYPD’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau. She described their acceleration and diversifying ideologies — a Canada-based, ISIS-inspired Pakistani who reportedly planned to attack a Brooklyn synagogue in the coming days; Iranian assassination attempts in New York; and the transnational Terrorgram Collective with efforts stretching from New Jersey to Turkey. “What I didn’t expect to see, and we’re seeing it, is outright support for Hamas” and other U.S.-designated terrorist groups “on the streets of our city, in a noncriminal context.”

What does the next generation of terrorists look like? Are they the children of Hezbollah men injured by exploding beepers and storming into overcrowded hospitals today? ISIS children raised in the al-Hol refugee camp in Syria? The newly created orphans of Gaza? Or the accelerationists in the US and Europe, or the politically motivated extremists who go too far? Will they still need to take and hold territory, and legitimize themselves to a fraction of the population? Or is their digital dust enough… and enough to catch them before they kill and maim?

“The next generation, and that’s what we’re seeing now, are individuals who indirectly inspired to carry out attacks. They select themselves,” said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert and senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation. “In many cases, they see ideology as a vehicle for their personal discontent.” His next words were particularly chilling: “Terrorism is in a sense atomized, if you like, to individual decisions.“

And the youngsters apparently rule. More and more counterterrorism investigations have been opened involving teens under the age of 15, said David Scott, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s counterterrorism division. “This presents significant challenges for us, as recent Supreme Court decisions complicate our ability to build federal terrorism charges against minors.”

And yes, yes, the drones and generative AI, 3D printing, cryptocurrencies and general metaverse darkness. The ability to gather intelligence on potential targets. The vulnerable power grids, water supplies, air traffic and aircraft control systems. I was told that the barriers are gone, that we will see technically impressive attacks that in the past only nation states could pull off. And from a seat in the crowd, it was hard not to feel a little helpless, not to get up and walk away feeling a little hopeless.

Bern had also brought up human augmentation. As a 2012 The National Intelligence Council report stated“Military organizations are experimenting with a wide range of augmentation technologies, including exoskeletons that allow personnel to carry greater loads and psychostimulants that allow personnel to operate for longer periods of time… Brain-machine interfaces could provide ‘superhuman’ abilities, increasing strength and speed and providing functions previously unavailable… Future retinal implants could enable night vision, and neuroenhancements could provide superior memory recall or thinking speed.” The council predicted that by 2030, there could be a “two-tier society of enhanced and unenhanced” humans, complete with hacking threats and “unavoidable” moral and ethical challenges. Bern thinks Iran and North Korea are the countries to watch.

Beyond the tools and technology of future terrorists, there’s the psychology. And that’s both established and evolving. Terrorist organizations continue to use gender to co-opt and radicalize, said Rachel Atley, director of research at the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate. Some attacks correlate with “identity fusion,” when a personal identity becomes one with a group identity — even if a person only connects through gruesome war photos shared on social media, said Julia Ebner, who directs Oxford’s Violent Extremism Lab.

When Bern told me that “people are believing machines,” I believed him. “If there’s one thing I’ve come to believe about the type of person who becomes a terrorist, it has as much or more to do with their personal psychology than with the events that pushed them over the edge,” he said.

Moreover, terrorist leaders often come from privileged and well-educated families, such as Osama bin Laden And Ayman al-ZawahiriThey took on grievances and had their own surprisingly strong moral compass, but their arrows pointed in terrible directions.

Of course, the U.S. will continue to be the primary target for foreign-oriented terrorists. And as terrorism continues to evolve, so does U.S. counterterrorism. This is what Bern actually wanted to discuss before the conference, because he takes me there twice in the conversation.

He worries that preventive tools are being applied too broadly. “All of these tools that we’re talking about for surveillance certainly give countries the ability to do a kind of pre-crime program where they’re profiling people more and more aggressively,” in the style of Minority Report. “You could say, ‘Hey, this person is still engaging in protected speech online, but government X has decided that this person is some kind of long-term risk. So we’re going to restrict this person’s freedom.’ I think that’s certainly going to happen… It’s too attractive a tool for governments.” The same tools could also be redeployed to target dissidents and opponents. (Something I’ve discussed before reported, under the Crown Prince (in Saudi Arabia.)

Fighting terrorism can also generate more terrorism, as the US did in the early 2000s, as Israel has undoubtedly done in Gaza. And think of this afternoon in Lebanon, with the massive attack on Hezbollah beetle. Nearly 3,000 people were injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, according to Iranian state media.

“Hard counterterrorism strategies will essentially galvanize and globalize threats,” Chris Costa, former Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council, told conference attendees. “We need to think collectively about how we deploy counterterrorism strategies. That may seem obvious, but it’s critical.”

It is worth remembering. Because as future terrorists are born and bred, the threats only seem to become more complex, and what seems obvious is not guaranteed.

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